"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."
CHAPTER VI
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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed Mrs. White.
"What a serious face," the teacher said. "I hope it is not homesickness."
Blue Bonnet smiled brightly.