kitty came down the class-room aisle as jubilant and beaming, as if, outside, march winds and march rains were not having it all their own way.
“i’ve my subject for the sargent!” she announced to the little group gathered about one of the windows at the far end of the room.
“what is it?” debby asked.
“that’s telling,” kitty settled herself on the window-seat beside blue bonnet.
“i wish i had mine,” amanda sighed. “have you yours, blue bonnet?”
“i’m not going to write any.” blue bonnet felt a swift relief in this sudden settling of the question, once for all. she didn’t want to even hear about the sargent just then. she wanted to get out in the rain, to battle with the wind and storm, instead of watching it here from the window. but there wouldn’t be any good in getting out for the little while recess lasted. it must have been someone like the founder of the sargent prize who had settled on half-hour recesses.
“not going to try!” susy exclaimed, wonderingly. “but we’re all going to, blue bonnet!”
313 “probably.”
“it’s the—the proper thing to do, you know,” ruth added.
“ruth’s poaching on your ground, sarah!” kitty remarked.
blue bonnet twisted the end of her long braid impatiently. “that’s one reason why i am not going to try! there are so many ‘proper things’ to be done here in woodford.”
“don’t you worry, my dear,” kitty observed; “no one’s likely to mistake you for a true, bred-in-the-bone woodfordite—yet awhile.”
“you’ll be the only one of the ‘we are seven’s’ not trying, blue bonnet,” ruth protested.
“that’ll be something. anyhow, only one girl can get it, out of the whole class.”
“that’s what makes it so jolly if one does win!” kitty explained.
“i think it would be horrid, winning it away from everyone else!” blue bonnet declared. “and if one didn’t win—that would be horrid too.”
“but,” sarah said slowly, “even if one doesn’t win the prize, won’t it be better, for one’s self, i mean, to know one has tried?”
“it is better to have tried and lost,
than never tried at all.”
kitty chanted.
sarah looked grave; “i don’t think you should parody those lines, kitty!”
314 kitty wrinkled up her pert little nose. “don’t you, sallykins? then i won’t—until the next time they come in handy.”
“kitty, be good!” ruth urged.
“‘and let who will, be clever,’” debby added. “has anyone heard how mademoiselle is? will she be able to come to-day?”
“she’s worse!” ruth said, “i asked this morning.”
all but sarah and amanda—who were not taking french—groaned. it was wednesday,—french day,—and it would make the third time running that mademoiselle had had to be absent. it would also mean monsieur hugo again.
“it’s very provoking, how the wrong persons will go and get sick,” debby sighed. “no one would have minded monsieur hugo getting the grip!”
“as if he could ever really substitute for mademoiselle lamotte,” susy protested—the class adored mademoiselle. “we haven’t had a decent recitation with him yet.”
“it’s all his fault!” debby insisted; “he’s so cross and so—polite. i mean it,” she added, as the rest laughed, “i don’t know whether to call it crossly polite, or politely cross. one could stand either of them alone—but together!”
“my prophetic soul warns me that there are breakers ahead!” kitty said.
315 and that afternoon, catching sight of monsieur through the half-open door, she leaned forward to whisper to blue bonnet, who sat just in front, “i’ve discovered what he’s like—he looks as though he had been brought up on his own irregular verbs and they hadn’t agreed with him.”
“wouldn’t you have wanted them to?” blue bonnet laughed back.
“katherine! elizabeth!” miss fellows said, adding that the french class were to go to their recitation-room at once.
“she should have said—the class in french,” debby commented, slipping into place behind blue bonnet and kitty, “poor monsieur, i’m rather sorry for him.”
“i’m letting pity begin at home!” kitty returned, as the three retired modestly to the back row, leaving the front seats for hester manly and what kitty called, “the other stars.”
“the class will come to order!” monsieur was looking straight at the back row; he had very keen eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
that was a truly awful half-hour for more than one member of the class.
monsieur did not in the least understand “the youth american,” and had even less sympathy with what he considered his present pupils’ inexcusable lack of preparation.
extremely polite in voice and manner, but possessing316 to a marked degree the gift of sarcasm, his methods were so dissimilar from those of their beloved mademoiselle—who had the knack of extracting answers from the most unpromising pupil—that the majority of the class soon gave up trying to make even a creditable showing; deciding, apparently, that endurance—and dumb endurance at that—was the only course left them.
his polite request that they should not all endeavor to reply at once, they obeyed to the letter.
