Chapter 6

NEW FRIENDS

Blue Bonnet found Carita up in her room, the centre of an admiring group. Refreshments, here, as in the corridor below, seemed to be in order.

Mary rose from a shoe-box which she was occupying, and offered it to Blue Bonnet. Several other girls rose also and offered their chairs.

Blue Bonnet took the shoe-box and acknowledged the introductions. The girls were all about Carita's own age--between fifteen and sixteen.

Carita reached over and touched the girl nearest her.

"Here's a girl as far away from home as we are, Blue Bonnet. She's from California--Los Angeles."

Blue Bonnet turned her attention for a moment to the girl--Isabel Brooks.

Isabel's eyes were red and swollen. She dropped her head as Blue Bonnet looked at her, and her breast heaved.

"Now, now!" Mary Boyd said, springing up from the bed on which she had perched. "Don't you cry any more. You'll be sick if you do, and they'll put you in the Infirmary. Here, eat some more candy."

Isabel refused the candy and continued her sobbing. One or two others around the room, moved by Isabel's weeping, commenced to cry also.

Mary seemed helpless.

"Oh, dear," she said, and her own lip began to quiver, "they always do it--these new girls! They get us every last one started."

Blue Bonnet looked at Carita. Tears were in her eyes, and, even as Blue Bonnet looked, her head went down in her hands and she, too, began to sob.

Blue Bonnet rose to the occasion instantly. It was like a call to arms--the sight of those lonely children.

She looked at her watch.

"We have twenty minutes yet, to visit. Let's play a game. I know a fine one. Come on, everybody."

There was not the slightest response.

Mary Boyd took hold of Isabel and dragged her to her feet. Then she roused the others.

"Come on," she said. "You've got to play, whether you want to or not. How do you do it--Miss--"

"Call me Blue Bonnet."

The girls stood up listlessly--a sorry looking group.

"You can sit down," Blue Bonnet announced. "You don't have to stand--just keep your eyes on me. You are each of you a musical instrument."

She went round and whispered something in the ear of each girl.

"Now, I'm the drum. I stand here and beat. Rub-a-dub-dub! Rub-a-dub-dub--like that. Everybody must try to represent her instrument. Carita, you're a fiddle. Pretend to handle a bow. Isabel, you're a piano. Run your hands up and down as if you were playing a scale.

"Watch me. I beat the drum. When I stop beating and imitate one of your instruments--suppose it is the fiddle--then you stop playing the fiddle, Carita, and begin to beat the drum. If you don't stop instantly, and begin to beat the drum before I call out fiddle, you have to stand up here and take my place. See?"

Before five minutes had passed there was such hilarity in the room that it took several knocks at the door to bring a response.

A thin angular form stood in the doorway, and a stern voice said:

"Young ladies, I haf you to report to Miss North if not this noise stop instantly. _Instantly._ You understand? I speak not again!"

"Oh, isn't she too exasperating," remarked Peggy Austin, one of the older girls, as Mary closed the door--a little quicker than might have been thought compatible with good manners.

"I perfectly abominate her," Mary answered. "I am going to ask Miss North if Fraulein can't be removed from this hall. I don't think it's one bit fair for us to have her all the time. She's just too interfering."

"It wouldn't do a particle of good to ask, Sozie," Peggy said. "Miss North caters to Fraulein, herself. She says she is the finest German teacher she ever saw. She imported her from Berlin at great expense and personal sacrifice to the Empire. The nation's been in mourning ever since she left!"

Mary giggled, and the new girls looked interested. Peggy's solemn face carried conviction.

"Goodness me," Carita exclaimed, "couldn't the Germans afford to keep her?"

Peggy shook her head.

"No," she declared, pretending to weep in her handkerchief, "it makes me cry to think of their disappointment--the poor things!"

A gong sounded, but the girls lingered.

"I want to see you after dinner, Carita," Blue Bonnet said as she left the room.

"We go down to the gymnasium and dance a while, after dinner," Mary called out.

"All right. I engage the first three dances then, Carita. Don't forget."

Blue Bonnet went down to her room thoughtfully; a vision of those homesick children before her eyes. She wondered what people meant by sending such infants away from home. Why, there was one who seemed scarcely old enough to comb her own hair. All of a sudden she felt old--grown up; responsibility weighed on her--the responsibility of Carita.

On her own hall she passed Mrs. White.

"What a serious face," the teacher said. "I hope it is not homesickness."

Blue Bonnet smiled brightly.

"No, I think I've fought that all out."

"That's good! Youth is not the time for tears."

"But I have just come from a regular downpour."

"It sounded like a downfall. I was in Madame de Cartier's room, just underneath. We thought the ceiling was coming through."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I am afraid it was my fault. Those children were so horribly homesick that I suggested a game."

