“You monkey!” cried Katy, highly diverted. But she kept Rose’s counsel, and I daresay some of the Hillsover girls believe in that wonderful album to this day.
It was not long after that a sad piece of news came for Bella. Her father was dead. Their home was in Iowa, too far to allow of her returning for the funeral; so the poor little girl stayed at school, to bear her trouble as best she might. Katy, who was always kind to children, and had somewhat affected Bella from the first on account of her resemblance to Elsie in height and figure, was especially tender to her now, which Bella repaid with the gift of her whole queer little heart. Her affectionate demonstrations were rather of the monkey order, and not un frequently troublesome; but Katy was never otherwise than patient and gentle with her, though Rose, and even Clover, remonstrated on what they called this “singular intimacy.”
“Poor little soul! It’s so hard for her, and she’s only eleven years old,” she told them.
“She has such a funny way of looking at you sometimes,” said Rose, who was very observant. “It is just the air of a squirrel who has hidden a nut, and doesn’t want you to find out where, and yet can hardly help indicating it with his paw. She’s got something on her mind, I’m sure.”
“Half a dozen things, very likely,” added Clover: “she’s such a mischief.”
But none of them guessed what this “something” was.
Early in January Mrs. Nipson announced that in four weeks she proposed to give a “Soiree,” to which all young ladies whose records were entirely free from marks during the intervening period would be allowed to come. This announcement created great excitement, and the school set itself to be good; but marks were easy to get, and gradually one girl after another lost her chance, till by the appointed day only a limited party descended to join the festivities, and nearly half the school was left upstairs to sigh over past sins. Katy and Rose were among the unlucky ones. Rose had incurred a mark by writing a note in study-hour, and Katy by being five minutes late to dinner. They consoled themselves by dressing Clover’s hair, and making her look as pretty as possible, and then stationed themselves in the upper hall at the head of the stairs to watch her career, and get as much fun out of the occasion as they could.
Pretty soon they saw Clover below on Professor Seccomb’s arm. He was a kingly, pleasant man, with a bald head, and it was a fashion among the girls to admire him.
“Doesn’t she look pretty?” said Rose. “Just notice Mrs. Searles, Katy. She’s grinning at Clover like the Cheshire cat. What a wonderful cap that is of hers! She had it when Sylvia was here at school, eight years ago.”
“Hush! she’ll hear you.”
“No, she won’t. There’s Ellen beginning her piece. I know she’s frightened by the way she plays. Hark! how she hurries the time!”
“There, they are going to have refreshments, after all!” cried Esther Dearborn, as trays of lemonade and cake-baskets appeared below on their way to the parlor. “Isn’t it a shame to have to stay up here?”
“Professor Seccomb! Professor!” called Rose, in a daring whisper.
“Take pity upon us. We are starving for a piece of cake.”
The Professor gave a jump; then retreated, and looked upward. When he saw the circle of hungry faces peering down, he doubled up with laughter. “Wait a moment,” he whispered back, and vanished into the parlor. Pretty soon the girls saw him making his way through the crowd with an immense slice of pound-cake in each hand.
“Here, Miss Rose,” he said,—“catch it.” But Rose ran half-way downstairs, received the cake, dimpled her thanks, and retreated to the darkness above, whence sounds proceeded which sent the amused Professor into the parlor convulsed with suppressed laughter. Pretty soon Clover stole up the back stairs to report.
“Are you having a nice time? Is the lemon-ade good? Who have you been talking with?” inquired a chorus of voices.
“Pretty nice. Everybody is very old. I haven’t been talking to anybody in particular, and the lemonade is only cream-of-tartar water. I guess it’s jollier up here with you,” replied Clover. “I must go now: my turn to play comes next.” Down she ran.
“Except for the glory of the thing, I think we’re having more fun than she,” answered Rose.
Next week came St. Valentine’s Day. Several of the girls received valentines from home, and they wrote them to each other. Katy and Clover both had one from Phil, exactly alike, with the same purple bird in the middle of the page, and “I love you” printed underneath; and they joined in fabricating a gorgeous one for Rose, which was supposed to come from Potemkin de Montmorencey, the hero of the album. But the most surprising valentine was received by Miss Jane. It came with the others, while all the household were at dinner. The girls saw her redden and look angry, but she put the letter in her pocket, and said nothing.
In the afternoon, it came out through Bella that “Miss Jane’s letter was in poetry, and that she was just mad as fire about it.” Just before tea, Louisa came running down the Row, to No. 5, where Katy was sitting with Rose.
“Girls, what do you think? That letter which Miss Jane got this morning was a valentine, the most dreadful thing, but so funny!” she stopped to laugh.
“How do you know?” cried the other two.
“Miss Marsh told Alice Gibbons. She’s a sort of cousin, you know; and Miss Marsh often tells her things. She says Miss Jane and Mrs. Nipson are furious, and are determined to find out who sent it. It was from Mr. Hardhack, Miss Jane’s missionary,—or no, not from Mr. Hardhack, but from a cannibal who had just eaten Mr. Hardhack up; and he sent Miss Jane a lock of his hair, and the recipe the tribe cooked him by. They found him ‘very nice,’ he said, and ‘He turned out quite tender.’ That was one of the lines in the poem. Did you ever hear of any thing like it? Who do you suppose could have sent it?”
“Who could it have been?” cried the others. Katy had one moment’s awful misgiving; but a glance at Rose’s face, calm and innocent as a baby’s, reassured her. It was impossible that she could have done this mischievous thing. Katy, you see, was not privy to that entry in Rose’s journal, “Pay Miss Jane off,” nor aware that Rose had just written underneath, “Did it. Feb. 14, 1869.”
Nobody ever found out the author of this audacious valentine. Rose kept her own counsel, and Miss Jane probably concluded that “the better part of valor was discretion,” for the threatened inquiries were never made.
And now it lacked but six weeks to the end of the term. The girls counted the days, and practised various devices to make them pass more quickly. Esther Dearborn, who had a turn for arithmetic, set herself to a careful calculation of how many hours, minutes, and seconds must pass before the happy time should come. Annie Silsbie strung forty-two tiny squares of card-board on a thread and each night slipped one off and burned it up in the candle. Others made diagrams of the time, with a division for each day, and every night blotted one out with a sense of triumph. None of these devices made the time hasten. It never moved more slowly than now, when life seemed to consist of a universal waiting.
But though Katy’s heart bounded at the thought of home till she could hardly bear the gladness, she owned to Clover,—“Do you know, much as I long to get away, I am half sorry to go! It is parting with something which we shall never have any more. Home is lovely, and I would rather be there than anywhere else; but, if you and I live to be a hundred, we shall never be girls at boarding-school again.”
Chapter XIII.
Paradise Regained
“Only seven days more to cross off,” said Clover, drawing her pencil through one of the squares