CHAPTER XXVIII

BEAUTIFUL BEULAH

Nan did not know very much about it. She had a dreamy remembrance of the first day or two of her sojourn in what the girls called "the sick bay." She remembered Dr. Larry's kind face leaning above her; and she realized that he was there a great deal at first.

The fact was, the physician made a hard fight to ward off the threatened attack of pneumonia that he feared. Nan had been in a receptive state for sudden illness when she slipped into the icy water that morning--worried in mind, and having eaten little for several meals. Then was added to this the mental shock of Linda's accusation.

Her mind wandered, and Dr. Prescott and Mrs. Cupp heard a great deal about a "black ghost" and a "boy in black" who were trying to get Linda Riggs' necklace away from Nan. This troubled the girl greatly in her first delirium.

Then she wandered to Scotland and took up the burden of her parents' financial troubles. She tried to get them home on the boat, but they had no tickets, and the captain would not trust them for their passage. These and many other imaginary troubles helped to confuse the poor girl's mind.

But finally the delirium settled into one thing. Nan wanted Beulah!

At first the principal thought she meant _her_. Dr. Prescott knew, of course, that her girls called her in affection "Dr. Beulah." She came to the bedside as often as Nan cried out the name. But soon it was apparent that the principal's kind and beautiful face did not assuage Nan's longing.

The girl talked intimately to "Beautiful Beulah" about "Momsey" and "Papa Sherwood." "If we were only back, all together again, in the little dwelling in amity," weakly cried the sick girl. "Oh, Beulah! I haven't been nice to you. I've been ashamed of you! I was afraid of what the girls would say, and that Mrs. Cupp would think I was a baby."

"What can the poor child mean?" demanded the worried principal, of the matron. "Dr. Larry says that this worrying over the mysterious 'Beulah' is doing her more harm than anything else."

Mrs. Cupp's face was very grim. She was not a sympathetic looking woman at best. Now she looked more severe than ever. She marched out of the sick room without a word. She had already removed from about Nan's neck the fine gold chain and key. In a few minutes she marched in again, to Dr. Prescott's unbounded surprise, and laid a wonderful, big, pink-cheeked doll beside Nan in the bed.

Mrs. Cupp, it seems, had a pretty exact knowledge of everything hidden at the bottom of the girls' trunks, after all.

When Nan aroused the next time, there was Beautiful Beulah right in the crook of her arm. She smiled, hugged the doll close to her, took her medicine without a murmur, and went at once to sleep again.

"Poor little girl," said good Dr. Larry when he was told about it. "Of course that wasn't what has been really troubling her, Dr. Prescott. But the doll is connected with a happier time, when she was at home with her absent parents. With that wax beauty in her possession all troubles look smaller to her youthful mind."

"I did think Nancy Sherwood was too big for doll-babies!" sniffed Mrs. Cupp, refusing to show any further tenderness.

"I can see how she feels," said Dr. Prescott, understandingly. "I'm tempted to play with that beautiful thing myself. Nancy loves babies, and is as kind as she can be to the smaller girls. It would not hurt some of the girls older than she if they 'played dolls' again. They are altogether too grown-up."

Bess was at the door of the sick room morning, noon and night. As soon as the physician said there was no danger, Nan's chum was allowed in the room. When she saw the big doll on the pillow beside Nan's head, she uttered a large, round "O!"

"Didn't you ever see it before, Elizabeth?" asked the principal, curiously.

"Oh--why! It's Beautiful Beulah! Beg pardon, Dr. Prescott! it isn't named after you. Nan had it ever so many years ago. My! I never suspected it was in existence. And to bring it to school with her! My!"

Nan's vitality brought her out of the "sick bay" in a short time. She lost only a week from her books altogether. That, she told herself, did not so much matter when her time at Lakeview Hall was to be so short.

But she was faithful, and hurried to make up the lost recitations. Linda Riggs was in retirement, disgraced before the whole school. She had been obliged to publicly deny the story she had started about Nan Sherwood and the lost necklace. And, too, the necklace had been sent by registered post to Mr. Riggs with a sharp letter from Dr. Prescott reminding him that the girls of Lakeview Hall were not allowed to wear such jewelry.

Some of the girls were inclined to poke fun at Nan's big doll, which was brought up into Room Seven, Corridor Four, and given a place of honor there. But it was gentle fun, for the whole school was sorry for Nan now. They knew that she must leave the Hall at the end of the term because of financial reverses, and the girls were beginning to find out how lovable she was, and to remember how kind she had been to everybody.

Procrastination Boggs crocheted a shawl for Beautiful Beulah and Laura Polk brought a tiny embroidered cap that fitted the doll's head perfectly. Bess made leggings for Nan's "child" and Gracie Mason presented a pair of fur-trimmed boots. Really, there never was so lucky a doll "baby" as Beautiful Beulah, for she had presents galore.