"That was very thoughtful, I am sure. Some of those young girls really suffer terribly. Sometimes it makes them quite ill."

Blue Bonnet wondered why Fraulein could not have been so reasonable. _She_ certainly was disagreeable. She wished Carita might be under Mrs. White's wing. What a dear Mrs. White was, anyway.

Blue Bonnet opened her bedroom door, still lost in thought. The early winter twilight filled the room, almost obscuring her room-mate who sat near a window straining her eyes over a book.

Blue Bonnet snapped on the light.

"You'll ruin your eyes," she said pleasantly. "That's what my aunt always says to me when I read in the twilight."

Joy forced a half smile and continued reading.

"I suppose we get dressed for dinner now?" Blue Bonnet, ventured, beginning to unfasten her waist.

"Yes."

"Is dinner just at six?"

"Yes."

"What do we do in the meantime?"

"Study--or practise; or read, if you wish."

Blue Bonnet went into the bathroom and made as much of her toilet as was possible. When she came out, Joy was still poring over her book.

"That must be a hard lesson you are getting," Blue Bonnet remarked.

"It's a book I'm reading."

"Oh!"

There was an interval of silence during which Blue Bonnet put the finishing touches to her toilet. When she was quite dressed she stood hesitatingly by one of the windows, gazing out over the brightly lighted city. Suddenly she turned and flew down the hall, knocking softly at number fifteen.

The door opened slightly and Annabel peered out.

"May I come in--please? I'm threatened with a terrible attack of--the blues, I reckon."

Annabel pulled her in quickly.

"Surely," she said, "only hurry. This isn't strictly according to Hoyle."

"You mean it's against the rules?"

Annabel nodded, her mouth full of pins.

"Then I'd better go."

"Nonsense, stay where you are! I was dying for some one to hook me up. Ruth's in the tub--been there an hour. If you hear any one coming, step in the closet."

"I shouldn't have come only I knew I was going to be homesick, and--"

"And Joy wasn't a very good antidote, was she?"

"Hardly. She won't talk."

Annabel laughed.

"You'll have to do what Sue did last year. That awful silence got on her nerves. Not that she was so anxious to hear Joy talk, but she got tired of putting forth all the effort. Well, she got somebody to make out a list of subjects on a typewriter. She gave it to Joy. 'Now,' she said, 'for goodness sake, _talk_. Choose, in any order you like, but _talk_!'"

Blue Bonnet laughed merrily.

"Ssh!" Annabel warned. "You mustn't do anything more than breathe during this hour."

Blue Bonnet got up again.

Annabel pushed her back in the chair.

"Sit still," she said.

"What would they do if they found me?"

"That depends upon who found you. If it were the German lady above--"

"Fraulein?"

"Yes."

"Has she anything to do with this floor?"

"There isn't anything in the school that she hasn't something to do with."

"And if it were Mrs. White?"

"Mrs. White would do her duty. She would send you to your room--and you'd go--a heap quicker than you would for Fraulein."

"I think I'll go anyway. Oh, there's a knock!"

Annabel opened the door a crack.

"May I come in, Annabel?"

It was Mrs. White's voice, and Annabel was obliged to open the door.

Mrs. White looked at Blue Bonnet.

"I think I'll have to escort Miss Ashe to her room and show her the rules," she said, smiling.

"I'm ready. I was just going."

"Very well. We'll 'kill two birds with one stone.' I was going to your room to talk over your music."

Arm in arm they went down the corridor.

Mrs. White turned Blue Bonnet round after they had entered the room, and drew her attention to a white placard on the wall near the door.

"There," she said, "you will find all the rules."

She ran her finger along the printed column until she came to the one she wanted. Then she read aloud:

"'Visiting among students is forbidden except between the hours of four and five in the afternoon, and two and six on Saturdays.'

"Didn't you see these rules, Miss Ashe?"

"Oh, yes, I saw them," Blue Bonnet answered with unconcern that amazed Mrs. White. "I didn't read them. I hate rules!"

"But I am afraid you will have to read these--and obey them!"

"I suppose so."

Blue Bonnet sighed. "You see," she explained, "I've been brought up rather differently from most girls--that is, up to a year and a half ago. I lived on a big ranch in Texas with my uncle. Everything there was as free as the air and water. We didn't have any restrictions. Boston seems to be made up of 'em."

"We do have a good many conventions, that's true--especially here. It would be chaos without them. You can see that, can't you?"

"Oh, yes."

"And you will try to keep the rules?"

"Of course I'll try. I shouldn't like to displease _you_."

The compliment was so naively given, and so evidently sincere, that Mrs. White looked pleased.

"I appreciate that very much," she said, "but you must keep on equally good terms with your _own_ conscience--have its approval, always."

