Chapter 5

BOARDING-SCHOOL

The reception-room at Miss North's school was not elaborate. It had none of the attractiveness of Miss North's own living-room. It looked cold, business-like, and uninviting--at least so Blue Bonnet thought as she sat waiting to say her last good-bys to Uncle Cliff and Aunt Lucinda.

The parting with Grandmother had been something of a wrench. Blue Bonnet had managed to keep herself pretty well in hand, for Grandmother's sake; but to-day it was different. Everything was so strange--so forbidding. Even the presence of Carita seemed of small comfort. Carita was lovely--but, after all, she couldn't fill Grandmother's place, nor Uncle Cliff's, nor even Aunt Lucinda's.

Uncle Cliff rose from the stiff-backed chair he had been occupying for the last half hour, and took Blue Bonnet's hand. Aunt Lucinda got up, too.

A frightened, half panicky look came into Blue Bonnet's face. The feeling that she was about to be left alone with strangers for the first time in her life came over her in a great wave. She reached up and taking hold of the lapels of her uncle's coat, held him fast.

"Must you go now--right this minute, Uncle Cliff?" she said, and he could feel her trembling.

Mr. Ashe looked at his watch.

"I am afraid so, Honey. Trains don't wait, you know. I must be off to-night, sure."

Blue Bonnet turned to Aunt Lucinda and kissed her with warmth; then she walked between her uncle and aunt down the length of the long corridor to the front door. Carita also clung to Uncle Cliff. At the door they all paused.

"Now you have everything that you need, Blue Bonnet?" Aunt Lucinda inquired. "You are quite sure? You can write immediately if anything has been forgotten, remember--"

"Yes, you are to have whatever you need, Honey," Mr. Ashe interrupted.

"Yes, Aunt Lucinda, I won't forget. Yes, yes, Uncle Cliff, and you'll write often, won't you? I'll be so lonesome just at first. Good-by--good-by!" There was a droop to the last note of the second good-by--a quaver that went straight to Uncle Cliff's heart and made him turn round and take Blue Bonnet once more in his arms.

"Why, Honey!" he said, as the brown head went down on his breast, and the quick sobs shook the slender form. "Now, now! What are you crying for? Do you want to go back to Grandmother's? You only have to say so, you know."

The head shook violently on the broad shoulder that sheltered it, but no answer came.

"Do you want to go home with me--back to the ranch?"

Again the head shook--no!

Mr. Ashe unlocked the arms that had gone about his neck so lovingly, and lifting the wet face looked into it tenderly.

"Don't, Honey," he said, and there was a catch in his own voice. "Don't, please. Uncle Cliff can't bear to have you cry. He'll hear those sobs every step of the way back to Texas--and long after."

Blue Bonnet straightened up and made a brave effort to smile through her tears.

"Oh, no, you mustn't! I didn't mean to give way like that. I thought I was going to be all right--and then--all at once--it just had to come. It's homesickness. I've been fighting it for a month!"

"Remember you are responsible for Carita, too."

Mr. Ashe drew the solemn-eyed young girl who had been witnessing Blue Bonnet's little outburst into the circle.

Blue Bonnet turned quickly and put her arms round Carita.

"If Carita dares act like this, I'll exert my authority and spank her," she said, giving that young person a warm hug. "I'm to mother her in every particular. Isn't that right, Uncle Cliff?"

"You are never to forget that you are responsible for her being here, Honey. You must make her happy and set her a good example at all times."

Blue Bonnet's merry laugh brought the smiles back into Uncle Cliff's face.

"I'll try and not lead her into temptation, at any rate."

"That might be a good thing to remember, Blue Bonnet."

"And now, dear," Miss Clyde said, "perhaps you and Carita would better go up to your rooms and get your things out of your trunks. Miss North wanted them emptied as soon as possible, so that they could be taken to the trunk-room."

"All right, Aunt Lucinda. Good-by then--good-by! No, Uncle Cliff, I'm going to be good now. My love to everybody on the ranch--_everybody_, remember." She continued to wave her good-bys heroically until the corner was turned and Uncle Cliff and Miss Clyde lost to view.

"Now for the unpacking, Carita. Come along. I'll help you first. That's a motherly spirit, I'm sure."