“he’s only a ‘sub,’ anyhow,” kitty reminded blue bonnet.
blue bonnet’s face was crimson; he was too hateful—she shouldn’t try to answer another single question.
monsieur was on his feet by now, walking back and forth before the class, gesticulating nervously, shrugging impatiently; was it possible that he had made the mistake—that they were not the class in french after all? or was it that they took not the interest in his language? he was there to instruct, to hear the recitations, to correct the pronunciation, mais—
all of which, poured out in rapid french, did not help matters any.
“we go now to make the attempt further,” he opened the book again. “mademoiselle,” he fixed his glance on hester, “will kindly translate.”
hester did her best, which was not so bad after317 what had gone before, and for a few moments peace descended on the room. but hester giving place presently to her next neighbor, a boy who was only taking french because another fellow had said it was a whole lot easier than german, trouble began once more.
“that will do!” monsieur closed his book. “it is incomprehensible—the badness of it!” he looked from one to another of the faces before him, some flushed, some indifferent, some sullen, and some genuinely distressed. “we will call it the failure—all complete. you comprehend that? the failure for each! for the next time, we take the same lesson. moi, i do not permit myself the hope that it will go better, i have not the room for hope left—only the amazement, indescribable. the class is dismissed.”
three minutes after general dismission that afternoon, an indignation meeting was held in that same little recitation-room.
“he’s an old—” kitty’s gesture, borrowed from monsieur, filled out her sentence.
“at least, he didn’t show any partiality—when it came to compliments,” one of the boys laughed.
“some of us did fail,” ruth began.
“we did,” the other cut in.
“but not all—hester and some of the rest did all right; it wasn’t fair, giving them failures too.”
“maybe,” another boy suggested, “he was trying318 to strike the general average. i say—wouldn’t mademoiselle have been proud of us!”
“i’ll never, never recite to him again!” debby declared.
“has any one accused you of reciting this afternoon?” her brother billy asked.
“nor will i!” kitty exclaimed.
“listen—everybody!” billy jumped up on to one of the benches. “let’s take a vote on it—here and now! supposing—which the fates forbid!—monsieur hugo should again—present himself in the capacity of substitute for mademoiselle, will the class cut class in a body?—or will it not?”
“it will!” one of his mates answered promptly.
for a few moments confusion reigned supreme; then one of the older boys, deposing billy, not too gently, succeeded in getting the attention of the rest. “it is hereby resolved, and so forth,” he said. “those in favor—kindly signify in the usual manner! the ayes have it! majority rules.”
“oh, dear,” one of the girls said anxiously, “i hope he doesn’t come again.”
“i don’t,” kitty insisted, “i’d just like to show him—”
“but,” blue bonnet said, as the club members went downstairs together—all except sarah and amanda, “wouldn’t it be a great deal simpler to go tell mr. hunt that you didn’t want that monsieur hugo again?”
319 kitty stopped to stare at her. “bless the child’s ignorance! i’d like to see any of us doing it!”
“i wouldn’t mind—truly,” blue bonnet answered.
kitty turned on her almost fiercely; “you’d better not, blue bonnet ashe! this is a class affair—don’t you forget that!”
“well,” ruth said thoughtfully, “it is to be hoped mademoiselle is able to come friday; we’ll be in pretty hot water if she isn’t.”
blue bonnet was looking perplexed; school life seemed full of unexpected pitfalls. “i suppose,” she questioned, “that cutting class is considered pretty bad?”
“we sha’n’t exactly expect rewards of merit for doing it,” debby answered.
“which way did you vote, blue bonnet?” kitty asked, sharply.
“i didn’t vote; before i really understood what it was you were all going to do, billy told me it was quite settled.”
“it doesn’t matter,” kitty said; “of course, you’ll go with the class; unless—”
“unless?” blue bonnet repeated.
kitty laughed. “unless you want to be jolly uncomfortable afterwards.”
“we’re all of us likely to be that,” ruth said hurriedly, as blue bonnet’s color rose. “oh, i’m not backing out—so you needn’t look at me in320 that tone of voice, kitty! but i’ve got sense enough not to look forward with any pleasure to a tussle with the powers that be.”