* * * * *

The building in which Miss North conducted her school for girls had originally been a private mansion. It was interesting and attractive, with many odd nooks and mysterious passages that lent charm and romance to its young occupants. In recent years property adjoining had been added for recitation and school purposes; two houses welded into one.

The entire basement of the annex had been remodeled into a well-equipped gymnasium, and at the rear of the lot a swimming pool had been erected.

It was the custom of the girls to repair to the gymnasium after dinner for a half hour's frolic. Usually they danced.

Blue Bonnet and Carita followed the other girls down-stairs and through the narrow passage that connected the two buildings, a passage known as the subway--or sub.

"Mercy, isn't this spooky?" Carita said, taking a better hold on Blue Bonnet's arm.

"Oh, this isn't anything? Wait a minute."

Mary Boyd drew the girls over to a door at one side of the gymnasium and flung it wide.

"That's a part of the furnace room," she said. "You can go through here and follow another little dark hall--oh, much worse than this--and it takes you to the kitchen and pantries. We went down one night last year--"

"One night?"

Carita shuddered.

"Yes, it was loads of fun. There were five or six of us. We ate enough apple sauce and fresh bread to kill us."

At the piano in the gymnasium a girl was playing a two-step.

"Let's sit here and talk," Blue Bonnet said to Carita, drawing her to a secluded corner. "I feel as if I had hardly seen you."

Sue Hemphill passed, and, seeing Blue Bonnet, dropped into a seat beside her.

"Well," she said, "how do you girls like it by this time?"

"The school, you mean?" Blue Bonnet asked.

"Yes."

"It's been rather strenuous to-day. I'm beginning to look forward to bedtime. I'm tired."

"It is tiresome--getting adjusted."

"What do we do after this half hour? It's a regular merry-go-round, isn't it? A continuous performance."

Sue laughed.

"We study the next hour. Sometimes--twice a week--we have a short lecture on general culture. You'll be taught how to enter a room properly, and how to leave it--"

"I know that already."

"Of course, but it has to be impressed."

"Then what?"

"Then we go to our rooms. Sometimes we settle down, and sometimes we don't. It depends. Once in a while we have a feast. We'll invite you next time."

Blue Bonnet looked interested.

"Where do you have it?"

"Oh, in our rooms sometimes--but it's risky. The sky parlor is the best place. That's up in the attic--under the eaves. It's fine! There's no teacher to bother. It's a little cold just now. They don't heat it, but you can put on your bath-robe and be comfy. We're waiting now for Wee Watts to get her clean clothes back from home. You see, she only lives an hour or two out of the city, and she sends her things home to be washed. When they come back, her mother always fills up the suitcase with cakes and cookies and jam--well, not jam, any more. The last jar she sent, broke, and spilled all over a new silk waist she was sending Wee for a party. It was quite tragic."

"The loss of the jam--or the waist?"

"Both. It was hard on Wee, losing the waist. You see, she's so stout she can't borrow much from the rest of us."

Annabel came up at that moment and asked Sue to dance, so Carita and Blue Bonnet visited until the gong sounded.

* * * * *

On the way up to the study hall, Miss North stopped Blue Bonnet.

"Will you come to my office a moment after study hour?" she said. "I want to go over your program with you. The room is just beyond the reception hall on the first floor."

Blue Bonnet found Miss North waiting when she entered the room an hour later.

"You found your classes this morning, all right?" she began.

"Yes, thank you, Miss North."

"And decided upon your course?"

"Yes. Professor Howe thought I could enter the Junior class without any trouble. I'm taking college preparatory. I don't know yet whether I'll go to college or not, but my aunt wanted me to prepare."

There was a few moments' conversation relative to the work, and Miss North rose.

"Good night," she said, holding out her hand. "I hope you are going to be happy with us. You found the girls pleasant? Annabel Jackson is about your age."

"I'm not seventeen yet," Blue Bonnet said. "I reckon my clothes make me look older. I begged Aunt Lucinda to let me have them a little longer than I've been wearing. Yes, I like the girls very much. Good night."

* * * * *

In her own bed, under cover of darkness, Blue Bonnet had much to think about that night. Opposite her, as still as the dead, Joy Cross slumbered. Blue Bonnet's mind went back over the day. How full it had been--and strange! She almost felt as if she had been transported to another world. In the stress and excitement of the new surroundings her old life faded like a dream. Even the We Are Sevens seemed remote and indistinct in her tired brain.

She dozed off, finally, to dream of marching to gongs. Gongs that urged and threatened; and of a certain German individual who lived in a garret, and who growled like a savage beast if she made the slightest sound as she passed her door.

The next two weeks fairly flew along, and Blue Bonnet was too busy to be homesick. There were good long letters from home often; from the faithful We Are Sevens, full of news and cheer; and from Uncle Cliff, in far-off Texas.

Blue Bonnet found the course she had selected a hard one, with a good deal of outside reading in English. Then there was her music, vocal and instrumental. Practising took up a great deal of time.