"Yes, begin by spoiling me--that's right!"

Blue Bonnet gave the hand in hers a little squeeze.

"A little spoiling won't hurt you a bit. I doubt if a great deal would. There are some people you can't spoil."

"I wouldn't advise you to try too hard," Carita laughed.

They stopped first at Blue Bonnet's room, which was two floors below Carita's.

"I don't like your being so far away from me, at all," Blue Bonnet said, as she turned on the light and laid her coat and hat on the bed. "That's a silly rule having the younger girls all together on one floor. They need the older girls to keep them straight."

"I fancy Fraulein can do that," Carita said resignedly, remembering the eagle-faced teacher in charge of the hall. "Mary Boyd says she's a pill!"

"A--what?"

"A pill! I asked Mary what that meant, and she said a _dose_. You know--something you have to take and don't like."

Blue Bonnet's eyes roamed ceiling-ward and a queer expression curled her lips.

"You must introduce Mary to Aunt Lucinda, Carita. It would, perhaps, make her appreciate my vocabulary."

"I think I'm going to like her just the same."

"Aunt Lucinda?"

"Oh, no! I mean--that is--I like _her_, of course. I meant Mary Boyd, my room-mate. She's awfully jolly."

Carita had arrived at the school in the afternoon and had been shown to her room immediately, while Blue Bonnet finished some shopping with Uncle Cliff and Aunt Lucinda.

"I think I'd like to see Mary Boyd. Let's go up to your room now and get your things out of the trunk."

"Yes, we will, only my things are out. Mary helped me this afternoon while you were away. I'm all settled."

Nevertheless Blue Bonnet led the way to the floor above.

Mary Boyd opened the door herself. She was just coming out of the room, pitcher in hand, on the way to the bathroom for some cold water. She had on a gay little kimono and her hair was neatly brushed and braided for the night.

"Back again?" she said to Carita, with a smile.

"Yes, and this is my friend, Blue Bonnet Ashe."

"How do you do?" Mary said, pausing a moment. "First year here, too?"

"Yes, my first year."

Mary waved her hand toward the room.

"Make yourselves at home," she said hospitably. "Everything is in a muss, yet. I only got in myself this morning. I'll be back in a minute."

"Don't you think she's nice?" Carita asked with enthusiasm, as soon as the door closed.

"She seems to be. You're in luck, Carita. I wish you could see _my_ cross!"

"We Freshies haven't any of the lugs you grown-ups sport," Mary said, entering the room with her pitcher of water. "There's only one bathroom on this floor for six girls. Fancy! Getting a bath is a regular Saturday night affair."

"This is your first year here, too, then," Blue Bonnet said with some surprise.

"No--second."

"And you are a Freshman?"

"Well, you see, I was out last year part of the time--typhoid fever--and--oh, I'm no high-brow, anyway! Mother thought I'd best take the year over again. She says I've plenty of time. I'm just fifteen."

She laughed good-naturedly, showing a set of teeth dazzling in their perfection and whiteness.

"I'm working hard this year, though. You see, I want a room with a bath, and you have to be a Sophomore to get it."

"I see. An incentive, isn't it?"

"This is a fairly good room, don't you think? It's the best on the floor. Carita's lucky--that is, as far as the room goes. My room-mate was called home three weeks before Christmas. Her mother died. Poor little Nell!"

"I'm sorry for her," Carita said sympathetically, "but if she hadn't gone I couldn't have entered the school this year, it was so crowded."

Somewhere down the length of the hall a gong sounded.

"What's that for?" Blue Bonnet asked.

"Bed. In a half hour another will ring and every light on this floor will go off instantly."

Blue Bonnet looked at her watch.

"You mean to say you have to be in bed at half-past nine o'clock?"

Mary nodded.

"Well, I reckon I'd better run. I haven't unpacked yet."

"Oh, they aren't so awfully particular the first day. School doesn't really begin until to-morrow."

Blue Bonnet started to say good night to Carita. As she bent to kiss her she paused.

"Why don't you come down and stay with me to-night?" she said. "My room-mate isn't back yet. I shouldn't be half so lonesome."

"All right--if--do you think they'd mind?"

Carita addressed Mary.

Mary took a look down the hall.

