Back at School with the Tucker Twins Part 4

Gresham, October 15, 19--

My dearest Father:

We are having the most interesting course in English and I feel that I am really going to learn a whole lot about writing. I am glad I have read all my life, but I find that I have not half taken in what I have read. Miss Ball is teaching me to a.n.a.lyze the things I like best. She reads beautifully and gets meaning out of poetry without ruining the metre. She doesn't elocute (I hate that) but she has a full rich voice and her reading is just like music. She has us write a daily theme, any kind of snap-shot that suits us to write about--something we have seen or might have seen. It is awful funny what different things we choose. Dum always has descriptions of sunsets and moonrises and figures against the sky--how things look, in fact. Dee is great on animal stories, sick kittens and kindly beasts and abused horses and lame ducks. Mary usually gets a comic twist to her stories and has people falling off ladders and upsetting the ink and sitting down in the glue, etc. Annie is rather sentimental and wishy-washy in her compositions, willowy maidens in the moonlight with garlands of flowers. She is fond of using such expressions as: "Hark! From out the stillness," and "A dark and lonesome tarn."

She is rather Laura Jean Libbyish I think. As for me, I always want to write about people, no difference what kind of people, old or young, black or white, rich or poor,--just so they are people. I made a real good little sketch of Christmas morning at Bracken. I described our going out with the colt and leaving Christmas cheer at the cabins, making an especial feature of Aunt Keziah, the "Tender." Miss Ball liked that a lot and wants me to do some more of our neighbours. I am dying to do Sally Winn, but somehow I am afraid she might know about it some day and it would hurt her feelings so. I think her character would be a very interesting one to write about. I may use her and put her in such a different environment that she would not know herself in broad day-light. Miss Ball is very complimentary about my efforts and I feel so encouraged. She is not a bit of a purist and thinks more of a good thought forcefully put than of a slip in the way of a split infinitive.

We are having a right strenuous time getting out of sc.r.a.pes. I have never been so unruly in my life, but somehow our new princ.i.p.al makes you want to break rules. I believe it is because she doesn't trust girls, and the consequence is we all of us feel like giving her something to cry about since she is going to raise a rumpus whether we do or don't. She is a mighty poor judge of human nature if she thinks any of our quintette could lie; but she doesn't believe us on oath. We argue that if she thinks we do things when we don't, we might just as well do them, since they are, after all, not really wicked things. There is nothing very bad about creeping out of your warm bed at midnight and flying down a cold hall to a cla.s.s room, where you will meet other girls just out of their warm beds and when there you will, through smothered giggles, eat burnt fudge made on a fire surrept.i.tiously kindled behind the barn, when you were supposed to be piously engaged in darning stockings in the mending cla.s.s. I don't know just what the fun is, but it certainly is fun. The best fun is scaring the night watchman, who is an Irishman and horribly superst.i.tious. He is afraid of ghosts and when he spies a flitting white figure down the end of a long corridor while he is making his rounds, he jumps to the conclusion it is a "hant" and not a naughty pupil. He never reports it to the princ.i.p.al, but adds it to his already interminable list of ghost stories. He makes his rounds as noisily as possible, so if anything is there it will hear him and depart. He is a little fat man with a military carriage, just as pompous in the back as the front. He has been told he looks like Napoleon, so he always wears very tight trousers and a long cape which he throws over one shoulder. One night I peeped out the window and saw him marching up and down in front of the building in the bright moonlight. The heavy cane he always carries he was holding like a musket and the poor little conceited thing actually had his hat on sideways, which gave him very much the look of the Emperor keeping guard for the sleeping sentry. I gave three taps on the wall, although it was the middle of the night, and got Mary Flannagan to the 'phone and told her to poke her head out of the window and go like a screech owl. You remember I told you how fine Mary was as an impersonator. Of course, Mary did as she was bid and poor Napoleon ran like a rabbit. It was kind of mean of me, but it was awfully funny.

We are planning a party for Hallowe'en. Tell Mammy Susan to try to get me a box of goodies here in time for it. Don't send it to the school, but wait until I tell you where you can send it. They open everything and dig out all the contraband, and since everything is contraband but crackers and simple candy, they usually dig out everything of importance.

I miss you and Mammy Susan mighty bad. Please give the dogs an extra pat for me and tell them not to forget me.

Your devoted daughter, PAGE.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY.

"Girls! Miss Plympton has actually given her consent to a Hallowe'en party in the Gym. We have to start at eight and stop at ten, though,"

called Mary through the concealed 'phone.

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Dee, who had the receiver at her ear, although Dum and I were both crowding into the closet to get the news that Mary was giving so loudly that you could really hear it through the walls without the aid of the toy telephone. "That's no good. Witches don't walk so early in the night."

"Well, it's better than nothing," answered Mary. "It can be a masquerade. We are thinking of having a sheet and pillow case party. The Seniors want all of our quintette to serve on the committee of entertainment. You see, the Seniors are really getting this up. That's why old Lady Plumpton will let us do it. She lets the Seniors do lots of things, but she certainly has got it in for the poor Juniors."

