SCHOOL CLIQUES.
The trustees of Montrose Academy had not only chosen a fine site upon
which to erect the building, but they had also very wisely bought
twenty acres of adjacent land, and laid it out in pretty landscape
gardening. There was a grove of fine old trees, that they trimmed and
made winding paths where the shade was the deepest and the boughs
interlaced their arms most gracefully. They cut a narrow driveway,
which proved so inviting that, after a short time, there had to appear
the inevitable placard, "Trespassing forbidden." A small brook made
its way surging down to the broad river that flowed through the town;
this they caused to be dammed, and in a short time they had a pond,
over which they built fanciful bridges. The pond was large enough for
boats; and these, decked with the school color,--a dainty blue,--were
always filled with pretty girls, who handled the light oars, if not
with skill, at least with grace, and, as Miss Ashton knew, with
perfect safety.
During the fine days of the matchless September weather, this grove
was the favorite resort of the girls through the hours allotted to
exercise; and here Marion, having found a quiet, shaded nook where she
could be sure of being alone, brought her book and did some of her
best studying.
"It's easy enough," she thought with much self-gratulation, "to fix
your mind on what you are doing, with nothing to disturb you; but it's
a different thing when there are three other minds that won't fix at
the same time. I just wish mother would try it."
One day, however, when her satisfaction was the most complete over an
easily mastered Latin lesson, a laughing face peeped down upon her
through her canopy of green leaves, and a voice said,--
"Caught you, Marion Parke! Now I'm going straight in to report you to
Miss Ashton, and you'll see what you'll get."
"What shall I?" asked Marion, laughing back.
"She'll ask you very politely to take a seat by her on the sofa, and
then she'll look straight in your eyes and she'll say,--
"'I am very sorry, Marion, to find you so soon after joining my school
breaking one of my most important regulations.' (She always says
regulations; we don't have any rules here.) 'I had expected better
things of you, as you are a minister's daughter, and came from the far
West.'"
"Is studying your lesson, then, breaking a rule?"
"Studying it in exercise hours is an unpardonable sin. Don't you know
we are sent out into the open air for rest, change, exercise? You
ought to be rowing, walking, playing croquet, tennis, base-ball,
football. You've to recruit your shattered energies, instead of
winding them up to the highest pitch. We've been watching you, but no
one liked to tell you, so I came. I won't tell Miss Ashton this time,
if you'll promise me solemnly you'll join our croquet party, and
always play on our side! Come; we're waiting for you!"
"Wait until I come back," said Marion, rising hastily, and gathering
up her books. "I didn't know there was any such a rule--regulation, I
mean."
Then, half frightened and half amused, she went back to the house,
straight to Miss Ashton's room.
Miss Ashton was busy, but she met her with a smile.
"Miss Ashton," said Marion, "I am very sorry; I didn't know it was
against your wishes. I found such a lovely, quiet little nook in the
grove, and I've been studying there when Mamie Smythe says I ought to
have been exercising."
"Then you have done wrong," said Miss Ashton gravely. "I understand
that the newness of your work makes your lessons difficult, but there
is nothing to be gained by overwork. Come to me at some other time,
and I will talk with you more about it. Now go, for the pleasantest
thing you can find to do in the way of healthful exercise. There are
some fine roses in blossom on the lawn; I wish you would pick me a
nice, large bunch for my vase. Look at the poor thing! See how
drooping the flowers are!"
Mamie Smythe's croquet party waited in vain for Marion's return; but
on the beautiful lawn, where the late roses were doing their best to
prolong their summer beauty, Marion went from bush to bush, picking
the fairest, and conning a lesson which somehow seemed to her to be a
postscript to her mother's letter, that was, "Study wisely done was
the only true study."
The lawn itself, cultured and tasteful, had its share, and by no means
a small one, in the work of education. Clusters of ornamental trees,
dotted here and there over its soft green, were interspersed with
lovely flower-beds, in which were growing not only rare flowers, but
the dear old blossoms,--candytuft, narcissus, clove-pinks, jonquils,
heart's-ease, daffodils, and many another to which the eyes of some of
the young girls turned lovingly, for they knew they were blossoming in
their dear home garden.
As Marion was going to her room, after taking her roses to Miss
Ashton, she found Mamie Smythe waiting for her.
"O you poor Marion!" she said, catching Marion by the arm, "I--I hope
she didn't scold you; she never does--never; but she looks so hurt. I
never would have told on you, and nobody would. We all knew you didn't
know; I'm so sorry!"
"I told on myself," said Marion, laughing, "and she punished me. Don't
you see how broken-hearted I am?"
"What _did_ she do to you? Why, Marion Parke, she is always good to
those who confess and don't wait to be found out!"
"She sent me out to pick her a lovely bunch of roses."
"Oh!" said Mamie. Then a small crowd of girls gathered round them,
Mamie telling them the story in her own peculiar way, much to their
amusement; for Mamie was the baby and the wit of the school, a spoiled
child at home, a generous, merry favorite at school, a good scholar
when she chose to be, but fonder of fun and mischief than of her
books, consequently a trouble to her teachers. She was a classmate of
Marion, and for some unaccountable reason, as no two could have been
more unlike, had taken a great fancy to her, one of those fancies
which are apt to abound in any gathering of young girls. Had Marion
returned it with equal ardor, the two, even short as the term had
been, would be now inseparable; but Marion had her room-mates for
company when her lessons left her any time, and Gladys and Dorothy had
already learned to love her. As for Susan, she seemed of little
account in their room. She would have said of herself that she "moved
in a very different circle," and that was true; even a boarding-school
has its cliques, and to one of the largest of these Susan prided
herself upon belonging. Just what it consisted of it would be
difficult to say, certainly not of the best scholars, for then both
Gladys and Dorothy would have been there; not of the wealthiest girls,
for then, again, Gladys Philbrick was one of the richest girls in the
school; not of the most mischievous, or of idlers, for then Miss
Ashton would have found some way of separating them; yet there it was,
certain girls clubbing together at all hours and in all places, where
any intercourse was allowed, to the exclusion of others: walking
together, having spreads in each other's rooms, going to concerts, to
meetings, anywhere and everywhere, always together.
Miss Ashton, in her twenty years of experience had seen a great deal
of this; but she had learned that the best way of dealing with it was
to be ignorant of it, unless it interfered in some way with the
regular duties of the school. This it had only done occasionally, and
then had met with prompt discipline. As several of the leaders had
graduated the last Commencement, she had hoped, as she had done many
times before, only to be disappointed, that the new year would see
less of it; but it had seemed to her already to have assumed more
importance than ever, so early in the fall term.
She very soon saw Mamie Smythe's devotion to Marion, and knowing how
fascinating the girl could make herself when she wished, and how
genial was Marion's great Western heart, she expected she would be
drawn into the clique. On some accounts she wished she might be, for
she had already begun to feel that where Marion was, there would be
law and order; but, on the whole, she was pleased to see that her new
pupil, while she was rapidly making her way into that most difficult
of all positions in a school to fill, that of general favorite, was
doing so without choosing any girl for her bosom friend.
"She helps me," Miss Ashton thought with much self-gratulation, "for
she is not only a winsome, merry girl, but a fine scholar, and already
her Christian influence begins to tell."