there were five bows of ribbon laid out in a row on tavia’s bureau, each with a cunning little collar of the same attached. pink, green—real apple green—mauve, tango and orange.
“what under the sun can she be doing with those?” murmured dorothy, when she chanced to see them, and touching the pretty bows lightly with her fingers. “why! tavia must be going to introduce a new style. are they ribbon bracelets? how pretty!”
it was the day following the hilarious arrival of “the bad pennies” at glenwood school, after the railroad bridge had burned and delayed them, and dorothy herself had met little celia moran, the girl from the “findling.”
mrs. pangborn had not yet arrived. she had been delayed by some family difficulty, it was understood, and really, for these first days of the new term, “things were going every which-way,” as tavia herself declared.
29 there was a new teacher in charge, too—miss olaine. miss olaine was tall, and thin, and grim. tavia declared she looked just like “a sign post on the road to trouble.”
“and you want to be careful you don’t fall under her eye, tavia,” cologne had advised. “the girls who have been here through the vacation say she’s a tartar.”
“humph!” the headstrong tavia had declared, “she may be the cream of tartar, for all i care. i shall take the starch out of her.”
now, had dorothy dale chanced to hear this reckless promise of her chum she might have been more suspicious of the five pretty ribbon bows. indeed, she would have been suspicious of every particular thing tavia said, or did.
but, as it chanced, miss olaine seemed no more harsh or forbidding to dorothy than any other teacher. dorothy was not one to antagonize the teachers, no matter who they might be.
“five bows,” murmured dorothy again. “i wonder just what they can be for? why, they’re too small, i do believe—those rings are—for tavia’s wrist—or mine.
“five of them! one for each finger of a hand—one for each of the ‘five senses,’ i declare!—one for each of jacob bensell’s young ones who live in the cottage down the road. there’s five of them.
30 “and there’s five cows in middleton’s pasture—though i don’t suppose tavia is going to decorate them. and there’s five cunning little pigs in jake’s pen—he showed them to me last night,” and dorothy laughed, as she touched the pretty bows again. “i can’t imagine——”
in bounced tavia herself. “oh, you here?” she cried, and went right over to the bureau and tumbled the five pretty ribbon bows into her top drawer and shut the drawer quickly.
“i got here just a minute ahead of you,” said dorothy.
“oh!”
“what are the cunning little wristlets for?” demanded dorothy, curiously.
“‘wristlets’?”
“you know what i mean. the ribbons?”
“oh—now—doro——”
“what are they for?” repeated dorothy.
“just to make curious folk ask questions, i guess,” chuckled tavia, her big brown eyes dancing, and just then several of the other girls tumbled into the room and there was so much noise and talk that dorothy quite forgot the ribbon bows.
“that old olaine is just the meanest——” from cologne.
“did you hear what she said to little luttrell when she couldn’t find her skates? and luttrell’s31 folks can’t buy her skates every day, i don’t believe,” declared ned ebony, hotly.
“did you hear her, doro?” demanded nita brent.
“no,” admitted dorothy dale.
“why, she told luttrell not to cry like a baby about it; probably somebody found them that needed them more than she did. nasty old——”
“hold on! hold on!” advised dorothy.
tavia laughed rather harshly. “miss olaine is just as comforting as the rooster was when mrs. hen was in tears because one of her little ones had been sacrificed to make a repast for the visiting clergyman.
“‘cheer up, madam,’ said mr. rooster. ‘you should rejoice that your son is entering the ministry. he was poorly qualified for a lay member, anyhow,’” and tavia laughed again, as did the others.
“oh, tavia, that’s ridiculous,” said cologne. “aren’t you sorry for little luttrell?”
“and don’t you just hate miss olaine?” demanded ebony.
“oh, you leave her to me,” said tavia, cheerfully. “we’ll get square with her if she stays at glenwood hall for long.”
“you would better have a care,” warned dorothy. “i don’t believe that the lady will stand much fooling, tavia.”
