"I haven"t very many virtues," Deborah Watts was saying, trying to a.s.sume a modest att.i.tude, and failing; "but I think I am fairly courageous--that is, I meet big things rather well: sickness and accidents and--"
"You don"t look as if you"d ever been sick in your life," Blue Bonnet said.
"I haven"t," Wee admitted, "but I have absolutely no fear of it--"
"Were you ever in an accident?" Patty inquired.
"No, I can"t say that I ever was--but--what I mean is, I am not nervous.
I haven"t any fear of things happening when I"m riding, or train wrecks or--"
"How about a mouse?" Sue Hemphill inquired. "You said the other night--"
Wee stiffened perceptibly.
"Oh, how absurd, Sue--a mouse! n.o.body is afraid of a mouse--really afraid--they"re just so horrid, that"s all. They"re such squirmy things--ugh! No, what I mean is--I guess I"m not very clear, but I hardly know what _fear_ is. I"m never afraid of being out nights--"
"I"m not either," Angela Dare said, "that is, not if my muse is along.
I"m so absorbed--"
A laugh went round the room. Angela"s muse was the signal for merriment.
"I think intuition is _my_ long suit," Annabel Jackson said. "Sometimes it"s perfectly uncanny. I can almost read people"s thoughts and know what they are going to say and do."
"How?" Sue inquired.
"Oh, I don"t know how. No one can account for those things."
"I thought you might help Mary Boyd--she"s short on intuition--just at present."
"What"s Mary done now?" a half dozen voices inquired.
Sue laughed.
"Mary"s furious," she said. "She"s preparing for one of her monthly flights to Chicago. She"s packing up."
The girls roared with laughter. Mary"s flights home were too funny. She packed up several times a month, but she never got as far as the station.
"What"s the matter this time?"
"Same old story. Fraulein! I think it is a shame those children have to have her all the time. She"s ruining their dispositions. They all just hate her."
"What did Mary do, Sue?"
It was Blue Bonnet who asked this time.
"Oh, you"ll have to get the particulars from her. It"s as good as a vaudeville stunt to hear Mary tell it. They were having an orgy of some kind last night--"
"Was Carita in it?" Blue Bonnet asked rising, all the anxiety of a mother hen for a lost chicken in her att.i.tude.
"I think she was. There was a room full."
Blue Bonnet started for the door.
"I must go and see," she said. "I hope Carita isn"t in trouble."
"Come back again," the girls called after her. "We"ve something to discuss later."
Mary"s room was in a state of confusion. In a corner Carita sat, weeping softly.
"Mary"s going home," she said, and a sob shook her. "She says she"s going to-night. Oh, I"ll miss her so, Blue Bonnet."
"Going home?"
Blue Bonnet turned to Mary.
"Well, I should say I am," Mary announced, dragging out one garment after another from her closet. "I wouldn"t stay in this school another day for anybody. Fraulein has acted perfectly outrageously. I think she"s crazy!"
Blue Bonnet stared in amazement.
"What"s she done, Mary?"
"Done! Well, she"s done enough to drive me out of this school--that"s all!"
She pounded a cork in a bottle of hair tonic she was getting ready to pack. The cork refused to stay in the bottle. Mary gave it another jab--the bottle broke and the contents spilled over the dresser. She tried to rescue an ivory-handled brush and mirror, but it was too late.
"There," she cried, the tears springing to her eyes; "see what I"ve done--perfectly ruined Peggy Austin"s brush! Well, she shouldn"t have left it in here."
Blue Bonnet took the brush and tried to wipe off the spots. She pushed Mary into a chair and drew one up for herself.
"Now," she said, "tell me all about it. What has Fraulein done?"
At first Mary was silent.
"Tell me," urged Blue Bonnet.
"Well, we were having a party in here last night--a sort of feast. It was Peggy"s birthday and her mother sent her a box. Peggy"s room is so near Fraulein"s she never can have anything there, so we had it here. We waited till all the lights were out, and it was as still as could be. We were having a dandy time, when Peggy said she"d forgotten a box of candy in her room and went to get it. We waited for her, and after a while there was a knock on the door--just a little timid knock, as if Peggy were trying to fool us. She knew a knock like that would scare us to death, so we thought we"d fool her. I happened to have a pitcher of water on the stand there, so we opened the door a little way--it was pitch dark--and let her have it, full force!"
"Well?"
"Well--it wasn"t Peggy--it was Fraulein! Didn"t you hear her scream? It was enough to wake the dead. Miss North came running and Miss Martin--she"s on this floor too, now, and--"
Carita"s grief had suddenly turned to mirth. She rocked back and forth in her chair shaking with laughter.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet, you couldn"t have helped laughing to save you--it was perfectly killing. Fraulein was so angry she just tore round. She threatened to have us all expelled--disgraced--everything you could think of! At least we took it for that--it was all in German--every word."
"And Miss North has taken away all my privileges for two weeks--two whole weeks! That means that I can"t go to the party the girls are getting up for the twenty-second, or anything, and I"m just not going to stand it. I"m going home! You see if I don"t--this time!"
She got up and began hauling more things from the closet.