“two of the girls shut up in the little dressing-room? and the key missing? suppose there should be a fire, miss olaine?”
mrs. pangborn had just arrived. she had not even removed her bonnet, only untied its strings. and she sat with her feet on the fender of the open fire place where the gaslog burned in the office. it was a half hour after midnight and glenwood hall was supposed to be as silent as the tomb at that time.
“i thought of that. it is a trick,” said the dark teacher, hastily, and wringing her hands together in the peculiar way she had. it showed that miss olaine was a very nervous person.
“how do you mean—a trick?” asked the principal, quietly.
“some person in league with the two girls removed the key, of course. i am sure it was done so as to keep me out while they ate forbidden food.”
62 “but did they not have their supper?”
“bread and milk; quite enough for them.”
“and for luncheon? you say they were shut into the room in the forenoon.”
“i—i thought it would bring them to terms quicker. a little fast surely would not hurt them,” said miss olaine, hesitatingly.
“perhaps not,” agreed mrs. pangborn, after a moment of silence, but looking at her new assistant in rather a curious way. “however, i do not approve of corporal punishment——”
“corporal punishment!”
“yes. underfeeding must come under that head,” said mrs. pangborn, but with a laugh. “and you think they somehow tricked you and got more supper than you intended?”
“i am positive. i have been to the pantry. that door should be locked——”
“oh, no!” cried the principal. “i never lock things away from my girls.”
“a mistake, mrs. pangborn,” declared the assistant, with growing confidence. “youth is naturally treacherous.”
“oh, my dear miss olaine!” exclaimed the principal of glenwood. “i am sorry your experience has led to that belief. mine has not—and it has the advantage of yours in extent of time,” and she smiled again.
“i am sure, miss olaine, you and i are going63 to get on beautifully; but you do not understand my girls.”
“i understand both of these i have shut up——”
“thank goodness there is a master-key to all the doors right here on my ring,” interrupted mrs. pangborn, shaking the jingling bunch of keys. “in a moment—as soon as my feet are warm—we will go and let those poor girls out and send them to bed.”
“mrs. pangborn! you evidently do not consider the serious nature of the offense,” cried miss olaine, again wringing her bony hands, her eyes flashing.
“no. true. i did not ask you. what happened?”
miss olaine told her story—all about the pigs, and her fright, and dorothy being disobedient, and defying her, as miss olaine said. but she neglected to call either culprit by name.
“i did not expect insurrection to begin so quickly, miss olaine,” said the principal, gravely. “and i gather from your statement that two of my girls—— they belong to the upper class, you say?”
“yes, mrs. pangborn. young ladies old enough——”
“and their names?”
“misses travers and dale.”
64 “tavia travers!” gasped the older lady. “of course! who else would have invented such a perfectly ridiculous thing as introducing pigs into the school room?”
“i knew you would be amazed, madam.”
“not at all,” the principal hastened to say. “nothing tavia ever does surprises me. but the other—not dorothy dale?”
“yes, miss dale.”
“oh, miss olaine! there must be some mistake there. i know dorothy so well,” said mrs. pangborn, gravely. “the two are always together; but i am sure that whatever dorothy told you was true. and tavia, too, for that matter.”
“i am positive they were endeavoring to mislead me. and they would not tell who had helped them, or who else was in the plot to put those pigs in this house——”
“miss olaine!” gasped mrs. pangborn, suddenly. “that is something i forgot to speak of when i went away in such a hurry the day after you came to glenwood.”
“what is that?” asked the surprised assistant.
“i never ask one of my girls to tell on another. they are all on honor, here. i do not expect any girl to play the spy. indeed, i punish severely only those who show such a tendency. you were wrong to expect either of those girls to give any information which might lead to trouble for their65 schoolmates. whereas, if they say nobody else was aware of the prank——”
“miss travers refuses to admit that she had any help at all.”
“if she says it is her own performance, you may believe it is so.”
“oh, i do not believe in giving such latitude to mere school girls,” declared miss olaine, and now she was quite heated again.
mrs. pangborn looked at her seriously. “you have much to learn yet, i fear, miss olaine,” she said, quietly. “reports of your erudition and management of studies in a great public school urged me to engage you as my assistant; but you must be guided by me in the management of my girls—that is sure.
