For the Sake of the School (6 page)

"Porth Powys is in fine form to-day. There must have been rain up in the mountains last night," remarked Ulyth. "What do you think of it, Rona?"

"It's a champion! I'm going to climb down there and get at the edge."

"No, you won't!" said Miss Moseley sharply. "Nobody is to go a single step nearer. You must all come back into the lane now, and get on with blackberry-picking. Your baskets are only half full yet."

Very reluctantly the girls followed. The fall exercised a fascination over them, and they could have stayed half an hour watching its white swirl. They did not wish, however, to earn the reputation of slackers. Two other parties had gone out blackberrying that afternoon, and there would be keen competition as to which would bring back the most pounds. They set to work again, therefore, with enthusiasm, counting stained fingers and scratches as glorious wounds earned in the good cause. Rona picked with zeal, but she had a preoccupied look on her face.

"Say, I liked that waterfall," she remarked to Ulyth. "One can't see anything of it down in this old lane. I'm going to get a better view."

"You mustn't go off on your own," commanded Ulyth. "Miss Moseley will report you if you do!"

"Don't excite yourself. I only said I was going to get a better view. It's quite easy."

Rona put her basket in a safe place, and with the aid of a hazel bush climbed to the top of the wall. Apparently the prospect did not satisfy her.

"I'm going a stave higher still. Keep your hair on!" she shouted down to Ulyth, and began swarming up the bole of a huge old oak-tree that abutted on the wall. She was strong and active as a boy, and had soon scrambled to where the branches forked. A mass of twisted ivy hung here, and raising herself with its aid, she stood on an outstretched bough.

"It's ripping! I can see a little bit of the fall; I'll see it better if I get over on to that other branch."

"Take care!" called Miss Moseley from below.

Rona started. She had not known the mistress was so near. The movement upset her decidedly unstable balance; she clutched hard at the ivy, but it gave way in her fingers; there was a sudden crash and a smothered shriek.

White as a ghost, Miss Moseley climbed the wall, expecting to find the prostrate form of her pupil on the other side. To her surprise she saw nothing of the sort. Near at hand, however, came a stifled groan.

"Rona, where are you?" shrieked the distracted governess.

"Here," spluttered the voice of the Cuckoo; "inside the tree. The beastly old thing's rotten, and I've tumbled to the very bottom of the trunk!"

"Are you hurt?"

"No, nothing to speak of."

"Here's a pretty go!" murmured the girls, who all came running at the sound of shouts. "How's she going to get out again?"

"Can't you climb up?" urged Miss Moseley.

"No, I can't stir an inch; I'm wedged in somehow."

What was to be done? The affair waxed serious. Miss Moseley, with a really heroic effort, and much help from the girls, managed to scale the tree and look down into the hollow trunk. She could just see Rona's scared face peeping up at her many feet below.

"Can you put up your hand and let me pull you?"

"No; I tell you I'm wedged as tight as a sardine."

"We shall have to send for help then. May and Kathleen, run as quickly as you can down the lane. There's a farm at the bottom of the hill. Tell them what's the matter."

"I hope to goodness they'll understand English!" murmured Merle.

"Will I have to stop here always?" demanded a tragic voice within the tree. "Shall you be able to feed me, or will I have to starve? How long does it take to die of hunger?"

"You won't die just yet," returned Miss Moseley, laughing a little in spite of herself. "We'll get you out in course of time."

"I guess I'd better make my will, though. Has anybody got a pencil and paper, and will they please write it down and send it home? I want to leave my saddle to Pamela Higson, and Jake is to have the bridle and whip--I always liked him better than Billy, though I pretended I didn't. Jane Peters may have my writing-desk--much she writes, though!--and Amabel Holt my old doll. That's all I've left in New Zealand. Ulyth can take what I've got at school--'twon't be any great shakes to her, I expect. You didn't tell me how long it takes to die!"

"Cheer up! There's not the slightest danger," Miss Moseley continued to assure her.

"It's all very well to say 'cheer up' when you're standing safe on the top," said the gloomy voice of the imprisoned dryad. "It feels a different matter when you're boxed up tight with tree all round you. It's jolly uncomfortable. Where are the girls?"

