Hester's Counterpart Part 10

She had an unpleasant little mannerism of talking through closed teeth and but slightly parted lips. In conversation, she used her lips as little as possible. It may have been that she wished to keep them from wearing out, or perhaps, she considered it unladylike to open her mouth more than was absolutely necessary.

"I came to have you help. We always appoint four girls to collect news, write special articles and poetry. Of course everything must treat of school life. Then, when it is printed--"

"Printed," cried Hester, her eyes snapping with fire. "Do you really have it printed and do the ones who write things have their names in it?"

"Certainly. It is issued four times a year; once during each semester, and a special souvenir one for commencement. What do you think you'd like to do?"

"I'll write some poetry," said Hester. She had never written any in her life, but she had the feeling that she could do it by half trying.

"Poetry, isn't hard," she replied airily to Miss Bucher's look of surprise. "Just make out a list of rhymes like this." She took up a paper and wrote:

Side wide right might knee me.

"Then you fill them in," she continued. She held the pencil suspended in the air. Her brow was puckered with thought. "Of course, it isn't supposed to read as sensibly as prose. That is one of the greatest differences between them. In poetry one must use imagination and poetic license." Then she fell to work upon the paper and wrote steadily and laboriously for some minutes. Her eye flashed with triumph. "Listen. Of course this is mere rough work. I'll polish up what I write for the 'Mirror.'

"Imogen was by his side, So they wandered far and wide, The woods and vales stretched left and right, He loved the girl with all his might, So dropping on his bended knee He cried, 'Oh, fair one, pity me.'"

A peal of laughter followed this closing line. It was a merry peal without malice or guile. Hester turned. Erma was standing in the doorway.

"Oh, but that is rich! He dropped on his bended knee. Could he get on his knee if it wasn't bended?" She laughed aloud.

"You are so literal!" cried Hester with dignity. "In poetry, one is allowed--"

"Poetry," another merry laugh. "Is that poetry? Take it to Doctor Weldon's cla.s.ses and let her put her seal of approval on it."

Erma had made her way to the door. With a mock courtesy and a sweep of her skirts, she vanished. But as she went down the corridor, the girls in Sixty-two caught the echo of her laugh and her song, "And dropping on his bended knee."

Miss Bucher was a lady who arose to the occasion. She did not give way to merriment. Her face was colorless and serene.

"I understand fully, Miss Alden, the point you wish to make. Miss Thomas has no literary appreciation." She paused. There is but one thing worse in the world than adverse just criticism, and that is praise so faint that it is damaging. Miss Bucher paused as though to weigh her words.

Then she spoke: "Miss Thomas means well enough, but--well, nature has not gifted us all in the same way."

It was fair enough, or seemed to be. Yet Hester felt that intangible something to which one cannot respond, because one feels rather than knows of its existence.

Miss Bucher arose. She was not given to furbelows. Each line of her attire accentuated her angles and height.

"I will go now. I am glad you will help me. Could you have your poem or whatever you decide upon ready by Monday?"

"I shall have it ready to give you when we go into chapel. I shall have something. Do not fear."

Scarcely had the door closed upon the caller, when Hester was at her study-table with pencil and writing-pad. Inspiration had seized her. She would write a poem that would be worthy the name. It would appear in the "Mirror" with her name below, "Hester Alden." On second thought, decided to write it Hester Palmer Alden. The Palmer gave an added dignity to her name. How pleased Aunt Debby would be! What a pleasure it would be to write! Perhaps in time she might be editor-in-chief. Then when she left school--at that instant a part of Hester Alden which had been dormant awoke. The desire for expression came to her. What beautiful glorious things she would write--some day! Just what they would be or when she would write them, she knew not. But they were so beautiful that the tears came to her eyes as she dreamed of them.

Helen did not come back to her rooms until barely time to dress for dinner. She found Hester with her head on the table, and a huge tablet before her.

"Sick, little roommate?" asked Helen, bending over her.

