"When you stop to think about it, there"s something the matter with everybody," said Conny.
"Except us," amended Priscilla.
"Y--yes," Patty agreed in thoughtful retrospection, "I can"t think of a thing the matter with us--I don"t wonder they chose us to head the reform!"
Conny slid to her feet, a bundle of energy.
"Come on! We"ll join our little playmates and begin the good work--Hooray for the great Reform Party!"
They scrambled out of the open window, in a fashion foreign to the dictates of Thursday evening manner cla.s.s. Crowds of girls in blue middy blouses were gathered in groups about the recreation ground. The three paused to reconnoiter.
"There"s Irene, still chewing." Conny nodded toward a comfortable bench set in the shade by the tennis courts.
"Let"s have a circus," Patty proposed. "We"ll make Irene and Mae Mertelle roll hoops around the oval. That will kill "em both with one stone--Irene will get thin, and Mae Mertelle girlish."
Hoop-rolling was a speciality of St. Ursula"s. The gymnasium instructor believed in teaching girls to run. Eleven times around the oval const.i.tuted a mile, and a mile of hoop-rolling freed one for the day from dumb-bells and Indian clubs. The three dived into the cellar, and returned with hoops as tall as themselves. Patty a.s.sumed command of the campaign and issued her orders.
"Conny, you take a walk with Keren and shock her as much as possible; we must break her of being precise. And Pris, you take charge of Mae Mertelle. Don"t let her put on any grown-up airs. If she tells you she"s been proposed to twice, tell her you"ve been proposed to so many times that you"ve lost count. Keep her snubbed all the time. I"ll be elephant trainer and start Irene running; she"ll be a graceful gazelle by the time I finish."
They parted on their several missions. St. Ursula"s peace had ended. She was in the throes of reform.
On Friday evening two weeks later, an unofficial faculty meeting was convened in the Dowager"s study. "Lights-out" had rung five minutes before, and three harried teachers, relieved of duty for nine blessed hours while their little charges slept, were discussing their troubles with their chief.
"But just what have they done?" inquired Mrs. Trent, in tones of judicial calm, as she vainly tried to stop the flood of interjections.
"It is difficult to put one"s finger on the precise facts," Miss Wadsworth quavered. "They have not broken any rules so far as I can discover, but they have--er--created an atmosphere--"
"Every girl in my corridor," said Miss Lord, with compressed lips, "has come to me separately, and begged to have Patty moved back to the West Wing with Constance and Priscilla."
"Patty! _Mon Dieu!_" Mademoiselle rolled a pair of speaking eyes to heaven. "The things that child thinks of! She is one little imp."
"You remember," the Dowager addressed Miss Lord, "I said when you suggested separating them, that it was a very doubtful experiment.
Together, they exhaust their effervescence on each other; separated--"
"They exhaust the whole school!" cried Miss Wadsworth, on the verge of tears. "Of course they don"t mean it, but their unfortunate dispositions--"
"Don"t mean it!" Miss Lord"s eyes snapped. "Their heads are together planning fresh escapades every moment they are not in cla.s.s."
"But what have they done?" persisted Mrs. Trent.
Miss Wadsworth hesitated a moment in an endeavor to choose examples from the wealth of material that presented itself.
"I found Priscilla deliberately stirring up the contents of Keren"s bureau drawers with a shinny stick, and when I asked what she was doing, she replied without the least embarra.s.sment, that she was trying to teach Keren to be less exact; that Mrs. Trent had asked her to do it."
"Um," mused the Dowager, "that was not my precise request, but no matter."
"But the thing that has really troubled me the most," Miss Wadsworth spoke diffidently, "is a matter almost a blasphemy. Keren has a very religious turn of mind, but an unfortunate habit of saying her prayers out loud. One night, after a peculiarly trying day, she prayed that Priscilla might be forgiven for being so aggravating. Whereupon Priscilla knelt before her bed, and prayed that Keren might become less self-righteous and stubborn, and more ready to join in the sports of her playmates with generosity and openness of spirit. They carried on--well, really, one might almost call it a praying match."
"Shocking!" cried Miss Lord.