“you might have known that shutting a girl like tavia travers into that little room would be no real punishment. she would merely put on her thinking cap and endeavor to bring about something that would make you look the more ridiculous.”
“mrs. pangborn!”
“yes. and she has succeeded in doing so; hasn’t she?”
“how would you have had me punish her?” demanded miss olaine, reddening under the principal’s rather stern eye.
“oh, that is another matter!” and the older66 woman laughed. “a punishment to fit the crime is rather difficult to invent in tavia’s case. i believe i should have demanded from her an exhaustive composition upon swine, from the earliest mention of the beast in history, down through all the ages to and including the packing-house age. i would have made tavia industrious, and perhaps taught her something.
“as for dorothy—— well, you have quite mistaken her character, miss olaine. she is the soul of truth, and while she may have been loyal to her friend, that should not be considered a crime; should it?
“let us go now and interview the culprits. and, if you agree, i think they have both had punishment enough. suppose you tell them to go to their room and that they will not be expected to appear at prayers or breakfast to-morrow morning. i do not approve of my girls losing their beauty sleep.”
and that is why dorothy and tavia got out of their difficulty so easily. they didn’t understand it—just then. but dorothy suspected and she knew that mrs. pangborn was far too wise to give them an opportunity to openly face miss olaine and have judgment rendered accordingly.
“but i dislike her just the same,” whispered dorothy.
67 “of course we do! and she’ll try to catch us again——”
“then behave, tavia. the whole trouble started with your trying to plague her,” declared her friend.
“well! i—like—that,” murmured tavia in a tone that showed she did not like it, at all. “just you wait, doro. we haven’t heard the last of this. old olaine will just be waiting for half a chance to pounce on us again.”
dorothy did not get at what she was looking for in the directory until the afternoon of the next day. then she was very careful to ask permission to go to the office for reference.
she found the name and address of the secretary of the bridge builders’ union, and she wrote that afternoon asking about tom moran. she explained just why she wanted to learn about him, and his whereabouts, and tried to put before the person she wrote to the pitiful history of celia moran in a way that might engage his interest.
dorothy had told nobody about celia—not even tavia. of course her chum would have been interested in the child from the “findling” and her lost brother. but just now—at the beginning of the term—there really was so much going on at glenwood that aside from the hours that they spent in their imprisonment, the two friends had very little time to talk together.
68 this last half-year at glenwood was bound to be a very busy one. some studies in which dorothy was proficient tavia did not stand so well in, and vice versa. they had to study very hard, and when tavia “broke out” as she was bound to do every little while, it seemed absolutely necessary that she “let off steam.”
mrs. pangborn understood, and so did the older teachers. but miss olaine was naturally a martinet, and she was very nervous and irritable in the bargain. she could not overlook the least exuberance of schoolgirl enthusiasm.
so, inside of a week, tavia was “conditioned.” each black mark that she had against her in deportment had to be “worked off” before the end of the half, or she could not graduate.
and in seeking to shield her chum again from the consequences of her folly, dorothy found herself conditioned, too. mrs. pangborn demanded her presence in the office, and for almost the first time in her career at glenwood, dorothy dale found herself at odds with the kind principal of the school.
“i am sure i have been here long enough for you to know me quite well, mrs. pangborn,” she said, with some heat, to the good lady who loved her. “have i changed so much, do you think? nobody else reports me but miss olaine——”
“you are changing every day, my dear. we69 all are,” said the principal, firmly. “but i do not believe your heart has changed, dorothy dale. unfortunately miss olaine’s manner made all you older girls dislike her at the start. but have you stopped to think that perhaps there is something in her life—some trouble, perhaps—that makes her nervous and excitable?”
“well—but—we——”
“you have never before been uncharitable,” smiled mrs. pangborn. “try and bear patiently with miss olaine. if you knew all about her you would pity her condition, i am sure. no! i cannot tell you. it is not my secret, my dear. but try to understand her better—and do, dorothy, keep tavia within bounds!”
the principal knew that this line of pleading would win over dorothy dale every time!