"Here's one," replied Ulyth, climbing the tree to relieve poor Miss Moseley, who gladly retired in her favour. "I'm going to stay and talk to you till somebody comes to get you out. Oh, here are May and Kathleen at last! What a fearful time they've been!"

The two messengers came panting back with many excuses for their delay. It was a long way down the lane to the farm, and when they arrived there they had considerable difficulty in explaining their errand. No one could understand English except a little boy, who was only half-able to translate their remarks into Welsh. They had at length made the farmer realize what had happened, and he had promised to come at once. In the course of a few minutes they were followed by David Jones and his son, Idwal, bearing a rope, an axe, and a saw, and looking rather dismayed at the task in store for them. It proved indeed a matter of considerable difficulty to rescue Rona without hurting her; a portion of the tree-trunk was obliged to be sawn away before she could obtain sufficient room to help to free herself, and it was only after an hour's hard work that she stood at last in safety on the ground.

"How do you feel?" asked Miss Moseley anxiously, fearing broken bones or a sprain from the final effort of extraction.

"Well, I guess it's taken the bounce out of me. I'm as stiff as a rheumatic cat! Oh, I'll get back to school somehow, don't alarm yourself! I'm absolutely starving for tea. Good-bye, you wood-demon; you nearly finished me!" and Rona shook her fist at the offending oak-tree as a parting salute.

"She called it demon to rhyme with lemon!" gurgled Addie, almost sobbing with mirth as she followed, holding Merle's arm. "The Cuckoo will cause me to break a blood-vessel some day. It hurts me most dreadfully to laugh. I've got a stitch in my side. Oh dear! I wonder whatever she'll go and do next?"

On Sufferance

"Scratch, scratch, scratch, Scratch went the old black hen! Every fowl that scrapes in the barn Can scratch as well as your pen!"

So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, and popping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter sat writing at a table near the window.

"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work at prep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mighty studious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"

Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscap hastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.

"You're not to touch my papers, Rona! I've told you that before."

"Well, I wasn't touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What are you doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here half your spare time."

"What I was doing is my own concern, and no business of yours."

"Now you're riled," said the Cuckoo, sitting down easily on her bed. "I didn't mean any harm. I always seem sticking my foot into it somehow."

Ulyth sighed. Nobody in the school realized how much she had to put up with from her irrepressible room-mate, whose hearty voice, extraordinary expressions, and broad notions of fun grated upon her sensitive nature. Rona did not appreciate in the least the heroic sacrifice that Ulyth was making. It had never occurred to her that she might be placed in another dormitory, and that she only remained on sufferance in No. 3. She admired Ulyth immensely, and was quite prepared to take her as a model, but at present the copy was very far indeed from the original. The mistresses had instituted a vigorous crusade against Rona's loud voice and unconventional English, and she was really making an effort to improve; but the habits of years are not effaced in a few weeks, and she still scandalized the authorities considerably. Ulyth could tolerate her when she kept to her own side of the bedroom, but to have meddlesome fingers interfering with her private possessions was the last straw to her burden of endurance.

"Do you understand?" she repeated emphatically. "You're not to touch my papers at all!"

"All serene! I won't lay a finger on them--honest--sure!" returned the Cuckoo, chanting her words to the air of "Swanee River", and drumming an accompaniment on the bedpost. "What d'you think Stephanie called me just now? She said I was an unlicked cub."

"Oh, surely she didn't! Are you certain?"

"Heard her myself. She said it to my face and tittered. You bet I'll pay her out somehow. Miss Stephanie Radford needs taking down a peg. Oh, don't alarm yourself, I'll do it neatly! There'll be no clumsy bungling about it. Well, if you won't go down and play basket-ball I shall. It's more fun than sitting up here."