"Skip along," she said generously. "All's serene on the Potomac. You'd better hurry though, while the coast's clear."

And hurry they did.

Blue Bonnet turned out the light in her room, which she had left burning, and threw up the window blinds, letting in a stream of silver light.

"I reckon we can undress by that," she said, "and I can get up an hour earlier in the morning and unpack."

But the rising-bell had been sounding some seconds when Blue Bonnet opened her eyes to the light the next morning. She sprang out of bed with a bound, and dragged forth Carita, who still clung to her slumbers.

"Get up, Carita," she said. "That's some kind of a bell ringing for something or other--goodness knows what! Maybe it's breakfast. I don't know."

A look at her watch reassured her. Seven o'clock. Breakfast was at seven-thirty--she remembered hearing that somewhere.

"Oh, Blue Bonnet, I could have slept twenty minutes yet," Carita wailed sleepily. "I can dress for a party in ten minutes. Yes, I can, honestly!"

"Maybe--in Texas! You're in Boston now. Boston means a cold bath with a good rub, and getting into your clothes for the day--all of which takes time."

At seven-thirty they were dressed, waiting for the breakfast-bell to ring.

The dining-room at Miss North's was not large, but it was cheerful and inviting. There were some five or six tables and at the head of each sat a teacher.

Miss North met Blue Bonnet and Carita at the door and took them to her own table. When the meal was over she assigned them to their regular places, and again Blue Bonnet found to her dismay that she and Carita were separated.

As they left the dining-room Mary Boyd came along and took Carita off peremptorily.

"I'll take care of her," Mary announced, with a wave and a smile. "She'll be in a lot of my classes." They passed on, arm in arm.

Blue Bonnet was feeling a bit forlorn and neglected when a voice, soft and sweet, said at her elbow:

"Miss North has asked me to show you about this morning."

Blue Bonnet turned and looked into the face of the Southern girl she had admired the first day she visited the school.

"Perhaps you don't remember me, but we were introduced. My name is Annabel Jackson."

"Oh, I remember you--yes, indeed; and I'm Blue Bonnet Ashe."

"We have prayers the first thing," Annabel said, leading the way to the chapel. "The gong will ring in five minutes. I reckon we won't be too early if we go now."

"Dear me, do you have a gong to breathe by?" Blue Bonnet asked laughingly. "Seems to me one rings every five minutes."

"Not quite; but that little electric hammer runs the school--with Miss North behind it."

Miss North's school was supposed to be non-sectarian, so far as religious government went; but in expression it was very much Episcopalian.

Blue Bonnet listened to the prayers read in a pleasant monotone by one of the teachers, taking part in the responses.

Prayers over, Annabel led the way up-stairs.

"We have a half hour to put our rooms in order," she said, leaving Blue Bonnet at her own door. "I'll call for you in a little while. I'm just down the hall--number fifteen--if you get through first, stop for me."

"I haven't unpacked yet. I think, if I have a minute, I had better take my gowns out of the trunk," Blue Bonnet answered.

"You won't have much time now. Wait until this afternoon. We have from four to five o'clock free. I'll help you then."

The rest of the morning was spent in the classroom. By noon Blue Bonnet had met a number of the girls--including two of Annabel's most intimate friends: Sue Hemphill, from somewhere in the Middle West, and Ruth Biddle, a Pennsylvania girl. Ruth was Annabel's room-mate; a plain-looking girl, but decidedly aristocratic--blue blood written in every line of her delicate features and rather aloof bearing.

Sue Hemphill was the nicer, Blue Bonnet thought after a few moments' conversation. She was much friendlier, and much prettier; with soft grey eyes that twinkled mischievously, and a saucy little nose that inclined upward, giving her face a piquant, merry expression, quite irresistible.

"Miss Ashe is a new girl--a Junior," Annabel explained to her friends. "She's on our floor--in number ten, with Joy Cross."

Sue Hemphill crumpled up like a withered rose-leaf and leaned against a blackboard for support.

"Oh, you poor thing! You must have been born for trouble--."

"Now, Sue, don't!" Annabel protested. "Just because you had her last year and didn't like her--"

"Do you? Does Ruth? Does anybody?" Sue asked.