Then there was a confused sound of Annie's trying to talk through the 'phone with Mary, and Dum decided Dee had had a long enough turn. Some mixup ensued in the two closets with the result that Dum's best dress, that served as a portiere for the batteries, had to be sent to the presser, and I got possession of our end of the line and found Annie on the other.

"Page, Harvie Price writes me from the University that he is going to be at Hill Top, visiting Shorty Hawkins for a day or so soon, and he wants to come see me. Do you think Miss Plympton will permit it?"

"Can't you work the cousin racket on her?"

"No, she knows I have no relatives in the States."

"Well, then, he may be allowed to sit in the same church with you if he should happen to be here over Sunday and his voice can mingle with yours in praise and thanksgiving," I teased. "You know how Miss Plympton sat on Jean Rice when her third cousin once removed from Georgia came to call. She refused positively to let her see him until his kins.h.i.+p was proved and then she only let him call fifteen minutes. If he had been a plain third cousin she would have permitted half an hour; second once removed an hour; plain second two hours; first once removed four hours; plain first eight hours----"

"Page! This is not a problem in arithmetical progression. Please tell me how he can manage."

"Bless you if I know--unless he can come to the sheet and pillow case party. You might let him know one is in prospect." A giggle from Annie answered me and a shout of joy from Mary as her roommate imparted this suggestion to her.

"Of course it would never do," Annie said to me later on in the day when no wall divided us, "but wouldn't it be a joke on Miss Plympton and the faculty if some of the boys would come?"

"Yes, quite like Tennyson's Princess, but if we got mixed up in it, it would be a serious misdemeanor." I was willing to go pretty far in fun, but I had no intention of being imprudent and giving Miss Plympton any real cause for the suspicion she seemed to entertain for our crowd. "I tell you, Annie, if I were you I'd go and ask Miss Plympton if Harvie can call and if she will not consent, just write and tell him so."

Miss Plympton refused to grant permission for the call unless Harvie could obtain a request from Annie's father, and as that was seemingly impossible the matter had to be dropped. Annie wrote to the youth and told him the state of affairs and that was all she had to do with it.

The Gresham girls and the Hill Top boys usually met at football games at Hill Top, and basketball games at Gresham; they sat across the church from each other on Sunday and prayer meeting night. As is the way with boys and girls and has been the way since the world began, I fancy, there were a few inevitable flirtations going on. Some of them, under the cloak of great piety, kept up a lively conversation with their eyes during the longest prayers, or sang hymns at each other with the greatest fervor. One ingenious boy actually wrote a love letter (at least that is what we loved to designate it) and sent it to his inamorata on the collection plate. With meaning glances he placed it on the plate together with his mite. The deacon, all unconscious of the important mission with which he was intrusted, proceeded with slow dignity to pa.s.s the plate to pew after pew of boys and then up the aisle on the girls' side. Every boy and girl in that church knew what was going on, but there was not a flicker of an eyelash as the exceedingly pretty and rosy Junior, for whom the note was intended, put out her daintily gloved hand, dropped in her nickel and quickly closed her fingers over the billet-doux and slipped it into her m.u.f.f. There was a noiseless noise of a sigh, a sigh of extreme relief, that went over all the expectant pupils, boys and girls. Then with what vim and spirit did we rise and sing the appointed hymn: "A charge to keep I have"! The old gentleman who took up the collection was ever after known to us as "Deacon Cupid."

Hallowe'en arrived. It was a splendid crisp, cold day, which put us in high spirits. Even Miss Plympton was in a frisky humour and actually cracked a joke, at least she almost did. She stopped herself in time and made another chin instead, but by almost cracking it she had shown herself to be almost human, which was in itself encouraging. Our quintette was out of bounds. We had worked off all of our demerits and were in good standing with the faculty.

"Now if we can just stay good a while!" wailed Mary. "I, for one, am tired of getting into sc.r.a.pes and mean to be a little tin angel for at least a week. I wouldn't think of putting a greater task on my sub-conscious self."

I wasn't so sure of myself, as that minute I had under my mattress a box from Mammy Susan, filled to the brim with contraband food that would put me in durance vile for at least a month if I should be caught with the goods.

The committee on arrangements for the sheet and pillow case party had determined that ice cream and cake should be the refreshments for the evening. The ice cream was usually cut in very slim slices and the cake was served in mere sample sizes, so I thought when the big ball was over I could gather a few chosen spirits and we could dispose of Mammy Susan's box in short order. I had not divulged to the others that this box had arrived, knowing it would be such a delightful surprise for them.

Mammy Susan had sent it in care of a coloured laundress who did up our best s.h.i.+rt waists and collars, things we did not dare trust to the catch-as-catch-can method of the school laundry. Shades of my honourable ancestors! She had brought the box to the school concealed beneath the folds of fine linen.