The teacher of piano--Fraulein Schirmer--was very nice, Blue Bonnet thought, and she was glad to tell her aunt that she liked her, since she and Fraulein had been such good friends in Munich.

Because of Miss Clyde, Fraulein took much interest in Blue Bonnet, discovering a good deal of musical ability, she wrote Miss Clyde.

Mrs. White still continued to be the joy she promised, and Blue Bonnet looked forward to her vocal lessons with the keenest pleasure.

"Will I ever sing really well?" she asked Mrs. White one morning, and Mrs. White had answered:

"That depends upon yourself, and how much you want to sing. You have a good voice, plenty of excellent timbre in it. You have even more--the greatest essential of all--temperament. You live--you feel--you have the sympathetic quality that spells success--with work!"

Blue Bonnet went from her lesson feeling that she had the world almost in her grasp.

Her English teacher, too, Professor Howe--- Blue Bonnet could not understand why a woman should be called Professor--was delightful. A storehouse of knowledge, she made the class work so interesting that the forty-five minutes of recitation usually passed all too quickly.

Professor Howe was an unusually able woman, much looked up to by the Faculty and pupils. She was middle-aged--past the fortieth milestone, at any rate--and somewhat austere in manner. Those who knew her best declared that her stern demeanor was a professional veneer, put on in the classroom for the sake of discipline, and that underneath she was intensely human and feminine. She had charge of the study hall and acted as associate principal.

Professor Howe interested Blue Bonnet. She didn't mind the austere manner at all. There was something behind it--a quick flash of the eye, a sudden smile, limited usually to a brief second; an intense, keen expression that acted like an electric battery to Blue Bonnet. It stimulated her to effort. No matter what else had to be neglected, English was invariably prepared.

And, as admiration usually begets admiration, Professor Howe was attracted to Blue Bonnet.

"Miss Elizabeth Ashe," she said to Miss North at the end of the second week, "promises to be a bright pupil. She has an unusually clear mind, and good judgment. She's going to be quite a stimulus to the class."

Miss North seemed a little surprised.

"That's rather odd," she said. "Miss Root told me only a half hour ago that Miss Ashe was very indifferent in her mathematics--absolutely inattentive."

Professor Howe raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, but she made no comment.

Blue Bonnet could have explained. If not to Miss North's satisfaction, to her own, entirely. She hated Miss Root, and she hated mathematics, which added fuel to fire.

At the end of the third week of school Blue Bonnet was summoned to Miss North's office.

Miss North looked serious as she motioned Blue Bonnet to a seat and opened the conversation.

"I am very sorry to find that you are not doing well in your mathematics, Miss Ashe. What is the trouble?"

"I hate mathematics and I dislike Miss Root," Blue Bonnet replied with a frankness that quite took Miss North's breath away.

"That is very disrespectful, Miss Ashe; I cannot have you speak of one of your teachers in that way."

"But I don't like her, Miss North, not a bit!"

"That is not to the point. Why are you inattentive?"

"I'm not. I am only stupid!"

Miss North was obliged to smile.

"I can hardly think that," she said. "I have excellent reports from other teachers regarding your work."

Blue Bonnet let the compliment pass without any show of pride or pleasure.

"I meant stupid in mathematics. I always have been."

"Perhaps you haven't got hold of them properly. The difficulty often begins in the primary grades."

"Perhaps that is it. I always had a tutor or a governess on the ranch. I hated arithmetic, so we didn't bother much with it. When I entered school in Woodford I just managed to slide through my mathematics. I never got more than a passing grade."

Miss North looked at Blue Bonnet as if she were some new species of girl with whom she was unfamiliar. Such honesty was quite without precedent.

"And Miss Root? Why do you dislike her?"

"Miss Root is too sarcastic. When I make a mistake she calls the attention of the class to it."

Miss North looked stern.

"You may be excused, now, Miss Ashe," she said. "I will investigate this matter."

A day or two later there seemed to be a change of atmosphere in Miss Root's classroom. Miss Root was very nice to Blue Bonnet--even trying to unravel hard knots, and Blue Bonnet gave strict attention. She stopped Blue Bonnet one day at the end of a period.

"You see what you can do when you try, Miss Ashe," she said.

Blue Bonnet flushed a warm red.

"I tried all the time, Miss Root--but--I reckon--maybe we didn't just understand each other."

The girl's sweet smile was more appealing than her words. Such spontaneity was infectious. A faint pink crept into the teacher's withered cheek, and for a moment the dull grey of her humdrum existence changed to a startling blue. She held out her hand.

"I daresay that was just the trouble. You are very young to have so much philosophy. If you are puzzled again, come to my room. I want you to like mathematics--they are great mental gymnastics. You must learn to get fun out of them."