"Miss North does," Ruth replied; "and Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. White and Madame de Cartier and Professor Howe--"

"The entire Faculty, to say nothing of the janitor and maids," Sue interrupted.

"You mean--that she's a sort of teacher's pet?" Blue Bonnet, asked slowly.

"Well--'pet' would be going some, for Joy," Annabel laughed. "But you're warm--very warm!"

"Or you will be, before many days. You'll be a regular barometer, going up--going up--going up--"

Annabel put her hand over Sue's mouth.

"Stop, Sue! Don't mind her, Miss Ashe. She's an awful tease. Joy isn't anything worse than a stick--a bore. If you have a nice disposition you'll get on splendidly--Sue hasn't!"

"Oh, thanks," Sue said, bowing profoundly. "It is because of my long association with you, then;" and with this good-natured banter she was off to lunch.

At two-thirty in the afternoon there was a general exodus from the classrooms, the recitations for the day being over. It had been rather a strenuous period for Blue Bonnet--the continuous round from seven o'clock in the morning. She was a little weary as she left the English class, and filed out with the other girls who stopped to chat for a minute as they put away their books.

Down the hall came Mary Boyd with Carita still in her train. Blue Bonnet stopped them and inquired how Carita had got on during the day.

Carita was all enthusiasm.

"Oh, just fine, Blue Bonnet, thank you. Mary has been such an angel. We are in the same Algebra class--and French, too. Isn't that nice? We can get our lessons together."

Annabel Jackson came out of a classroom and joined the group.

"Hello, Sozie," she said to Mary, pinching her cheek affectionately.

Mary colored with the pleasure that comes from being noticed by one of the older and evidently popular girls in the school.

"Hello, Annabel," she answered. "This is my new room-mate--Carita Judson, from Texas."

Annabel acknowledged the introduction indifferently. Carita was too young to be particularly interesting to her. Annabel was eighteen, and considered herself quite a young lady.

Blue Bonnet and Annabel drifted on toward their rooms.

"What sort of a girl is Mary Boyd?" Blue Bonnet asked. "She's rooming with a little friend of mine. Carita and I come from near the same place in Texas."

"Mary? Oh, Mary is a dear. A little spoiled, I reckon. She's an only child, I believe, and has a perfectly doting father. She's always just as you see her--smiling or laughing. Did you ever see such teeth in your life? The girls call her 'Sozie.' You know that picture, don't you? Sozodont! Girl all smiles and teeth."

"What do we do now?" Blue Bonnet asked, pausing at her own door.

"Now we exercise--walk. Generally we go over to the Fenway. In the spring and fall we play tennis."

"Do we all go? I mean all the girls together?"

"Yes, all of us--a la chain gang. The animals march out two by two."

"Alone?"

"Hardly. It's like the Charge of the Light Brigade--teacher to the right of us--teacher to the left of us--teacher in front of us--"

"Really?"

"No, not really. Only to the back and front of us--usually. You'll have fifteen minutes to get into a walking suit if you care to; if you don't, just put on a big coat. It's raw out to-day."

Blue Bonnet preferred to freshen up. She brushed the tumbled hair, bathed her face in cold water, and put on a very smart-looking little grey suit with a Norfolk jacket and tam-o'-shanter to match.

She thought of Carita as she came out of her room, and started up-stairs after her. A teacher stopped her.

"The young ladies meet for their walk in the reception-room down-stairs," she said. "There is no visiting back and forth in the rooms except between four and five o'clock."

Blue Bonnet found the girls, Carita among the rest.

"We will walk together, Carita," she said.

"All right, I have so much to tell you, Blue Bonnet."

A teacher overheard the remark.

"The younger girls usually walk together," she said, turning to Blue Bonnet. "Have you no partner?"

"No. I only entered yesterday."

Mrs. White cast her eye over the waiting group. Each girl seemed supplied with a companion.

"So many of the girls are not back yet. Perhaps you would walk with me," she said.

"Thank you," Blue Bonnet answered politely.

They took their places at the rear of the line, and the brisk walk began. During that brief half hour, Blue Bonnet laid the foundation of a friendship that was to prove invaluable to her throughout her school year.

Mrs. Alicia White was a vocal teacher--_the_ vocal teacher of the school it might be said, for there were several. She was in charge of the department and most efficient.

