Adah turned to her friends, who stood looking scornfully at the intruders.
"Did you hear that?" she remarked. "They actually want to join the Dramatic!"
"Cheek!" murmured Consie, and the others giggled.
"And why shouldn"t we join?" flamed Gladys Wilks.
"Why? Because you"re day girls, and the Dramatic"s only for boarders.
That"s the reason."
"It"s no reason at all," answered Maggie Stuart sharply. "The boarders have no right to monopolize any society. It ought to be free and open to the whole school."
"But it can"t!" snapped Adah. "Surely you can see for yourselves that it wouldn"t work. We have all our rehearsals in the evenings, when day girls couldn"t possibly come."
"You could fix them from four to five instead," suggested Annie.
"We"re not going to alter our arrangements for anybody," returned Adah tartly.
"The boarders have always run the Dramatic," added Consie. "We"d like to begin our meeting, please, when we can have the studio to ourselves."
"Oh, very well! Keep your wretched society to yourselves if you want!"
yapped Annie; "but I"ll tell you this, at any rate, I think it"s most monstrously unfair. You needn"t expect us to help you with any of your schemes, for we just shan"t!"
"Don"t excite yourselves--we haven"t asked you!" sneered Consie freezingly as the Hawthorners flounced out of the room.
At first the committee was too agitated to discuss business. It was ablaze with indignation at the impudence of mere day girls aspiring to join the select circle.
"How could we let them?" fluttered Joyce Edwards. "To begin with, there wouldn"t be enough parts to go round, nor enough costumes. Dear me! we should have the Juniors expecting to appear on the platform! What next, I wonder? We Seniors have always done the acting, and let the kids and day girls make the audience."
"And we"ll go on doing so!" declared Adah. "We"re the prefects, and we"ll manage the school affairs as we like, without interference from anybody."
The decision about the Dramatic was the same as regarded most of the other societies. The boarders kept them jealously to themselves. The day girls grumbled, even protested indignantly, but they were powerless to make any change. The four prefects were all boarders, and exercised their newly-granted authority for their own advantage. Miss Thompson had no idea of the state of affairs. In appointing as school officers girls who had been with her for some years, she thought she was safeguarding the tone of Silverside and preserving its traditions intact. She had certainly no intention of establishing an oligarchy; yet in effect that was what had resulted. The members of the Boarders" League felt pledged to support one another against all outsiders, and every activity of the school was in the hands of a clique.
Adah, as head girl, was intensely patronizing. She was puffed up with pride in her new office, and would explain Silverside customs with an airy superiority which aggravated the Hawthorners continually. Their injured souls rallied round Annie Broadside. Annie was a born leader.
She keenly resented the state of affairs, and meant to show fight. She only waited a suitable opportunity, and at length it came.
For the first few weeks of term the boarders had been busy with various affairs on Sat.u.r.days, and had contented themselves with an occasional game of tennis and croquet. At the beginning of October they suddenly realized that the hockey season was beginning. So far hockey, and indeed any organized games, had been only very languidly pursued at Silverside.
The smallness of the school had not given a wide choice of champions, and for some years the elder girls had been more interested in botany and b.u.t.terfly collecting than in sports.
Silverside had had a hockey team, and had occasionally played a match, though it could not pride itself on its record of goals. The present prefects had never distinguished themselves remarkably at athletics, but they were sufficiently enthusiastic to wish the school to win successes.
They called a boarders" meeting to discuss matters.
"We ought to have a splendid games club this term," smiled Adah complacently. "There should be several sets of hockey going on in the same afternoon."
"There isn"t room in the field for more than one," ventured Laura Talbot.
"Then we must take a larger field," decreed Consie. "With so many new subscriptions we can easily afford it."
"Ninety-five girls instead of only thirty-six in a school make a difference," admitted Irma Ridley.
"The treasurer will have quite a nice little sum in hand," chuckled Isobel Norris.
"I want the school to begin and make a name for itself," said Adah. "I don"t want to say anything against Jessie Carew and Maggie Stephens, last year, but really we all know they were slackers."
"Silverside must buck up!" agreed the others.
"You, Laura, and Janet, and Ethelberga have the makings of good players in you," murmured Adah reflectively, "and of course Consie and myself, and perhaps Joyce."
"What about the Hawthorners?" asked Isobel.
"We shall have to include them, of course."
"Couldn"t get up the teams without them, I"m afraid," sn.i.g.g.e.red Minnie Selburn.
Adah stared hard at Minnie, who straightened her face and sat up stiffly.
"In the matter of hockey, of course, everybody in the school, whether day girl or boarder, will be invited to join," continued Adah.
"Some of those Hawthorners are jolly good," ventured Mona Bardsley.
"They won ever so many matches last year, I believe," added Alice Webster.
"Whom did they play?" asked Adah quickly.
"I don"t know."
"I do," said Avelyn, speaking for the first time. "It was Workington Ladies" College, Mirton High School, Redlands County School, and Harlingden Ladies" Team, and they beat them all, except Harlingden, and that was a draw."
Adah was rapidly scribbling some entries in her notebook.
"We"ll challenge Workington Ladies" College," she announced. "I wanted us to do it last year, but we decided our team wasn"t strong enough.
I"ll write to their secretary to-night and make a fixture. It would be a tremendous triumph for Silverside to beat Workington. They"ve rather a reputation."
"The old school"s going to forge ahead!" smiled Consie.
"We"ll ask Miss Thompson to speak about hiring that larger field," said Isobel. "We"d better secure it at once, in case the farmer should let it to anybody else."
Next day Adah pinned up a notice, announcing that hockey would begin on the following Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and asking all girls to sign their names as members of the games club, and to pay their subscriptions to the treasurer. She watched the day girls come and surge round the notice board, then she ran upstairs to her form room. She considered that she was performing her duties admirably as head of the school.
Meantime, downstairs, a ferment was going on that would have surprised her. The grumblings and dissatisfaction increased till a whisper began to circulate.
"Annie Broadside says, don"t sign or do anything yet, but let the "Old Hawthorners" League" meet on the common this afternoon at 4.15. Pa.s.s this on, and all turn up."
The boarders could not understand why, that afternoon, the day girls scuttled away so promptly at four o"clock, and seemed in such a frantic hurry to get on their boots and be gone. As a rule they loitered about in an annoying fashion, and were seldom clear of the premises till half-past four. The prefects ventured the opinion that Silverside rules were at last beginning to be properly kept. They would have been immensely electrified if they could have seen what was really happening.
Not far from the house was a small common, which most of the girls were bound to pa.s.s on their way to and from school. To-day, instead of going home they trooped here. There was an old tree stump at one side, and Annie, scrambling to the top of it, and holding on by a branch, made it serve as an orator"s platform from which to address her audience, which stood below. She first of all looked round critically.
"Are we all here?" she began.