Lois descended to the floor and surveyed the two banners.
"No, we can"t," she said decidedly. "Mine goes better with the room than yours, don"t you think?" she asked, after a pause, with just a little too much show at indifference.
"No, I don"t." Polly"s reply was prompt. "Color scheme doesn"t matter to me anyway, but Bob"s flag is going up somewhere."
Fortunately, at this moment Betty burst into the room.
"News, good news," she exclaimed. "The Art teacher has just arrived and I"ve met her. She"s a duck. h.e.l.lo, what"s the matter?" she inquired, suddenly interrupting herself. "Is this flag day, and do you really mean you are going to hang both those banners?"
"No, we"re not," Lois answered, and Polly laughed.
"The trouble is, Bet, we can"t decide which one we will hang. Lo, of course, with her artistic ideas, thinks the orange would go better with the browns of the rug and screen, and I want my Harvard banner up through sentiment. Bob gave it to me and he"ll probably make the track this year and anyway, he"s Lois" brother and she"s always been for Harvard until Frank decided on Princeton and gave her that." Polly gazed with resentment on the banner and Lois both.
"Did Frank give Lo that? Jemima! I didn"t know they were such good friends."
Frank Preston was a cousin of Louise Preston, an old Seddon Hall girl Lois and Polly had met him three summers before, while they were visiting Louise, and Lois and he had kept up the friendship ever since.
"Of course he gave it to me, and Polly you know he had a thousand and one good reasons for going to Princeton. Harvard is not the only college."
"Only one I"d go to if I were a boy," Polly answered airily. "But what will we do? I can"t hold this up all day."
Betty had a sudden inspiration.
"I"ll tell you," she announced. "Take turns, Poll, you put yours up this week and Lo can have hers next, and there you are." She looked proud at having solved the difficulty.
"Bet, you"re a genius!" Polly exclaimed, and Lois added her quota of praise.
"Put yours up first, Poll," she said.
But Polly protested.
"No, yours is up already; leave it, and mine can go up next week." So it was decided.
"Now, stop work and let"s talk," Betty suggested. "Haven"t you anything to eat?"
"Jam, crackers and peanut b.u.t.ter in the window box," Lois told her. "Get them out and tell us about the Art teacher; I"m going to go on hanging pictures."
"Well, she"s a duck, I told you that, and an old friend of Mrs. Baird; her first name is Janet. I was standing in the hall when she arrived and I carried her bag to her room. She has the one next to the Spartan"s, poor soul!"
"Well how do you know she"s nice?" Polly insisted.
"Because she"s something like Mrs. Baird."
"Oh, well, of course that"s enough; she couldn"t be just as nice."
"No, naturally not. There"s only one Mrs. Baird, which reminds me--there"s a young child"--Betty said the words with emphasis--"A Freshman, I think, who needs serious attention. I heard her fussing to-day; something was wrong and she said "Mrs. Baird made her sick.""
Lois looked horrified, but Polly only shrugged her shoulders.
"She won"t last long," she said indifferently, and Betty felt ashamed of having bothered to give the child a lecture.
"When do we have a Cla.s.s meeting?" she asked, to change the subject.
"We"ve got to do something about the welcome dance."
"Why not now?" Lois stopped hammering. "Let"s get the Seniors all in here."
It was only a matter of a few minutes before this was accomplished, for Betty went to rout them out.
Angela came first to be followed by the two Dorothys, then Mildred Weeks and Evelin Hatfield, two girls who had come to Seddon Hall the year before. Betty followed them.
"Everybody here?" she asked. "Don"t you think we"d better elect officers first off? Then some one will be able to start things. Here"s some paper," she added, tearing off sheets and pa.s.sing them around.
But things were not to run so smoothly. One of the Dorothys rose to protest.
"Don"t you think it would be more formal if we held a real meeting in one of the cla.s.srooms with Mrs. Baird there," she said. "Then we could have a ballot box and do the thing properly."
Polly and Lois exchanged glances. The Dorothys had always been dissenting voices ever since Freshman days.
Betty tore her hair in secret behind the wardrobe.
It was Angela"s slow drawl that settled the question.
"It would be more formal," she agreed, "but what would be the use? Mrs.
Baird is much too busy to come, the cla.s.srooms are always stuffy after school and besides, we couldn"t take the jam along, it"s against the rules."
Mildred and Evelin, who had been rather inclined to favor the Dorothys, were won over by this and the point was carried.
The meeting stayed where it was and the vote was cast. Lois was elected President; Angela, Treasurer; Betty, Editor of the school paper; and Polly, Secretary. When the congratulations were over they started with their plans for the welcome dance.
"Do let"s have it different," beseeched Betty. "Last year it was awful.
All the new girls cried and there wasn"t enough ice cream."
"How can we make it different? There"s nothing to do but dance." Dot Mead protested. She was not altogether happy over the election.
"Let"s make more of a feature of the new girls," Mildred said shyly.
"Last year I know Evelin and I felt awfully out of it. Couldn"t we--"
"You"ve hit the nail on the head," Polly exclaimed. "We"ll find some new idea of doing things so that the new girls will really feel it"s their dance. Everybody think."
While these preparations were going on in the Senior Alley--another meeting, less important in character, but equally heated as to discussion, was raging in Freshman Lane.
Jane Ramsey, who had been at Seddon Hall for three years in the lower school and had at last reached the dignity of Freshman, was giving an admiring group of new girls some advice.
There were five of them, Catherine and Helen Clay, two sisters--Catherine a Freshman and Helen a Soph.o.m.ore, Winifred Hayes, another Soph.o.m.ore, and Phylis Guile. Phylis Guile could hardly be cla.s.sed with the rest of the new girls. Her big sister Florence, who had been a Senior three years before, had told her all about Seddon Hall, and the thought of going anywhere else had never entered her head. She knew so much about everything, that Jane, whose ideas of being a Freshman meant having a chum, took to her at once, and they vowed eternal friendship.
Jane, whose hair was black, almost as black as her eyes, contrasted strangely with Phylis" dazzling fairness. At present, they were doing most of the talking.
"Do the new girls vote for Captain too?" Phylis asked. "Florence has told me of course, but I"ve forgotten."