Nan could not refuse any of these gifts, and most of them came with funny little notes. The doll was made much of by everybody in Corridor Four. She was decked and re-decked in all the finery that came to her and many of the girls "looked in" at Room Seven every day, just to see how Nan's "child" got along.

The girl from Tillbury began to notice that some of the biggest of them liked to hold the doll and dress and redress it; and "there was a deal of fuss," as Mrs. Cupp said, made over the pretty blue-eyed thing.

Finally Laura had a bright idea. She suggested that a party be given in Beautiful Beulah's honor.

"A regular, sure-enough, honest-to-goodness party!" she cried. "Why not? Everybody bring something to give the child--have a regular 'shower' party."

"Goodness! haven't we had parties enough for one term?" demanded Nan. "That one at the boathouse seemed to fill the bill."

"Oh, nothing like that! We might not get out of it so easy again," admitted the red-haired girl. "And, anyway, that's ancient history. Let's have it in the afternoon and feed 'em tea and cakes."

Bess was enthusiastic immediately. She had been quite subdued since the boathouse party, and Nan's sickness; she was "just aching" for something to happen! Anything "doing" always delighted Bess; but the trouble with Nan's chum was, she _would_ try to mix the business of studying with pleasure.

She started to crochet a "fascinator" (so Amelia Boggs called it) for Nan's doll, and fearing she would not get it done in time she carried the crocheting with her into German class, Frau Deuseldorf was not particularly sharp-sighted; but her hearing was not failing; and when she addressed Bess twice without receiving any reply it was only natural that the German teacher should step down from the platform to see what the brown head was doing, bent so low over Elizabeth's book.

"Vell, vell, vell!" exclaimed the teacher, in some excitement. "Vas iss?"

"Oh! One, two, three, _and_ four!" muttered the earnest Bess. "Did--did you speak to me, Madam?" and the girl looked up dreamily, poising the crocheting needle before taking up the next stitch.

"Ach! what is the child doing?" demanded the lady, seizing the work in Bess' hand.

"Oh, Madam Deuseldorf!" shrieked Bess. "You made me drop a stitch."

"Drop a stitch? Drop a stitch?" repeated the lady, in some heat. "Undt vy shouldt you have stitches to drop in classroom? Tell me that, please!"

"Oh--oh--I--I----" poor Bess stammered, Frau Deuseldorf could be very stern when she wished.

"What iss this for?" demanded the teacher, holding up the confiscated "fascinator" and shaking it in the air so that all the girls began to giggle.

"It's for the party," blurted out Bess, very red in the face.

Just then Dr. Beulah and half a dozen visitors--some of them gentlemen--entered the classroom. The situation was tragic--for poor Bess. There stood Frau Deuseldorf in commanding attitude, her back to the door, unconscious of the approach of the preceptress and her friends, and waving the unfinished bit of crocheting in the air.

"For why did you come here to Lakeview, Miss?" demanded the teacher. "To knit--to sew--to _play_? Ach! I do not teach a class in baby-doll r-r-rags, I hope! Remove yourself to the platform, Miss. Take this--this plaything with you. Sit down there that the other pupils may see how you employ your hands and mind in class----"

She turned majestically and saw the amused visitors. Even Dr. Beulah seemed to relish the situation, for her eyes twinkled and her lips twitched a little as she said--to cover the German lady's confusion:

"The time is not propitious for a visit to _your_ class, Madam, I can plainly see. We will withdraw."

She did not speak sternly; but Nan--who was watching--saw that Frau Deuseldorf turned strangely pallid and that her hands shook as she went back to her desk, following the angry and tearful Bess. After a moment, when the girls had settled into something like their usual calm, and had stopped giggling, the lady leaned over and patted Bess softly on the shoulder.

"Never mind, my dear," she said, her voice vibrant with some feeling that the girls who heard her did not understand. "Put the foolish trifle on my desk here and go back to your book. You are punished enough. Ach! perhaps I am, too."

And Nan Sherwood noted the fact that the German lady was much troubled during the rest of the session. She wondered why.

Like several of the instructors at Lakeview Hall, Frau Deuseldorf did not sleep on the premises. "Mister" Frau Deuseldorf kept a delicatessen shop in town and the couple had rooms behind the shop. The German instructor's husband, whom all the girls called "Mister Frau Deuseldorf," was a pursy, self-important little man, with a bristling pompadour and mustache. He was like a gnome with a military bearing--if you can imagine such a person!

When Frau Deuseldorf put her heavily shod foot over the threshold of the delicatessen shop she at once became the typical German hausfrau, and nothing else. Her University training was set aside. She cooked her husband's dinner with her own hands and then served him in approved German style.

