THE DILL PICKLES
Miss Walters took the girls into her office, looked up the cards she had
made out for them--for of course their names had been sent in some time
before as prospective students at Three Towers Hall--and then called in
another teacher, Miss Ada Dill, who had part charge of the dormitories.
Miss Dill was tall and thin with sharp black eyes and white hair drawn
severely back from her forehead. She smiled when Miss Walters introduced
her to the girls, but her smile reminded Billie of the smile on the face
of a Chinese idol which she and her chums had come upon among the
antiques of the old homestead at Cherry Corners. It was merely a crack
in her face and the beady black eyes remained unsmiling.
"Miss Dill," Miss Walters told the girls, "will show you your places in
the dormitories and will give you the hours for meals and such other
information as you will need at first. Lunch will be served in half an
hour, and after that you may have the rest of the day to yourselves to
become acquainted with Three Towers Hall."
Then she dismissed them, and Billie and the other new arrivals found
themselves following the stiff back of Miss Dill through the corridor
and up a broad flight of steps.
They met several girls on their way to the dormitory, and the latter
looked at them curiously. The girls learned a little later that these
students had spent the summer at Three Towers, although most of the
girls had gone home to relatives and friends and would not be back until
the next day.
It was a rule at Three Towers Hall that the new students should report
the day before the year formally opened for the purpose of becoming
acquainted with the rules and regulations of the school.
"Wasn't that a pretty girl?" Vi whispered to Billie, as Miss Ada Dill
opened the dormitory door and a lovely girl with very pink cheeks and
very black hair stopped for a word with the teacher and then hurried
past the girls on her way downstairs. "I wonder who she is."
"If she's as nice as she is pretty," Billie whispered back, "she'll be
all right."
Then they stepped into the long, many-windowed room and looked about
them curiously. There were beds, beds, beds and more beds. Everywhere
the girls looked they seemed to see nothing but beds. As a matter of
fact there were only ten of them, but the girls could have sworn there
were at least twice that number.
"We can put five of you girls in here," Miss Dill said in a crisp, dry
tone, almost as if she resented having to say it at all. "Are there any
of you who would particularly like to be together?"
Of course Billie spoke up for herself and Laura and Vi, and after
regarding her severely through her glasses for a moment, Miss Dill
finally assigned three beds at the further end of the room to the chums.
"Then there is room for two more," Miss Dill said, and to the horror of
the chums Amanda Peabody came forward, holding Eliza Dilks by the hand.
Laura uttered a little exclamation and seemed about to protest when
Billie pinched her arm and made her say "ouch" instead.
"There's no use in saying anything," Billie whispered fiercely. "It
wouldn't do any good, and we'd only make more of an enemy of that--those
girls."
They were relieved a little when they saw that "those girls" were
assigned to beds half way down the room so there would at least be a few
neutral girls in the beds between.
"So if the rest of you will come with me," said Miss Dill, "I will give
you places in the other dormitories."
Then she and the other girls went out into the hall, the door was shut,
and the chums were left alone in the big room with Amanda Peabody and
Eliza Dilks.
The girls sank down upon their beds and looked about them curiously.
There was a little wash basin and a towel rack beside each snowy white
bed and on the towel rack hung several small towels with blue and white
borders.
The beds were set at regular intervals down the long room, and the
spaces in between them were fitted out in such a manner as almost to
make a separate little room for each girl.
Beside the wash basins, there was a dresser set at the foot of each
white bed and under each bed was a hamper for soiled clothes. Each girl
had a little table with a chair to match.
The woodwork had been painted white and the walls were a grayish blue
color with several pretty pictures scattered about them to break the
bareness.
"Why, the room's all blue and white," Billie suddenly discovered
delightedly. "Isn't that a lovely blue they've painted the wall? And the
snowy white woodwork! Oh, it's delicious!"
"And just look at the view from this window!" cried Vi, beckoning to
them eagerly. As the girls looked over her shoulder they fairly gasped
with delight.
Below them stretched the velvety lawn dotted with the darker green of
shrubbery, while away through the trees glimmered and gleamed the water
of Lake Molata. The day was warm for autumn, and a gentle breeze played
among the leaves of the great trees bordering the lake, coming to the
girls in a soft, rustling whisper. The picture was almost too perfect to
be true.
"And she said," Billie murmured at last with a sigh of content, "that we
could have all the afternoon to become acquainted with Three Towers."
