Dorothy at Oak Knowe Part 4

"I will make that all right, Dorothy, and I am greatly interested.

It's 'like a story out of a book,' as the Minims say. Go on, please."

"Well, these dear people took care of me till I was a real big girl. I love them dearly. He was a postman and he walked too much. So he had to lose his position with lameness and he's never gotten over it, though he's better now. He has a position in a sanitarium for other lame folks and Mother Martha is the housekeeper, or matron, there.

Uncle Seth Winters, who knows so much that he is called the 'Learned Blacksmith,' is my guardian. He and Aunt Betty have been dearest friends ever since they were little. They call each other cousin, though they're no kin at all, any more than he's my uncle. He was my first teacher at his 'school in the woods,' but felt I ought to go to a school for girls. So I went to the Rhinelander Academy and he stayed at his smithy on the mountain, near Mother Martha's little farm and Aunt Betty's big one, and one vacation auntie told me who I was and took me home to live with her; and she liked Oak Knowe because the Bishop is her lifelong friend. She has had my name on the list waiting for a vacancy for a long, long time; so it's a terrible pity I should have been horrid, and offended the Lady Princ.i.p.al."

"Let us hope she is not seriously offended, dear, nor have you told me what the offense is. But bear in mind, Dorothy, that she is at the head of a great and famous inst.i.tution and must strictly live up to its standards and keep her pupils to their duty. But she is absolutely just, as you will learn in time.

"I feel like hearing music, to-day, but get very little. All our practice rooms are sound-deadened. Do you play at all, on any instrument, or sing?"

"A little of both, when I'm at home. Not well in either, though Aunt Betty loves my violin and my little songs. If I had it here, I would try for you, if you'd like. But it's in my trunk, my 'box,' Mr. Gilpin called it."

Miss Hexam smiled and, opening a little secretary, took out an old Cremona, explaining:

"This was my brother's, who died when I was young. He was a master of it, had many pupils. I allow few to touch it, but I'd be pleased to have you, if you would like."

"Would you? May I?" asked Dorothy, handling it reverently for its sacredness to this loving old sister. And, after she had tuned it, as reverently for its own sake. It was a rare old instrument of sweetest tone and almost unconsciously Dorothy tried one theme after another upon it while Miss Hexam leaned back in her chair listening and motionless.

Into that playing the young musician put all the love and homesickness of her own heart. It seemed as if she were back at Deerhurst, with the Great Danes lying on the rug at her feet and dear Aunt Betty resting before the fire. Then, when memory threatened to bring the tears she was determined should not fall, she stopped, laid the violin silently upon the table and slipped out of the room, leaving Miss Hexam still motionless in her chair.

But she would have been surprised had she looked back into the "inquisition chamber" a few moments later to see the "inquisitor"

arouse, seize a sheet of paper and rapidly write a few lines upon it.

But the few lines were important. They gave a synopsis of Dorothy's scholars.h.i.+p and accomplishments, and unerringly a.s.signed her to "Form IVb, cla.s.s of Miss Aldrich."

The "terrible exam" was over and Dorothy hadn't known a thing about it!

Outside that little parlor another surprise awaited her. A crowd of girls was racing madly down the hall, the foremost looking backward as she ran and roughly colliding with Dorothy; with the result that both fell; while the others, following in such speed, were unable to check in time to prevent their tumbling over the first pair. Then such shrieks of laughter rang out that the teachers in the nearby cla.s.srooms came to their doors in haste.

Even they were obliged to smile over the heap of girls and the tangle of legs and arms as the fallen ones strove to extricate themselves.

They were all in gymnasium-costume and were bound for a side door of the building which led by a short cut to the gymnasium in the Annex.

This was Dorothy's introduction to the "Commons," the largest and wildest "set" in the great school. They were all daughters of good families but of no "rank" or t.i.tles; and there was an abiding opposition among them to the "Peers," the smaller "set" of aristocrats to which the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard and Lady Marjorie Lancaster belonged. Mostly the "Commons" were a rollicking company, going to the extreme limits of behavior where any fun promised to follow, yet mostly keeping just safely within rules. Their escapades kept the faculty in considerable anxiety as to what they would do next, yet their very gayety was the life of Oak Knowe and even the Lady Princ.i.p.al was secretly fonder of them than of the more dignified "Peers."

As they now scrambled to their feet, she who had run against Dorothy heartily apologized, yet paused half-way in that apology to stare and remark:

"Why, heigho, there! I thought you were a Minim, you're so little.

But I fancy you're a newcomer whom I don't know. Please explain; are you 'Peer' or 'Lower House'?"

Dorothy laughed:

"'Lower House,' I thought when you knocked me down, whatever that may be."

"It means--is your father an Earl? or your mother a d.u.c.h.ess? Have you an Honorable amongst you? You hold your curly head as if you might have all three!"

All the girls had now gathered about the stranger whom their leader was so unceremoniously quizzing and were eagerly inspecting her, but somehow Dorothy did not resent the scrutiny. There were big girls and little ones, fat girls and thin ones, plain and pretty, but each so good-natured looking and so friendly in her curiosity that Dolly's own spirits rose in response to their liveliness.