It was the very afternoon of Bess Harley's trouble in German class that Nan and she chanced to have an errand in town and obtained permission from Mrs. Cupp to go there. The girls often bought delicacies of Mister Deuseldorf--his cheeses and _wurst_ had quite a special flavor, and he made lovely potato salad that often graced the secret banquets at Lakeview Hall.

As Nan and Bess came along Main Street, there was the little, bristle-haired Teuton, standing at his door. His bald head was bare and he wore carpet slippers and no coat. As the light was fading, he evidently had come to the door to read a letter which he held close to his purblind eyes.

"Frau Deuseldorf hasn't come down from the Hall yet--mean old thing!" ejaculated Bess.

"You needn't call her names. _I_ think she was awfully easy on you," Nan said, smiling. "And she seemed worried, too, because Dr. Beulah caught the classroom in such a turmoil."

"Well, it wasn't _my_ fault," grumbled Bess, knowing, of course, that it was, but wishing to excuse herself if she could.

Nan made no immediate reply. She was watching the little German compassionately. As he stood there in the open door scanning the rustling sheet of paper, the girl saw that frank tears were running down his plump cheeks. Nan clutched her chum's wrist, and whispered:

"Oh, Bess! what do you suppose is the matter with Mister Frau Deuseldorf?"

"What? How? Oh!" exclaimed Bess, likewise seeing the little man's emotion as he turned back into the shop. "Why, Nan!"

"Yes," said Nan. "He was crying."

"Let's go in," suggested the impulsive Bess. "Maybe he will tell us about it."

"But--but--I wouldn't like to intrude," Nan said.

"Come on! We'll buy a pickle," exclaimed Bess. "Surely he won't think _that_ very much of an intrusion."

When the tinkling little bell over the door announced the girls' entrance the German appeared from the rear premises, wiping his eyes on a checked handkerchief. He knew the two girls from the Hall by sight.

"Goot afternoon, fraulein," he said, in greeting. "Iss de school oudt yet?"

"Most of the classes are over for the day, sir," Nan replied, as Bess took much time in selecting the wartiest and biggest pickle in the Deuseldorf collection.

"Iss mein Frau come the town in yet?" pursued the little man, whose idiomatic speech often amused the girls when they came to the store.

"I believe she was correcting exercises, sir," Nan said, smiling. "I expect we girls make her much extra trouble."

"Ach!" he responded. "Trouble we haf in blenty--yes. But _that_ iss light trouble. Idt iss of our Hans undt Fritz we haf de most trouble. Yes!"

Nan and Bess knew that the German couple worked only, and saved and "scrimped" only, for the support of two grown sons in the military service of the Fatherland. They desired that Hans and Fritz should have the best, and marry well. But for a young Prussian officer to keep up appearances and hold a footing among his mates, costs much more than his wage as a soldier.

"I hope your sons are well, Herr Deuseldorf," Nan said, speaking carefully.

"Vell? Ja--they no sickness have. But there iss more trouble as sickness--Ach! mein Frau, she come!" he exclaimed.

Bess had selected the pickle. The little German gave them no more attention, but darted out from behind the counter to meet Frau Deuseldorf as she entered the shop. He waved the letter he had been reading excitedly, and began in high-pitched German to tell his wife the news--and news of trouble it was, indeed, as the two American girls could understand.

Both Bess and Nan had studied German a year before they came to the Hall, and rapidly as the little man talked they could understand much that he said. The slower replies of his startled wife they could likewise apprehend.

Nan and Bess clung together near the door, hesitating to depart, for Mister Frau Deuseldorf had not given Bess her change.

Hans was in trouble--serious trouble. His brother, Fritz, wrote that it would take all the old couple's little savings to save Hans from disgrace; and one brother's disgrace would seriously affect the career of the other.

"And perhaps I have offended the good Dr. Prescott this very day," cried Frau Deuseldorf. "You know how it was at that other school last year, Henry." (The German teacher had only been at Lakeview Hall half a year before this present term.) "Dr. Prescott, too, is very, very stern. She entered my classroom, with friends, just as one of those thoughtless girls had made me excited. The room was in a turmoil--Ach! it would be terrible now if the doctor requested my resignation."

Nan drew Bess outside into the street. "Never mind the change, Bessie," she begged.

"Oh! I'm so ashamed of myself," sighed Bess. "I never knew people had so much trouble. And those sons are men grown!"

"Their children, just the same. But I know she is over-anxious about her position. I don't suppose the little shop earns them very much. It is probably her salary at the school which goes to Germany. Oh, my dear! you don't suppose Dr. Beulah _is_ angry with Frau Deuseldorf because she does not keep good order in her classes? We do bother her a lot."