"And little Aurelie Deraismes--they have been drilling the child in--er--idiomatic English. The phrase that I overheard her repeating, seemed scarcely the expression that a lady would use."
"What was it?" inquired the Dowager, with a slightly expectant note.
"I"ll be _gum-swizzled_!"
Miss Wadsworth colored a deep pink. It was foreign to her nature even to repeat so doubtful an expression.
The Dowager"s lips twitched. It was a fact, deplored by her a.s.sistants, that her sense of humor frequently ran away with her sense of justice. A very naughty little girl, if she managed to be funny, might hope to escape; whereas an equally naughty little girl, who was not funny, paid the full penalty of her crime. Fortunately, however, the school at large had not discovered this vulnerable spot in the Dowager"s armor.
"Their influence," it was Miss Lord who spoke, "is demoralizing the school. Mae Van Arsdale says that she will go home if she has to room any longer with Patty Wyatt. I do not know what the trouble is, but--"
"I know it!" said Mademoiselle. "The whole school laughs. It is touching the question of a _sweetch_."
"Of what?" The Dowager c.o.c.ked her head. Mademoiselle"s English was at times difficult. She mixed her languages impartially.
"A sweetch--some hair--to make pompadour. Last week when they have tableaux, Patty has borrowed it and has dyed it with blueing to make a beard for Bluebeard. But being yellow to start, it has become green, and the color will not wash out. The sweetch is ruin--entirely ruin--and Patty is desolate. She has apologize. She thought it would wash, but since it will not wash, she has suggest to Mae that she color her own hair to match the sweetch, and Mae lose her temper and call names. Then Patty has pretend to cry, and she put the green hair on Mae"s bed with a wreath of flowers around, and she hang a stocking on the door for c.r.a.pe, and invite the girls to come to the funeral, and everybody laugh at Mae."
"It"s just as well," said the Dowager, unmoved. "I do not wish to favor the wearing of false hair."
"It"s the principle of the thing," said Miss Lord.
"And that poor Irene McCullough," Mademoiselle continued the tale, "she dissolves herself in tears. Those three insist that she make herself thin, and she has no wish to become thin."
"They take away her b.u.t.ter-ball," corroborated Miss Wadsworth, "before she comes to the table; they make her go without dessert, and they do not allow her to eat sugar on her oatmeal. They keep her exercising every moment, and when she complains to me, they punish her."
"I should think," the Dowager spoke with a touch of sarcasm, "that Irene were big enough to take care of herself."
"She has three against her," reminded Miss Lord.
"I called Patty to my room," said Miss Wadsworth, "and demanded an explanation. She told me that Mrs. Trent thought that Irene was too fat, and wished them to reduce her twenty pounds! Patty said that it was hard work, they were getting thin themselves, but they realized that they were seniors and must exert an influence over the school. I really think she was sincere. She talked very sweetly about moral responsibility, and the necessity of the older girls setting an example."
"It is her impudence," said Miss Lord, "that is so exasperating."
"That"s--just Patty!" the Dowager laughed. "I must confess that I find all three of them amusing. It"s good, healthy mischief and I wish there were more of it. They don"t bribe the maids to mail letters, or smuggle in candy, or flirt with the soda-water clerk. They at least can be trusted."
"Trusted!" gasped Miss Lord.
"To break every minor rule with cheerful unconcern," nodded the Dowager, "but never to do the slightest thing dishonorable. They have kind hearts and the girls all love them--"
A knock sounded on the door with startling suddenness, and before anyone could reply, the door burst open and Keren-happuch appeared on the threshold. She was clutching with one hand the folds of a brilliant j.a.panese kimono, the other she reserved for gestures. The kimono was sprinkled with fire-eating dragons as large as cats; and to the astonished spectators, Keren"s flushed face and disheveled hair seemed to carry out the decorative scheme. The Dowager"s private study was a sacred spot, reserved for interviews of formality; never had a pupil presented herself in such unceremonious garb.
"Keren!" cried Miss Wadsworth. "What has happened?"
"I want a new room-mate! I can"t stand Priscilla any longer. She"s been having a birthday party in my room--"
"A birthday party?" Mrs. Trent turned questioningly to Miss Wadsworth.