As the door banged behind Rona, Ulyth heaved an ecstatic "Thank goodness!" She sat for a few moments trying to regain her composure before she recommenced the writing at which she had been interrupted. The manuscript on which she was engaged was very precious. She had set herself no less a task than to write a book. The subject had come to her suddenly one morning as she lay awake in bed, and she regarded it as an inspiration. She would make a story about The Woodlands, and bring in all the girls she knew. It was no use struggling with a historical plot or a romance of the war--she had tried these, and stuck fast in the first chapters; it was better to employ the material close at hand, and weave her tale from the every-day incidents which happened in the school. So she had begun, and though she floundered a little at the difficulty of transferring her impressions to paper, she was making distinct progress.

"I'd never dare to have it published, of course," she ruminated. "Still, it's a beginning, and I shall like to read it over to myself. I think there are some rather neat bits in it, especially that shot at Addie and Stephie. How wild they'd be if they knew! But there's no fear of that. I'll take good care nobody finds out."

When to make time to go on with her literary composition was the difficulty. It was hard to snatch even an occasional half-hour during the day. Where there is a will, however, there is generally also a way, and Ulyth hit upon the plan of getting up very early in the morning and writing while Rona was still asleep. The Cuckoo never stirred until the seven o'clock bell rang, when she would awake noisily, with many yawns and stretchings of arms, so Ulyth flattered herself that her secret was absolutely safe.

Where to hide the precious papers was another problem. She did not dare to put them in any of her drawers, her desk would not lock, and her little jewel-box was too small to contain them.

The fireplace in the bedroom had an old-fashioned chimney-piece that was fitted with a loose wooden mantel-board, from which hung a border of needlework. It was quite easy to lift up this board and slip the papers between it and the chimney-piece; the border completely screened the hiding-place, and, except at a spring-cleaning, the arrangement was not likely to be disturbed. Ulyth congratulated herself greatly upon her ingenuity. It was interesting to have a secret which nobody even guessed. She often looked at the chimney-piece, and chuckled as she thought of what lay concealed there.

The days were rapidly closing in now, and the time between tea and preparation, which only a few weeks ago was devoted to a last game of tennis or a run by the stream, was perforce spent by the schoolroom fire. It was only a short interval, not long enough to make any elaborate occupation worth while, so the girls sat knitting in the twilight and chatting until the bell rang for evening work.

One afternoon, when tea was finished, Ulyth, instead of joining the others as usual, walked upstairs to put away some specimens in the Museum. She passed V B classroom as she did so, and heard smothered peals of mirth issuing from behind the half-closed door.

"What are they doing?" she thought. "I believe I'll go and see." But catching Rona's laugh above the rest, she changed her mind, walked on, and bestowed her fossils carefully in a spare corner of one of the cases. Meanwhile, the group assembled round the fire in V B were enjoying themselves. The room was growing dusk, but, seated on the hearthrug, Addie Knighton could see quite sufficiently to read aloud extracts from a document she was perusing, extracts to which the others listened with thrilling interest, interspersed with comments.

"'The girls of the Oaklands'," so she read, "'were a rather peculiar and miscellaneous set, especially those in the Lower Fifth. Scarcely any of them could be called pretty--'" ("Oh! oh!" howled the attentive circle.) "'One of them, Valerie Chadford, imagined herself so, and gave herself fearful airs in consequence; she was very set up at knowing smart people, and often bragged about it.'" ("I'll never forgive her, never!" screamed Stephanie.) "'The twins, Pearl and Doris, were fat, stodgy girls, who wore five-and-a-halfs in shoes and had twenty-seven-inch waists.'" ("Oh! Won't Merle and Alice be just frantic when they hear?") "'But even they were more interesting than Nellie Clacton, who usually sat with her mouth open, as if she was trying to catch flies.'" ("Does she mean me?" gasped Mary Acton indignantly.) "'Florence Tulliver was inclined to be snarly, and often said mean things about other people behind their backs.'" ("I'll say something now!" declared Gertrude Oliver.) "'And Annie Ryton was----'" but here Addie broke off abruptly and exploded.

"Go on! Go on!" commanded the girls.

"It's too lovely!" spluttered Addie. "O--ho--ho! So that's what she thinks of me, is it?"

"Read it, can't you?"

"Here, give the paper to me!"

"No, no! I'll go on--but--I didn't know my eyes were like faded gooseberries, and my hair like dried seaweed!"