Bess was very serious. "I know _I_ do," she admitted. "Sometimes it's fun to plague her--she gets excited so easily, and forgets her polite English."

"We mustn't any more," said Nan.

"I just know what I am going to do," muttered Bess; but Nan did not hear her.

Elizabeth was impulsive; of late she had shown more strongly than before the influence Nan Sherwood's character had had upon her own disposition. She felt herself at fault because of the scene that day in German class and Frau Deuseldorf feared she would be blamed for it.

Dr. Beulah Prescott had never seemed like a very harsh person to Bess; but the girl approached the office that evening before supper with some timidity. It had always been a hard thing for Bess Harley to admit that she was wrong in any case; and now, when Dr. Beulah was looking at her quizzically, the girl from Tillbury shrank from the ordeal.

"Miss Elizabeth! you do not often seek my desk, my dear," said the preceptress pleasantly. "What is it you wish?"

"Oh, Dr. Prescott!" exclaimed Bess, going headlong into the matter as usual. "It's about Frau Deuseldorf."

Dr. Prescott's pretty brows drew together a little; but perhaps it was a puzzled line instead of anger.

"What about your German instructor?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, dear Dr. Prescott! you won't blame her for that trouble in class to-day--will you? It was I. I did it. I was crocheting instead of attending to the work. And you know how easy it is for her to get excited. Please blame me and not her, Dr. Prescott."

"My dear child!" gasped the lady, in some surprise. "Perhaps I do not just understand. Sit down here. Now, be quiet, and don't sob so. Tell me all about it."

And Bess managed soon to control herself and explain fully her reason for coming to "beg off" for Frau Deuseldorf. The preceptress listened quietly; nor did she smile at Bess Harley's way of trying to straighten out the affair.

"You are a kind girl," she said, "and I am glad to see that--despite your thoughtlessness--you consider others. You should consider the Madam always in class, for she has a hard time enough at the best. I know she is easily excited; but I judge her work from results. I am quite satisfied with her and have no intention of disturbing her about that contretemps to-day. Indeed, I should not have mentioned it to her had you not told me how she felt about it.

"I will send Henry down town with a note at once to her. She shall sleep in peace to-night, after all, if my assurance of good will and sympathy will help her to do so."

The news of the German teacher's trouble circulated among the girls and it was noticeable that those who took German were more careful about giving the good, if excitable, lady trouble during the weeks that immediately followed.

Meanwhile Bess finished the "fascinator." The other girls friendly to the chums in Room Seven, Corridor Four, brought gifts, too. Beautiful Beulah had an afternoon reception that was the talk of the Hall for weeks.

Of course, the little folk came; Nan was friends with every child in the primary grades, and she invited them to come and bring their dolls. There was tea and cakes enough for all; and the "reception" overflowed into the corridor. Mademoiselle Loro (who had taken a great fancy to Nan Sherwood) presided at the tea-table. The little Frenchwoman had by no means forgotten her youth and she did not cast any "damper" upon the occasion, as Bess Harley was afraid she would.

"I don't know how it is, Nan," said Bess, when the entertainment was over and they were alone. "You are just the funniest girl I ever heard of. Any other girl would never have thought of inviting a teacher to a doll's party; if she had, the girls would have been afraid to come. But we had a splendid time, and I shall try to please Mademoiselle more in the future. She's an awfully nice old thing."

Nan only smiled. In her wise little brain this very result had been foreseen. She had begun to see that when the girls and the teachers only met in the classroom, or at meals, they did not "warm up to each other"; social intercourse with their instructors made the girls less antagonistic toward them.

The weather grew colder and the ice was pronounced safe. Skating began, and the chums from Tillbury soon showed the other girls how well they could skate together. Walter Mason declared he had just as soon skate with Nan Sherwood as with any boy he knew.

Nan and Bess went down to Mrs. Cupp's room one day to ask for the privilege of going to town to get their skates sharpened. It was late afternoon and growing dusky in the stairways. There was no light in Mrs. Cupp's room.

Before the girls reached the top of the flight leading to the basement they heard the matron scream. Then a sharp, shrill voice cried:

"I want my money! Give me my money! You and Miss Vane are trying to keep it from me. I want my money!"

"Go away! Go away!" the startled girls heard Mrs. Cupp murmur.

"I'll haunt you! I'll foller you----"

Bess had uttered a cry. Out of the matron's room scuttled a thin, black figure, which darted down the stairs.

"The boathouse ghost!" gasped Bess, clinging to Nan, in fright.

"Goodness!" returned Nan. "If it is, he's a long way off his beat, isn't he? Boathouse ghost, indeed!"

But when they went into the matron's room they found Mrs. Cupp lying back in her chair, in a pitiable state of fright.