There was just enough mystery surrounding Mrs. White to make her an object of interest to the girls, and she had her full share of popularity among them. An army officer's widow, she had been thrown upon her own resources early in life, and having had exceptional musical advantages, as well as a good voice, had taken up teaching as a means of earning a livelihood.

She was a slight, fair woman, rather plain of features, but her face had a way of lighting into something closely akin to beauty when she became animated, and there was charm in her manner.

It had leaked out--probably without the slightest foundation--that Mrs. White had been deserted by her army husband, and around this bare incident all sorts of fantastic stories had been woven. At the hands of the girls the poor man suffered all kinds of indignities. Sometimes he was lured from the path of duty by a fascinating woman--at others drink, or his terrible temper caused the separation; but whatever his sins, they all redounded to the glory of Mrs. White, and deluged her with sympathy.

To the gossip of the school Mrs. White was apparently oblivious--if not oblivious, impervious. Her interest in the girls was rather indifferent, except for a chosen few, upon whom she bestowed a good deal of attention. Annabel Jackson was one of her special favorites.

Blue Bonnet found before the walk ended that Mrs. White had charge of the floor upon which she roomed, and a number of other things incident to school life and discipline.

Blue Bonnet had barely laid aside her things after returning from the walk when a knock at the door startled her. She opened it, admitting Annabel, Ruth, and Sue Hemphill.

"We came over to help you unpack," Annabel announced. "Three of us can do it quickly, and then perhaps you will come over to my room for a cup of tea. We have a whole hour to ourselves now."

Blue Bonnet was grateful, but a little embarrassed. She didn't especially care to open her trunk and bare its contents to utter strangers; but Sue was already tugging at the straps, and Ruth opening bureau drawers preparatory to putting things away.

Blue Bonnet took the key from her purse and unlocked the trunk.

As the gowns and underwear, hats and shoes, tumbled forth, there were exclamations of delight and approval.

"Oh, what a love of a hat! Do get out of the way, Ruth, so I can try it on;" this from Annabel.

"And, oh, what a sweet organdy! Where did you get that white wool Peter Thompson? I've searched the town for one."

Blue Bonnet turned from unwrapping something very dear to her to answer Sue.

Annabel leaned over her shoulder, watching with interest the small package in her hands.

"What is it?" she asked.

Blue Bonnet took off the last wrapping and disclosed to view a small miniature.

The girls crowded round her.

"Oh, how lovely!" they exclaimed in a breath. "Who is it?"

Blue Bonnet hesitated a brief second, gazing lovingly at the picture.

"My mother," she answered softly.

"Isn't she beautiful! Is she in Texas?" Ruth inquired.

"No. She's--dead."

There was a hush for a moment.

"Where's your father--have you one of him?" It was Annabel this time.

Blue Bonnet made another dive in the trunk and brought forth a package. From it she drew a photograph which she handed to Annabel.

"Is he in Texas--on the ranch you were telling us about?"

"No. He's dead--too."

There was a longer silence this time, and then it was Sue who put her arm through Blue Bonnet's shyly.

"I know what it means," she said. "I have lost my mother, too. I still have my father, though, thank Heaven, and Billy. You must know Billy--he's my brother at Harvard--the best ever--why--"

Annabel lifted her hands in protest.

"Now, Sue's going to take the pulpit," she said, "and we'll get a discourse on Billy! Billy the great! Billy the supreme--Billy--"

Ruth gave Annabel a push.

"You're jealous," she said, "because you haven't got such a brother yourself. Billy's all right. He's everything Sue says he is."

In the midst of the banter that followed, the door opened, and Joy Cross entered.

She put her suitcase down by the bed, and nodded to the girls indifferently. They nodded back and went on with the inspection of Blue Bonnet's wardrobe.

Blue Bonnet put the miniature carefully away in the bureau drawer, and, with that instinct of politeness which is inborn, went over to Joy and extended her hand.

Joy took it listlessly. The girls scarcely turned round.

When the clothes had all been put away, Annabel renewed her invitation to tea. She did not include Joy, and Blue Bonnet felt rather indignant. It seemed so rude.

"You girls certainly have it in for my room-mate," she said, as she closed the door, and a wave of sympathy went back to Joy.