32 “‘fooling’?” repeated tavia, making “big eyes” at her chums. “how you talk! i would not fool with miss olaine——”
“i guess not,” cried one of the other girls. “i heard what she said to miss mingle.”
“what was that?”
“she said ‘she hoped she knew how to handle a lot of half-grown, saucy young-ones!’ doesn’t that sound nice?”
“us—young-ones!” gasped dorothy.
“what a slap at our dignity—and we to graduate in june,” said cologne, heavily. “i guess that settles miss olaine——”
“you leave her to me,” said tavia, again, and nodding with emphasis. “i shall just square things up with her.”
“oh, tavia!” cried edna black. “what will you do?”
“nothing at all, i hope,” interposed dorothy.
her chum began to giggle. “you just wait,” she said.
“do, do be careful,” warned dorothy when the other girls had gone some time later, leaving her and her chum alone in the dormitory.
“am i not always careful?” demanded tavia, opening her big eyes wider than ever.
“you’re usually careful to get into trouble,” sighed dorothy.
“oh, doro——”
33 “and see the numbers of times the rest of us have had to help you out.”
“you mean you have had to help me out. you’re a good old thing, doro—just like a grandma to me! come and kiss your youngest grandchild, doro—that’s a dear!”
“go away, do!” cried dorothy, though she had to laugh at tavia, too. “you are as irresponsible as ever.”
“of course, granny,” giggled tavia, as she put a wee dab of talcum powder on her nose.
“but don’t you dare do anything to make mrs. pangborn send you home before you are properly graduated,” warned dorothy.
“suspended from the glen? well, i guess not!” cried her friend.
but there was something in the air. dorothy knew it. nobody else seemed to be in the secret but tavia, however; and for tavia to have any secret at all from her chum——
well, dorothy could only wait. she was sure tavia “would show her hand” before long. but this time the prank was revealed to dorothy too late for the latter to save her fly-away friend from the results of her folly.
the next evening she saw tavia lurking in the shadow of the hedge down towards bensell’s place. was that jake’s oldest boy who ran away when dorothy approached?
34 “my goodness! how you startled me!” drawled tavia when dorothy pinched her chum’s plump arm.
“can’t you let them be in peace, tavia?” laughed dorothy, who knew very well that her chum had not been startled at all.
“what? oh! let who be in peace?” demanded tavia, and then dorothy, in amaze, knew her friend was startled.
“the boys. have you got to practice your fell designs on sammy bensell?”
“how ridiculous!” chuckled tavia, with a toss of her head, and plainly relieved. “poor sammy!”
and even then dorothy had not suspected the secret. tavia went back to the hall with her. everything seemed as calm as could be. and then, the next forenoon, when recitations began in miss olaine’s room, the storm broke.
behind the desk and platform devoted to the teacher’s use was the door of a little retiring room. soon after the class assembled there were peculiar noises heard in that room. miss olaine stood up and looked at the door.
“who is in that room, young ladies?” she demanded.
silence—oh, a great deal of silence! you could cut it with a knife.
and the most amazed-looking person in the35 room was tavia travers. miss olaine threw open the door with a savage sort of exclamation. the next instant she shrieked shrilly, and hopped into the seat of her own chair, standing upright there and holding her skirts close about her ankles.
“who did this? who did such an atrocious thing?” cried the teacher.
out of the room there ran a cunning little white and black pig—and then another, and another, until the laughing, half-hysterical girls counted five of the little dears.
each was scrubbed as clean as ever pig before was scrubbed! and their little pink eyes, and sharp noses, and pricked-up ears, and queer little tails, made the cunning little things as pretty as lapdogs.
“who’d suppose she was afraid of pigs?” edna black said afterward. “and they so cute!”
but miss olaine shrieked and shrieked, as the pigs, each with one of those beautiful ribbon bows at the back of its fat neck, ran around and around her chair and desk. the platform was so high that they were afraid to jump down, for they were not more than two spans long.
“oh, dear me!” groaned dorothy. “now tavia is in for it again,” for tavia looked altogether too innocent to escape suspicion.