"No, indeed! I'm just a plain American girl and prouder of that than of any t.i.tle in the world. You see, all of _us_ are queens in our own right!" answered the newcomer, promptly.

"Well, come on then; you belong to us and we all belong to the queen.

Queen, what shall we call you? Where do you hail from?"

"My home is in Baltimore, and my name is Dorothy Calvert."

"Then you must be a sort of 'Peer' after all. I hate history, but I remember about that, for Lord Baltimore and Calvert are the same thing, I fancy. I'm sorry. I hoped you belonged to our 'set' and weren't an aristocrat."

"But I'm not, I'm not!" protested Dorothy. "I do belong to you, I want to because you look so friendly and I need friends dreadfully. I'm so lonely, or I was. I've just come, you know."

"Have you been 'inquisitioned' yet?"

"I don't understand."

The questioner explained, and Dorothy exclaimed:

"Oh! I think that's cruel! Miss Hexam is perfectly lovely!"

"So do we think, course, and she doesn't mind the nickname. It was first given her by a silly Seventh Form girl who thought she was all ready for the University yet failed to pa.s.s even a Fifth Form exam. I guess you'll not be put to study to-day, so best come over to the gym with us. What stunts can you do?"

"None. But I've told you my name and you haven't told yours. Thank you, though, for asking me. I'm so glad to go."

"Oh! you poor little lonesome Queen Baltimore! I'm Winifred Christie; this freckle face is Fannie Dimock; Annie Dow wears that blue bow in her hair; Florita Sheraton is the fat one; Ernesta Smith the thin; Bessie Walters--well, no need to point out Bessie. She's the nimblest girl in the gym. We here extend the freedom of the Lower House; and all in favor of grabbing this Yankee into our set before the other set catches her, say--Aye!"

"Aye--aye--aye!" endorsed the motion and Dorothy clapped her hands over her ears, to keep out the ear-splitting shouts. How these girls dared make such an uproar amazed her; but she did not yet know that in the "long recess," now pa.s.sing, much liberty was permitted and that a noise which did not interfere with study hours was not reprimanded.

"It's the overflow of natural spirits and inevitable in the young,"

was one of the Bishop's beliefs, and not even the Lady Princ.i.p.al disputed his authority.

"Come on, Queenie, and be put through your paces!" cried Winifred, throwing her arm around Dorothy's shoulders and forcibly racing her out of doors and across the lawn toward the gymnasium.

But arrived there only one or two of the group attempted any exercise.

The rest settled around Dorothy, whom the athletic Winifred had tossed upward upon the back of the wooden horse, and, with her arms folded upon the newcomer's knees, this leader of the "Commons" proceeded to cross-question her victim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PROCEEDED TO CROSS-QUESTION HER VICTIM." _Dorothy at Oak Knowe._]

"It's the cast-iron rule of our set to find out everything about anybody we receive into it. Begin at the date of your birth and proceed in a seemly manner until you come up to date. Where were you born? What sort of baby were you--good, bad, or indifferent? Begin!"

Entering into the spirit of the thing Dorothy gave her simple life history in a few sentences. But when the questions came as to the events of the last few days her face grew serious and her voice faltered.

"Why did I come to Oak Knowe alone? Because there was n.o.body to come with me. That is, Dinah or Ephraim, who might have come, couldn't be trusted to go back alone. My dearest girl friend, Molly Breckenridge, had been enrolled here and we expected to come together, but the Judge's health suddenly broke down and he was ordered to California and couldn't part with her. Uncle Seth wasn't well. He's my guardian and Aunt Betty's friend. She's my great aunt who takes care of me but she wouldn't leave Uncle Seth, even if he's not our kin at all, though we call him so. Jim Barlow is tutoring in a boys' school and; well, Aunt Betty said I could perfectly well and safely travel alone. I was put into the conductor's care when I started from Baltimore and he pa.s.sed me along to the next one, and they've all been splendid to me.

There'd have been no mistakes if I hadn't been careless myself. But I was. I missed a train I should have taken and didn't send the telegram I ought at the right time and there was n.o.body at the station to meet me and--and--"

"The idea! A girl like you, traveling all the way from Baltimore to Toronto without a maid or any grown-up to take care of her! That's the strangest thing I ever heard. Weren't you just awfully scared all the time?" asked Florita Sheraton, amazed. "An English girl would have been in a blue funk every minute of the time."

"I don't know anything about a blue or other colored funk, but every well-bred American girl can take care of herself if she chooses. If she 'loses her head' she gets into trouble right away. I lost mine last night and went riding off at dark with a strange old man, who said he'd bring me here, instead of stepping into the telegraph office and wiring the Lady Princ.i.p.al. Then all I'd have had to do would be to wait for her to send for me, and after all it wasn't the old man who brought me, it was Dr. Winston in his motor. He called here this morning and asked me to ride back with him and see Robin, but Miss Tross-Kingdon wouldn't let me."

"Course she wouldn't. She never lets anybody do anything she wants to, if she can help it. Hateful old thing!" remarked Bessie Walters; at which the others laughed and Annie Dow inquired, "Who is Robin?"

Dorothy told the story of last night, her new acquaintances listening intently, and Winifred commenting:

"If you aren't the very luckiest girl in the world! Why I never had an adventure in my life, yet I'm ages older than you."