Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

  CHAPTER X

  AT HARRINGTON HALL

  THE other day Miss Everett, the English teacher, took a book away fromJessica Archibald. She said it wasn't suitable for a girl in her teens.It was too sentimental and romantic. Jess didn't mind it very much, forshe is one of the worshippers at Miss Everett's shrine. When a bunch ofgirls are so devoted to a person that they'll go to her room and takethe hairs out of her comb to put in their lockets or their memory books,that is the limit. I don't see how any novel ever written could beatthat for being sentimental.

  But Babe Nolan doesn't agree with me. She never does. She said, "Look atthe old Romans. Didn't I remember in Anthony over Caesar's dead body:

  "Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, and dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy."

  But Babe admits that Jessica is disgustingly sentimental. They areroom-mates. And Babe says how any grown person can be the blind bat thatJess's mother is, is a mystery to her. Mrs. Archibald told Miss Everettthat her little daughter is "an unawakened child as yet, just a shy,budding, white violet," and she wants to keep her so till she's throughschool. She says Jessica has always been totally indifferent to boys,never gives them a thought, and she doesn't want her to until she isgrown and Prince Charming arrives on the scene. She's just fifteen now.

  And all the time, Babe says, shy little Jessica is having the worst kindof a case with one of the Military Academy cadets, who started up anacquaintance with her one day on the street-car, behind the chaperone'sback. She's slipped off and gone alone to movies several times to meethim, when she was supposed to be taking tea with her aunt. Yet she looksup in such an innocent, wide-eyed way, and seems so shocked when suchescapades are mentioned, that you wouldn't suspect her any more than youwould a little gray kitten. But it's making her dreadfully deceitful.

  Babe came up to our room to talk to Lillian and me about it, for she'sreally worried over those clandestine meetings. She says the wholetrouble is that Jess doesn't know boys as they exist in the flesh. Sheknows only the demi-gods created by her own imagination. She has beenbrought up on fairy-tales in which princes often go around disguised asswine-herds, and, not having any brothers which would give her the keyto the whole species, she doesn't know a swineherd when she meets him.

  Babe told her no real prince would ask anything clandestine, and thatthis cadet she's mooning around about is only an overgrown schoolboywith a weak chin and a bad complexion, and if she could see him as hereally is and as he looks to the rest of us girls, it would cure her ofher romantic infatuation. And Babe told her, moreover, that no realprince would pretend to be a poet when he wasn't, and that the verses hesent her were not original as she fondly believed, wearing them aroundinside her middy blouse. Babe couldn't remember just what poem they weretaken from, but said they were as well known to the public as "Casey atthe bat." She is so blunt that when she begins handing out plain truthsshe never stops for anyone's feelings.

  Babe says that if she ever marries and is left a widow in poorcircumstances, she will support herself by starting a CorrespondenceSchool in a branch that will do more good than all the curriculums ofall the colleges. It will be a sort of Geography of Life, teaching mapsand boundaries of the "_United States_" and general information to fitone for entering it. She said we shouldn't be left to stumble into it,in blindfold ignorance like Jessica's.

  Right there I couldn't resist breaking in to say, "Oh, speaking of a_correspondence_ course, Babe, did you ever find that brass-balledbedstead you were looking for at the auction?"

  Of course the question had no significance for Lillian, but it pointedlyreminded Babe of the correspondence she had with the One for whom shewas once all eyes when he was present, and all memory when he was gone.She's entirely over that foolishness now, but she turned as red as fire,just the same, and to keep Lillian from noticing, she turned to thebureau and began talking about the first thing she looked at.

  It happened to be a photograph of Lillian's brother, Duffield, who is anupper classman at Annapolis. Lillian is awfully proud of him, althoughfrom his picture you wouldn't call him anything extraordinary. His noseis sort of snub, but he has a nice face as if he really might be thejolly kind of a big brother that Lillian says he is. She's alwaysquoting him. I've heard so much about what "Duff thinks" and "Duff usedto say and do" that I feel that I know him as well as if we'd beenbrought up in the same house.

