FLINT AND STEEL
Meanwhile letters had passed frequently between Beth and the little
cottage on Bemis Street, Hudsonvale. Ella was Beth’s most frequent
correspondent. The flyaway sister was eager to learn every particular
about Beth’s new environment.
But Beth was very careful to say nothing in her letters to those at
home to lead them to suspect that all was not fair sailing for her at
Rivercliff. Having resolved to bear bravely such trials as she had,
Beth was not the girl to weaken.
She was glad to get the home letters, and those from Mary Devine and
the other girls; but the letter that secretly pleased her most came
from Larry Haven.
To her surprise she had learned that Larry, immediately after she
had departed for school, had taken up his old habit of dropping in
frequently at the Baldwin cottage.
Ella’s letters were full of “Larry says this” and “Larry did that” when
he was at the house last. Beth knew he had obtained clients almost at
once. He even would try a case--his maiden case--at the October Court.
So his letter, when it came, did not surprise Beth; and it was
evidently written in the first exuberance of his victory.
“‘_Hail to the chief who in triumph advances----
Who falls off his saddle whene’er his steed prances!_’”
the letter began. “‘_In hoc signo vinces_,’ likewise ‘_E pluribus
Unum_’ and all hands around! I have arrived. Believe me, Mrs. Euphemia
Haven’s son is being congratulated on the street by the Elders.
“A certain man in our town, Who was not wondrous wise, Jumped into a
legal bramble bush, And scratched out both his eyes. I made him see his
eyes were out, So, with all his might and main, He jumped into another
bush, And scratched them in again!
“That, my dear Beth Baldwin, is the sole and only meaning of ‘going to
law.’ A man goes mad and runs, frothing at the mouth, to another chap,
to whom the law schools and local bar have given the right to separate
him from his money without giving laughing-gas. Old Coldfoot, next door
to me, is lots nicer to his victims than I am.
“Well, the chap with the sheepskin shows the mad man a perfectly
obvious thing to do--and charges him for the advice; and he collects a
second fee when thirteen other men tell the mad man the obvious thing
is correct.
“This is what I have done, Beth Baldwin. Congratulate me! All hands
think it is wonderful. So it must be. And I feel that I should have
been broken-hearted if the other side had beaten us.
“Oh! I _was_ scared before the issue. I thought I must go to extremes
to convince the jury that the other side hadn’t a leg to stand on. I
prepared a very touching appeal in which I should have begged the jury
for mercy and the Court for clemency for my client, as though he were
convicted of a capital crime.
“In the end--oh! let me confess it--our opponent’s witnesses made out
our case for us. I put in no testimony but our answer, got up and said
ten words, the jury did not leave its seats, and the good old judge
congratulated me upon having more sense than most fledgling lawyers
because I did not insist upon making a speech.
“Honestly, Beth, I was greatly relieved when it was all over. They say
I have won my spurs; but _I_ don’t think the rowels are very sharp yet.”
* * * * *
There was more to the jolly letter and Beth read it over and over
again. She was delighted to hear from Larry; she was delighted, too,
to know that he had succeeded in winning his first case. Still she
wondered. Why had Larry been silent and kept away from the house during
the summer, and now had become such a steady visitor at the Bemis
Street cottage?
She knew she had her parents’ sanction to write to Larry, and she did
so in reply to his letter. She told him much about the school and
Molly, and something about the other girls. She wrote of what she
studied and how she took hold of athletics. But one thing she did not
mention. She said nothing about the “Silk Stocking Hospital.” She was
not ashamed of working to earn money for her schooling; yet, somehow,
she shrank from discussing that point with Larry.
The hospital, so-called, had become an established institution long
before the holidays. Beth sometimes found it difficult to keep up
with the principal activities of her school life--her lessons, the
compulsory athletic work, and her stocking darning.
Miss Hammersly was sharper with her, Beth thought, than with the other
girls, for the very reason that Beth was striving to do extra work.
“I want to see you succeed, Miss Baldwin,” the principal said to her
on one occasion; “but in earning money for your tuition, you must not
lose any of the advantages which the money is supposed to pay for. I
approve of your attempt at independence only in so far as you neglect
no lessons or other activities that a normal schoolgirl is supposed to
obtain in an establishment of this kind. You must retain your interest
in every item of school life and work, or your course here will fail of
its end.”
Beth took this advice to heart. She neglected nothing which she
believed was for her mental or physical benefit. With Molly she won a
place on the Second Five at basket-ball; and before Christmas week she
had proved herself the superior of most of the girls on the ice.
The river was frozen from the docks to the bend soon after
Thanksgiving, and now Beth and Molly Granger usually ran down the bluff
and spent the hours between daylight and dark, and before supper, on
their skates. Molly admitted the exercise woke her up after the long
day in classes and gave her spirit for the study hour before bedtime.