"Ef Miss Perlimpton ketch me she won't 'low me to set foot in this here place agin, but you young ladies is been so kin' an' ginerous to me that I's willin' to risk sompen fer yo' pleasure," the old woman had said as she lifted out the carefully ironed s.h.i.+rt waists and then the large flat box that had come by parcels post from Bracken. I had warned Mammy Susan to send things in flat boxes as they were so much easier to conceal than square ones. This one fitted nicely under my mattress. It gave the bed a rather hiked up look in the middle, but making beds was not the long suit of the Greshamites, so I hoped it would pa.s.s inspection, knowing that other beds that were innocent were much lumpier than mine.

If you have never been to a sheet and pillow case party, go your first chance, and if no one else gets up one, get it up yourself. Drape a sheet about you in folds as Greek as you can manage, pinning the folds at the shoulders, and then put on a pillow case like a hood. If the case is old, cut holes in it for eyes. If you don't possess an old one, make a cotton mask to tie around your face and pull the hood well over your forehead. The effect is gruesome, indeed, and that night we looked like a veritable Ku Klux Klan.

We wanted to mark ourselves in some way so that we could be told by one another, so we put on each back in black chalk a mystic V, standing for five, our quintette. Dum and Dee and Annie and I were almost of the same height. I was a little shorter, but not enough to make much difference, but Mary was a perfect chunk of a girl and when we got her draped she looked like a snow ball.

The gymnasium, our ball room, was hung with paper pumpkin lanterns and papier-mache skulls. "And in those holes where eyes did once inhabit"

there shone forth lights giving a very weird effect indeed. The light was dim and the ghostly figures moving around would have frightened Mr.

Ryan, the old night watchman, to death, I am sure. But he, good man, did not have to keep watch until eleven o'clock.

The girls came in singly and in groups, all bent on disguise. Some of them sat against the wall, afraid that their walks would give them away, and all were silent for the most part except for a few ghostly groans or wails. Some one was at the piano playing the "Goblins will git yer ef yer don't mind out." In a little while couples took the floor and began whirling around.

"Who is that tall girl dancing with the little chunky one?" whispered Dee to me. "I thought for a minute the chunky one was Mary, but I see she has no V on her back."

"I can't think who is that tall here in school. There are two or three pretty tall Seniors, and then you know there is a new Soph.o.m.ore from Texas who is a perfect bean pole, but she doesn't dance."

"Well, this one dances all right and that little square girl she is dancing with seems lively enough. I believe I'll break in on them. You take the big one and I'll take the chunky one," and so we did.

Dee started off leading, but I noticed they soon changed, as the short girl seemed to prefer guiding. I always let any one guide me who will, so my partner, who was the taller, naturally took the man's part. She was singularly silent, although I did some occasional whispering in what I considered a disguised voice. Annie and Dum were dancing together and I saw Mary's square figure leading out a rather heavy-looking girl who had up to that time been seated against the wall. As part of the committee, we considered it our duty to dig up the wall flowers. This one was not much of a dancer and in a moment my partner and I came a cropper almost on top of them. We picked ourselves up and Mary, recognizing me by my V, whispered:

"Page, this girl can't dance a little bit. I tried to lead her and she has stepped all over me. For the love of Mike, see what you can do with her." So we changed partners and Mary went gaily off with my very good partner, who certainly danced better than any one I had before tried at Gresham, and I tripped off with the heavy-looking cast-off. It wasn't so bad. I let her guide and while she was not so very good, she was not so very bad.

"Are you accustomed to guiding?" I said, forgetting and using my natural voice.

"Ummm um!" came in a kind of grunt from my partner, and then in a high squeak, "Page!" The music stopped. My partner pressed my hand so affectionately that I wondered who she could be. I thought I could spot any of my intimates.

"Now you know me, I think you ought to tell me who you are," I pleaded, "and not wait for the unmasking."

"Unmasking!" she said in a strangely hoa.r.s.e tone. "When?"

"Why, at nine! Didn't you hear Miss Plympton this morning at chapel?"

"Oh--Ah--Yes!" she muttered, and drew me to a seat in the corner.

I chatted away gaily. Since my partner had discovered my ident.i.ty, I might just as well make myself agreeable and I hoped to discover hers before nine. I ran over in my mind all the big heavy girls in school, and even the teachers. Miss Ball was rather large and Miss Plympton--could it be Miss Plympton? I peered eagerly through the holes at the eyes gazing into mine. Whose eyes were they? They certainly looked very familiar. The music started again, one of the new tunes, and I jumped up to find a partner or even take the one I still had who was not so terribly bad, but she drew me down again in my seat, hoa.r.s.ely whispering:

"Please sit it out with me." I seemed to be in a kind of dream. They say that one proof of transmigration of the soul is that we sometimes have a realization of doing the same thing we have done before perhaps aeons and aeons ago. I certainly held in my consciousness that once before some one with eyes, brown just like the ones I could see through the slits (cut, by the way, in a perfectly new pillow case), had begged me in much the same tone if not so hoa.r.s.e to "sit it out." I looked at the dancers. Dum and Dee were dancing together; Mary was tearing around with the little chunky person, who seemed to be a mate for her. I looked for the other distinctive black V and saw that Annie was gliding around in the arms of the tall girl with whom I had danced, who had proven such an excellent partner.