“the powers that be shouldn’t have sent such a horrid substitute!” debby insisted.
contrary to her usual habit, blue bonnet did not go into the sitting-room on reaching home, but straight on up to her own room. curling herself up in the window-seat overlooking the bare, rain-swept garden, she tried to think things over; knowing all the while that for her there was no choice.
“i am going to put you on your honor not to disobey in this fashion again; and so try to conform more carefully to all the rules of the school.” the words had been running through her mind all the way home.
she had promised.
the girls would think that she was—blue bonnet moved restlessly; they must think what they would. oh, why had mademoiselle gone and got the grip! if it had not been for what kitty had said about it’s being a class affair, she could have gone to mr. hunt and asked him to release her from her promise. he would have understood. he had understood perfectly that morning; and been so kind.
“solomon,” she said wearily, as he came rubbing against her, asking reproachfully why she had left321 it for him to find out that she had got home, “solomon, old chap, we’re up against it!”
solomon jumped up beside her, sticking his cold nose under her soft chin.
“if it isn’t one thing, it’s another, at school, solomon,” she told him. “be mighty thankful you don’t have to go to school, sir.”
it was a very sober blue bonnet who came down at last to the sitting-room, where grandmother and aunt lucinda waited anxiously, aunt lucinda being of blue bonnet’s own mind—that if it were not one thing, it was apt to be another.
“did you get wet, dear?” grandmother asked.
“not to amount to anything.” blue bonnet dropped down on the lounge, looking as if life were all at once too much for her.
“has anything gone wrong at school, my dear?” her aunt asked.
“i should rather think there had! but i can’t tell you about it, aunt lucinda; because it’s what kitty calls—‘a class affair.’”
grandmother and aunt lucinda looked relieved; there was safety in numbers; but blue bonnet, lying back among the cushions, watched the little flames opposite dance and flicker, with troubled eyes.
they had all taken it for granted that she would act with them, and when she did not—
it would spoil everything, the club good times—everything.322 blue bonnet sprang up and went to her practising; mademoiselle must come on friday! surely she would be well enough by then.
it was just before supper that alec ran over to return a book; he found blue bonnet alone in the back parlor.
“you did have a lively time this afternoon,” he said. “no, i can’t wait to sit down. i must go right back.”
“alec, did you ever cut class?” blue bonnet asked.
“no, but—”
“then you would, if—”
“i’d stand by my class, naturally. i hope there won’t be any ifs. i’m not ’round looking up trouble.”
“i think school is—hateful!”
“halloa! why only the other day you were—”
“the other day was the other day; to-day is—different.”
“what’s up?—this business of monsieur hugo? he must be a wonder!”
“i hate french!”
“or one particular frenchman?” alec laughed.
“i wish i’d taken german.”
alec looked puzzled; blue bonnet couldn’t be af—, he broke the word off hastily. why, he had expected to find her ready and eager to seize the323 chance to throw her gauntlet with the rest, with all her usual disregard of consequences.
“mademoiselle’ll be on hand, you’ll see,” he said, trying not to show his surprise, but blue bonnet felt the change in his voice. he would think her afraid, too. none of them would understand.
“i’ve decided on my sargent,” he added, as if glad to change the subject.
“have you?” blue bonnet’s pretense at interest was not very successful. “everybody seems to be getting their subjects. i’m glad i’m not trying. what is yours?”
“it’s a secret—remember?”
“i can keep secrets, and—promises.”
alec looked at her, wonderingly, caught by something in her voice. “i’m going to write up about some of the earlier sargent winners—not the famous ones, they’ve been done to death, but some of the poor chaps who didn’t go on winning prizes. it won’t be easy, getting at the necessary facts.”
“it sounds interesting,” blue bonnet said.
she went with him to the door. the rain had stopped and over in the west the clouds had taken on a touch of sunset color. the wind had changed; it blew fresh and cool against blue bonnet’s face.
“it’s going to clear, isn’t it?” she asked.
alec nodded.
324 blue bonnet’s spirits rose; it was going to clear—everything would come out right, after all.
but when friday came, mademoiselle, though better, was still unable to come to her classes.
“mind,” debby warned blue bonnet at recess, “that you take your books home at noon. we often do on fridays, so it won’t be noticed.”
blue bonnet, making a pretense at studying, looked up, questioningly. “why?”
“we only have drawing and french friday afternoons; and we sha’n’t be coming back to our room after french to-day. one doesn’t cut class and then walk back to her place like a good little girl.”