"No; I have been writing a poem--that is, I have begun to write one. I have sat here for an hour and all I have written is the first line. It was easy."

"First lines usually are," said Helen smiling. In many ways, she was more years older than Hester than the calendar gave her credit for.

"What is the first line? May I read it?"

"'Doc Dixon had a Freshman Cla.s.s.' It begins fairly well; but you will startle your leaders with such a sudden burst into facts. Why not lead up to the subject and break the news gently?"

"You may all ridicule; but I intend writing a poem. All the ridicule you cast upon me will make me but the more determined."

"I believe that. I have observed that trait on several occasions. You make me think of Rob Vail in that way."

"I shall finish after dinner," was Hester's sole comment. "I presume I had better prepare for it now. Are you wearing a silk dress?" she asked as she turned toward Helen and saw that she was getting into a little one-piece suit of checked silk instead of her customary white.

"Yes, mother thinks I dress too thinly. If I wear the white I cannot wear long sleeves. So I have promised to keep to this dark silk, though I do not like it nearly so well."

She had slipped into her dress and was looking about for her pins and rings. "I had a little old pin on my dresser. Did you see anything of it, Hester?"

"No, indeed. I never presume to touch anything there without your permission."

"I did not mean to suggest that, little roommate. I carelessly let it lie there several days ago, and now I cannot find it."

"I have not seen it," said Hester. She spoke quickly and perhaps, with unusual curtness. At least it seemed so to Helen, who attributed the curtness to Hester's being hurt at being asked such a question. She let the subject drop and no further word pa.s.sed between them until they were called to dinner.

When study hour came again, Hester pushed aside her text books and fell to writing. The door of the study, during this time, was always open and no words were permitted between roommates. Helen, observing that her roommate was not working at her lessons, gave her several warning glances; but Hester was unaffected. The muse had laid its hands upon her and she was helpless in its clutches. She wrote and erased, only to rewrite and erase again.

It was not until the study period was over that she raised her head and with a smile of triumph read aloud:

"Doctor Dixon had a freshman cla.s.s, Whose minds were soft like snow.

He tried to teach them geometry, But he could not make it go.

He scolded them in cla.s.s one day; He shocked the entire school.

The tears ran down one sweet girl's face, When he called her a mule."

A look of surprise flashed over Helen's face. "Surely Hester, he never would do that. He is critical and sarcastic, but surely he is a gentleman."

"Do what?" asked Hester. "Why surely he is a gentleman."

"Surely, he never would dare address one of the pupils in that way. A mule!"

Hester laughed. "You are taking matters seriously. You must remember that this is poetry, and allowance must be made. In poetry, one cannot describe matters as they are. One cannot be too realistic. One must use what fits in. I was compelled to use the word mule because it was the only one I could think of which rhymed with school. Now listen to the rest, please Helen." She continued reading wholly unconscious that her roommate was not in sympathy with her.

"And then they ran to him and asked, As he came forth from school, 'Doctor, dear, which is it best to be, A driver or the mule?'

"'The mule has the best of it,' he said, 'So I'm inclined to think, It can be driven to the water's edge, But it can't be made to drink.'"

"There, don't you think that is fine, Helen? That will appear in the next issue of the 'Mirror' with my name at the bottom. Aunt Debby will be delighted."

There was no enthusiastic response. Hester waited a moment, then looked at her roommate, and again asked, "Don't you think she will be delighted? She has never suspected that I was poetic. Indeed, I never knew it until Miss Bucher asked me to write this."

"If Aunt Debby is the kind of woman I think she is, I am sure she will not be at all pleased." Helen spoke slowly. Then at the look of surprise in Hester's eyes, she crossed the room, and sitting down on the arm of her roommate's chair drew Hester's head close against her and held her thus in a tender protective embrace, while she continued.

"No, little roommate, I do not believe she will be pleased. I am not. It is fun--mere fun, I know. Were you and I the only two to know of it, it would do no harm at all. But consider, little roommate, the 'Mirror'