"Yes," said Laura, turning from the window, "but I guess she meant only
the inside of Three Towers. I don't believe they will allow us off the
grounds so soon."
At that moment the door opened and the pretty girl that had passed them
in the hall entered and shut the door softly behind her. In the bright
light of the room she seemed even prettier than she had in the hall, but
there was something about her--Billie could hardly have told what,
perhaps it was the expression of her mouth--that made Billie
instinctively dislike her.
The strange girl's eyes rested on Amanda and Eliza where they sat in
their corner, talking in whispers, and her lips curled disdainfully.
Then she came over to where Billie and her friends were standing.
"Hello!" she said with a quick smile. "You're the new girls, I suppose,
and we might as well get acquainted right away. My name is Rose Belser,
and I'm from Brighting," mentioning a town several miles the other side
of North Bend.
"We're awfully glad to know you," Billie answered, with her own
particular friendly smile. "I'm Beatrice Bradley, and these are my two
chums, Violet Farrington and Laura Jordon. We're from North Bend."
"Glad to know you," said Rose Belser with a quick little nod of her
black head. Then she curled herself on the foot of Billie's bed and
proceeded to make herself at home.
"I've been staying here for the summer," she told them. "It's an awful
place to spend the summer, you know. First time I ever did it, and I
never was so lonesome in my life."
"Why, I'd love to spend the summer here," said Vi, thinking of the
beautiful country they had glimpsed and the lovely lake where one might
row or canoe to his heart's content. "The country's so pretty, and you
have the lake----"
"Oh, the lake!" the girl interrupted impatiently. "And the country! I'm
tired to death of the lake and the country. I want to go to the city
where you can wear pretty clothes and go to parties and things."
"But I should think you could wear pretty clothes here," said Billie,
wondering. "And as to parties--I thought you always could have parties
at boarding school----"
"Maybe you can at some boarding schools," the girl interrupted again
with that same impatient toss of her head. "But those schools don't have
Dill Pickles for guardian angels."
The girls looked at her as though she had gone crazy, and indeed for a
moment they thought she had. But Rose Belser gave a short little laugh
and went on to explain.
"The Dill Pickles are two old-maid sisters. One of them brought you up
here----"
"Miss Dill!" cried Billie, beginning to see light. "Oh, has she a
sister?"
"Yes. And the sister is worse," said the girl, with a little grimace.
"They are Miss Ada and Miss Cora, and Miss Cora is the terror of the
Hall. If it weren't for Miss Walters----But say, you'd better hurry,"
she interrupted herself suddenly and jumped to her feet. "It's almost
time for the lunch gong to ring, and if you're late for lunch, Miss Cora
will be furious. She has charge of the dining hall, you know. You'd
better wash and straighten your hair. Miss Cora looks you through with a
gimlet eye."
She ran over to her wash basin, which happened to be the next one to
Billie's, and began to wash her hands vigorously.
"Oh, dear, we forgot all about lunch, and we must be a sight!" cried
Vi, pulling off her hat and excitedly patting her hair. "Girls, we
haven't any combs--our trunks haven't come up yet. Give me a comb,
somebody! Oh, here's one in my grip."
"How strange," mocked Billie, dashing cold water on her face till it
shone rosily. "It almost seems to me I have one in mine also."
"Well, you'd better get busy and use it," Violet retorted, drawing her
own comb through her heavy hair, "or you'll get in bad the very first
day. Oh, dear! there's the gong." She stopped with her comb in the air
and gazed in horror at the girls. As for Billie and Laura, they stood as
if they had suddenly become paralyzed.
"If you'd start in time you'd be ready in time," said a nasal voice from
the other end of the room, and the girls glanced around quickly. They
had been so absorbed in their new experience that for a time they had
completely forgotten Amanda and Eliza. But now they turned just in time
to see the two girls leaving the room. As she shut the door behind her
Amanda gave it a defiant little slam.
"Say, who's your friend?" asked Rose Belser, looking in astonishment at
the closed door. "She's pleasant, isn't she?"
"They're neither of them friends of ours," said Billie, jerking her hair
angrily as though she wished it had been Amanda's hair instead. "They
just happen to come from the same town, that's all."
"Never mind about Amanda, Billie," pleaded Violet, looking uneasily at
the door. "We're late----"
"Oh, don't worry," interrupted Rose, giving a final pat to her black
hair. "That was only the first gong. The second one rings five minutes
later. There it goes now. Are you ready?"
The girls were ready, and with quickly beating hearts they stepped out
into the corridor.