Ruth Biddle shrugged her shoulders and made a grimace.

"She isn't in our crowd," she said, as if that excluded her from the right to exist--almost.

Annabel's room was a good deal like Annabel. It inclined to frills. It was furnished charmingly in cretonnes--pink, with roses and trailing vines. Pennants from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and many other colleges adorned the walls. Everything in view--and there was much--expressed Annabel. Ruth's personality--if she had any--was entirely missing.

Annabel shook up a cushion and tucked it behind Blue Bonnet comfortably. She had a hospitable manner that fitted pleasantly with the cosiness of the room. Blue Bonnet looked about admiringly.

"I didn't know they allowed you to have so much in your room," she said, surprised.

"They don't--ordinarily. I've been here a long time, and things accumulate. Anyway, I told Miss North that if I couldn't have things the way I wanted them this year, I'd go somewhere else. They'll do a good deal to keep you after they once get you. You'll soon find that out."

"Oh, I don't know," Ruth said from her end of the room, where she was operating a chafing dish, "they send you away fast enough if you don't keep the rules. You remember that Fanny Price, last year."

"Oh, well,--_that_, of course. Fanny Price hadn't any business here in the first place." Annabel began to arrange the tea cups.

"Will you have lemon in your tea?" she asked. "Do you mind if we call you Blue Bonnet? It's something of a mouthful, but I like it."

"Please do. I should love it. I take lemon, thank you."

"It's a good thing you do. Cream is an unknown quantity in this room. We did have some Eagle Brand, but Ruth spread the last of it on her crackers yesterday."

"On crackers?"

"Yes. Ever try it?"

Blue Bonnet made a face.

"Oh, it's not so bad. You'll come to it--some day when you're starving."

"Starving? Don't you get enough to eat here?"

"Yes--but it's not the Copley Plaza--exactly. We manage to get fat, anyway. That reminds me--where's Wee? Go get her, Sue, and ask her to bring over some Nabiscos, if she happens to have any handy. Wee's a regular life-saving station, usually."

Sue dashed out of the room and came back in a minute with a very large, stout girl, whom she introduced as her room-mate, Deborah Watts--better known as "Wee."

Good nature, affability--all the essentials of comradeship--fairly oozed from Deborah Watts. She took Blue Bonnet's hand in a grip that hurt, but Blue Bonnet felt its sincerity and squeezed back.

A bright girl in the school had once compared Deborah Watts to a family horse. Not a pretty comparison, but apt, when one knew Deborah.

The girl said that Deborah was safe, gentle, and reliable. Safe enough to be trusted with old people; gentle enough for children; and that she could, at times, get up enough ginger to give the young people a fair run. The comparison went even farther. The girl declared that sometimes--oh, very occasionally, under pressure and high living--Deborah could kick up her heels and light out with the best, and that when she did, people held up their hands in horror and said: "What ever in the world has got into Deborah Watts!"

Her room-mate and friends had beheld her in this enviable state a number of times, and had pronounced her--in boarding-school vernacular--a perfect circus.

"Can you cook things in your room?" Blue Bonnet inquired of Ruth, gazing at the chafing dish with the water steaming in it.

"You can have a chafing dish, if that's what you mean; that is, you can if you happen to be a Senior. Annabel and I graduate in June. Our menu is limited, however. We seldom roast fowl, or boil coffee"--she winked at Sue--"or try entrees, except--"

All three girls went off into peals of laughter. All but Wee Watts, who remained as sober as a judge.

"Do we, Wee?"

"Wee do!" giggled Annabel.

No one offered to explain the joke and Blue Bonnet looked mystified.

"First year?" Deborah inquired of Blue Bonnet.

"First," Blue Bonnet said. "I have answered that question fifty times to-day. I believe I'll have a placard printed and hang it round my neck."

"It might save breath during the next few days," Sue remarked. "Everybody you meet will ask you that. It sort of breaks the ice."

Blue Bonnet put down her tea cup and rose.

"It was awfully good of you girls to be so nice to me to-day. I appreciate it ever so much. I think I must go now. Carita will be looking for me. Come and see me, won't you? I'm in number ten"--she nodded toward Deborah Watts. "Not being a Senior I can't make you tea, but I might manage to have some crackers and Eagle milk. Good-by."