Beth was not allowed to sit up later than the other girls, so she
usually disappeared right after supper and sat in Number Eighty,
working, with her darning-basket beside her, until the half-past eight
bell. Then she joined Molly in studying for the next day’s recitations.
She lost that general social hour between supper and the first bell;
so it was true her personal acquaintanceship among her fellow-students
did not rapidly expand. Yet many came to her for help in the “hosiery
department.”
“That Baldwin girl in the South Wing darns so nicely,” one girl said to
another. “Why throw these perfectly good stockings away?”
“What is it some philosopher said?” Beth asked her chum, laughingly.
“If a man does some one thing better than anybody else, the world will
beat a path to his door?”
“Yes,” grunted Molly. “But how about the man who goes in for raising
skunks? Guess the world will beat it the other way from his door, won’t
it?”
It was not that Beth deprived herself of all social intercourse with
her fellows, but she would not be tempted to put herself forward or be
led into situations where girls of Maude Grimshaw’s type could snub
her. Since that unlucky night of the first red masque of the term, Beth
had been able to escape Maude’s particular notice.
Yet Maude sat directly opposite Beth at table. The meals at Rivercliff
School were social to a degree. The girls filed into the dining-room in
perfect order and were seated. At once a hum of conversation arose. The
big dining-room sounded like a hive of bees. There was no attempt by
the teachers or monitors to quench cheerful talk and moderate laughter;
but even the primes in their corner could not be boisterous.
Maude Grimshaw gave many exhibitions of her boorishness; but usually
such occurrences escaped the notice of the teachers. Having put Beth
in what the rich girl considered “her place,” Maude did not trouble
herself further about the girl from Hudsonvale.
Sometimes the waitresses came in for a taste of Miss Grimshaw’s sharp
tongue. She seemed to have taken a special dislike to Cynthia Fogg,
possibly because she believed Beth to be a friend of the freckled
girl’s, or because the latter had a perfectly detached and untroubled
way of receiving Miss Grimshaw’s strictures.
Beth once heard Maude say to Laura Hedden:
“I even dislike the face of that Fogg girl--‘Cynthie,’ do they call
her? Do you know, she has the impudence to look like a very dear friend
of mine.”
“It can’t be!” drawled Laura. “That waitress?”
“Yes. She really does look something like Miss Freylinghausen. You’ve
heard of the Freylinghausens, of course. Emeline is an heiress half
a dozen times over. She is traveling in Europe just now. Oh! we
are very good friends. An old Philadelphia family, you know, the
Freylinghausens. One of the very oldest.”
So Beth thought that perhaps Cynthia’s unfortunate resemblance to the
heiress of the Freylinghausen millions was rather a drawback. Maude
evidently did her best, on every occasion, to be unpleasant to this
particular waitress.
One evening at supper she called across the table to Beth and Molly,
who sat side by side:
“Say! one of you see if you can wake up that dummy behind you and get
some butter passed this way. It’s a shame how inattentive that girl is!”
“Whom are you speaking of?” demanded Molly, coolly.
“Oh, I forgot! She is a friend of a friend of yours, Miss Granger,”
rejoined Maude, sneeringly. “I mean that big-footed dummy standing
there--in a _fog_, of course, as usual.”
Laura Hedden and one or two other “Me toos” giggled. Beth could not see
Cynthia, but her own face flushed. Maude looked scornfully across the
table, taking in all three of the girls she disliked in this glance.
“I believe you are the very meanest girl who ever walked on
sole-leather!” exclaimed Molly, but quite low, so that none of the
teachers would hear. “If I were Cynthia I’d box your ears.”
“I’d like to see her try it!” cried Maude, her pale face turning red,
as it did in a very ugly fashion whenever she was angry. “I’d teach her
her place----”
“Are you sure, Miss Grimshaw, that you can teach me anything?”
Cynthia’s low, cultivated voice broke in, and she laughed, as though
the rich girl’s spitefulness only amused her.
“How dare you speak to me?” demanded Maude, starting up. “I’ll report
you for this.”
“And if you dare, Miss Grimshaw,” said Beth, quietly, “I shall tell
madam just what you said to her.”
“So will I,” broke in Molly, eagerly. “And glad to do it!”
Maude hesitated, then sat down. She knew that with two against her no
story she could tell the madam would hurt Cynthia Fogg.
“Well, anyway,” she grumbled, at last, “let her pass the butter.”
At that there was general, if subdued, laughter all about the table;
for most of the girls had heard a part of the controversy. For some
time thereafter, whenever Maude Grimshaw threatened to fly into one of
her tantrums, somebody would be sure to say:
“Well, anyway, let her pass the butter!”