“i suppose not,” blue bonnet said. she must tell them, it wasn’t fair not to. “but i am not—going to cut class.”
it was kitty who broke the short silence that followed. “blue bonnet ashe, do you mean that?”
“yes,” blue bonnet answered. she—would tell them why. she couldn’t bear to have them think her—not loyal.
“maybe,” kitty’s gray eyes were full of scorn. “maybe you have taken french longer than we have, but you certainly do not seem to have learned the meaning of ‘esprit de corps’! perhaps they don’t teach that sort of thing—out in texas!”
blue bonnet drew back as if struck, her face325 white. she would never tell them her reason now! they could think what they liked. she would never speak to kitty clark again!
“kitty, how can you!” debby cried. “blue bonnet! surely you don’t mean that you—”
“will you please go away!” blue bonnet broke in.
“i hope you don’t think we intend staying?” kitty answered. “perhaps you are wise not to risk being sent to mr. hunt a second time.”
one swift, upward flash, blue bonnet could not help, then she sat quite still looking down at the book lying open on the desk before her, with unseeing eyes. she was determined that she would not cry.
it seemed as if noontime would never come; she hated the big, busy schoolroom and—everybody in it; at least, nearly everybody! girls were—detestable. a boy wouldn’t have said a thing like that. if uncle cliff could know how mean kitty had been. one thing was sure—they could never be friends again.
“my dear,” mrs. clyde asked, as blue bonnet came in to lunch, “what has happened?”
blue bonnet tossed her coat and hat on to the lounge, and pushed back her hair from her hot face. “everything has happened!”
“my dear—”
“and i can’t tell you what it is, grandmother.326 i wish i’d never seen the old academy! i can’t think how anyone likes going to school!”
“but i hoped that the trouble was over, blue bonnet.”
“it’s only just begun!”
“then i am afraid that i shall have to ask questions, dear.”
“i couldn’t answer them—yet. please, grandmother, need i bother with lunch? i’m not hungry.”
but mrs. clyde was firm on that point; blue bonnet must eat a proper lunch if she wanted to go back to school.
“i don’t want to,” she said, with a little laugh; “only i’ve just got to, or they would think—” blue bonnet hurried through her luncheon in a way aunt lucinda, had she been there, would hardly have countenanced; but when it was over, she lingered in the garden with solomon until there was barely time to get back to school.
there, she went straight to her desk, trying not to see the little group gathered about debby’s seat, and scarcely answering sarah’s remark about the club-meeting to-morrow.
sarah would think it was her duty to be just the same as usual, but she didn’t want “duty friendliness.” good; miss fellows was going to ring for order right now.
blue bonnet was glad that drawing followed327 immediately; one didn’t have to answer questions in drawing, and there was a chance to think. though in this case, thinking only meant going over and over the same old road and winding up each time at the same high, blank wall. once, glancing up unexpectedly, she found ruth looking at her in a wonder that was half reproach.
blue bonnet dropped her pencil on to the desk and turned to the window. ruth loved law and order as she did not, and yet ruth was prepared to act in open defiance of both, in obedience to that intangible something called “class spirit.”
blue bonnet stared at the soft, fleecy clouds piling themselves up like great, white snow-drifts. was she wrong after all?
and then the clouds sent her thoughts back to that night on the pond, to the long, weary tramp afterwards through real snow-drifts. was this, after all, another sort of dare? were they—all those others, consciously or unconsciously, daring her now to break her promise?
but “living straight and true” could never mean breaking one’s word.
“miss elizabeth!” the drawing-master laid a hand on her book; he intended criticizing rather sharply her work, or, rather, lack of work, but the face she turned towards him disarmed him.
“why, you are not even doing your second best,” he said, with a smile.
328 “i beg your pardon, mr. post,” she answered.
“we are not studying cloud effects to-day, you know,” he suggested.
“i was thinking about—something.” blue bonnet took up her pencil again; fifteen minutes more and—
debby was signaling to her, doing it rather openly, too. blue bonnet shook her head, impatiently. why wouldn’t they let her alone?
“that will do for to-day,” she heard mr. post say at last.
five minutes later, she found herself out in the corridor with the other members of the french class. billy, making elaborate motions to the rest to be very cautious, was leading the way towards the back stairs; his start of surprise when blue bonnet took the turn to the little recitation-room beyond, oddly enough, was one of the hardest things about the whole affair for her. it said so plainly that she was the last girl he would have expected to go back on them.
“blue bonnet,”—susy, risking detection, had slipped after her, putting a hand into hers,—“blue bonnet, you don’t understand!”
“yes, i do,” blue bonnet faced about, meeting squarely the surprise, scorn, indignation, and incredulity, in those fourteen pairs of eyes. “i understand perfectly.”
329 a moment more and she had closed the door of the recitation-room behind her.
monsieur was not there yet. from the open window came a sound of muffled laughter, suddenly hushed; the class had reached the yard.
monsieur was coming now. blue bonnet went over to her usual place; it didn’t matter if he were cross, nothing mattered—now that she was really started along the dismal road leading to that dreary land called coventry,—a land that in the old texas days she had never dreamed of even sighting.
then the door opened; but it was not monsieur who entered. blue bonnet caught her breath at sight of mr. hunt.
“good afternoon, elizabeth,” he said, his quick glance taking in the empty places; “i am sorry to have kept you waiting. i am taking mademoiselle’s place to-day.”
“monsieur hugo is not coming?”
“no—he is not coming.” mr. hunt opened the book in his hand. “the lesson is—? or suppose,” he glanced again at blue bonnet’s face, “suppose we do not take up the regular lesson this afternoon—but have a little conversation—in french, of course—instead?”
it was the shortest french recitation the old room had ever seen. and it is to be feared that even then the teacher did most of the “conversing.”
330 when it was over, and they were leaving the room together, mr. hunt laid a hand for a moment on blue bonnet’s shoulder. “they teach you how to keep promises out in your beloved texas, it would seem,” he said.
blue bonnet looked up gratefully; at least, he understood why she had come.
once at home, and there had been no tarrying along the way that afternoon, she made straight for her room. there mrs. clyde found her, lying face down on the bed, shaken with sobs, while a much distressed small dog did his best to console her.
sitting down beside the bed, grandmother drew the story from her. “i had to do it!” blue bonnet sobbed. “but the girls think—if you knew what kitty said!”
“and i am not to know everything, even yet?” mrs. clyde stroked the tumbled hair lovingly.
“uncle cliff says repeating things like that only makes them worse.”
“he is quite right, dear; but in this case—”
“if i do repeat them, i’ll only feel angrier with her than ever—and that’s useless!” blue bonnet dabbed her wet eyes. “everything’s spoiled now. oh, dear, if i just hadn’t run away those times last fall, i could have—”
“disobeyed the rules now?” grandmother suggested.
331 “grandmother! wouldn’t you have gone with your class?”
for a moment, mrs. clyde said nothing, there was a far-away look in her eyes; then she smiled softly. “i suppose i should have, because once i—did. but i had not promised. it makes me very proud and glad, dear, that you kept yours in spite of so much pressure from within, as well as without. and everything is not spoiled, you will see.”
blue bonnet sat up. “i’m glad it’s friday! only i wish to-morrow were not club day.”
“to-morrow isn’t here yet,” grandmother answered. “suppose you go give this forlorn little object a run in the garden. he is sharing in all the unhappiness, without understanding what it is about.”
“dogs never go back on one.” blue bonnet gave solomon an affectionate squeeze.
“nor grandmothers,” mrs. clyde said.
“that’s one of the things that goes without saying,” blue bonnet answered. a good romp with solomon helped to restore her spirits; it did not seem, after all, as if things could stay very wrong in such a world of march wind and sunshine.
the sight of alec coming towards her across the lawn brought the doubts back. what would he think?
“halloa!” alec called, cheerily, and blue bonnet,332 suddenly on the alert, could detect no change in his manner. but perhaps he didn’t know.
alec knew, and inwardly was much perplexed; however, where one did not understand—in the case of a friend like blue bonnet—one must go by faith. she had some good reason, no doubt about it.
“look here,” he said, “i’ve evolved a capital scheme—i think i shall take up the profession of furnishing ideas to the needy. i’ve ’phoned in town, and secured a box, and to-morrow the club and one or two other persons are to be my guests at the jolliest matinée of the jolliest play of the season. grandfather’s going to chaperon us. he makes the best chaperon going—being at heart very much of a boy,—that’s a way they have in the army. what do you say?”
“i can’t say—anything,” blue bonnet’s lips were trembling.