  So when she began singing his praises again, declaring that Duffieldwouldn't ask a girl to meet him clandestinely and he wouldn't have anyrespect for one who wanted to, I withdrew from the conversation. It wastime for me to go on copying the theme which Babe's entrance hadinterrupted.

  She must have been responsive enough to have pleased even Lillian, forwhen next I was conscious of what they were saying, Lillian wasincluding Babe in the invitation she had given me some time ago, to goalong with them next time her mother motored down to Annapolis to seeDuff. They're going down to a hop in April, which is only a few days offnow, and again in June week, and stay at John Carrol Hall. Mrs. Lockehas already written to Barby, inviting me, and Barby has given herpermission.

  Mrs. Locke is from Kentucky, and knows all the Shirleys. She alwaysintroduces me as "the granddaughter of our illustrious editor, youknow." In that way I've met a lot of Barby's old friends when I've beeninvited to take dinner at the hotel with Lillian. That accounts also formy being included in their invitation to an informal musicale at theWhite House where I met the President and his wife. (See Book ofChronicles for six pages describing that grand occasion.)

  Of all the legacies in the world, nothing is more desirable for childrento inherit than old friendships. One day when Mrs. Locke took Lillianand me shopping with her, we met a lady in one of the stores whom sheintroduced as Mrs. Waldon. No sooner had she been told who I am than sheheld out both hands to me, saying in the dearest way, "Not BarbyShirley's daughter, and half a head taller than I! Why, my dear, I wasat your mother's wedding, and it seems only yesterday. Our families havebeen neighbors for three generations, so you see we inherited ourfriendship, and now here you come, walking into the same heritage."

  She insisted on taking us home to lunch with her. Mrs. Locke had anotherengagement, but Lillian and I went. She has the dearest apartment, onthe top floor with a stairway running up to a little roof garden. Herhusband served in the Civil War and was a general in the Cuban war, andtwo of her daughters have recently married naval officers. They wereliving in Annapolis when that happened, so she knows all about theplace. Her other daughter, Miss Catherine, has just come back from avisit down there, and she told us so much about the place and the goodtimes she has there that we are simply wild to go. I can hardly wait forthe time to come.

  * * * * *

  We have just come to our rooms from the Current Events class. If itwasn't for Miss Allen's little lecture every Friday afternoon, reviewingthe happenings of the week, we'd hardly know what is going on outside ofthe school premises. We rarely see the papers, and it is as sweet andpeaceful as a cloister, here at the Hall, with its high-hedged parkaround it. We forget, sometimes, the awful suffering and horrors thathave been shocking the world for nearly two years. Our lessons andrecreations and friendships fill our days to the brim, and crowd theother things out. While we're digging into our mathematics or playingbasketball with all our might, if we think of war at all, it's in theback of our heads, like the memory of a bad dream.

  But when Miss Allen tells us of some new horror as she did today, of thetorpedoing of the _Sussex_, crowded with passengers and many Americansaboard, then we realize we are living on the edge of a smoulderingvolcano, which may burst into action any moment. It doesn't seempossible that our country can keep out of it much longer. I know Fatherthinks so. His letters are few and far between because he's so verybusy, but there's always that same note of warning running through them.

  "Make the most of this year at school, Georgina. Nobody knows what iscoming. So get all y
ou can out of it in the way of preparation to meetthe time of testing that lies ahead for all of us."

  After one of those letters I go at my lessons harder than ever, and thelittle school happenings, its games and rivalries and achievements, seemtoo trivial for words. I keep measuring them by Father and his work, andwhat Richard is doing so splendidly up there in Canada, and I wish therewas something I could do to make them as proud of me as I am of them. Ifthe family would only consent to my going in for a nurse's training! I'mgoing to talk Barby into letting me stop school this vacation, andbeginning this fall to fit myself for Red Cross service.

  When Richard found that Mr. Milford had told us about him being thetemporary head of a family, he began mentioning his proteges now andthen in a joking way. But two snapshots which he sent of them told morethan all his brief descriptions. The one labelled "Granny" shows morethan just a patient-faced little woman knitting in the doorway. Theglimpse of cottage behind her and the neat door-yard in front shows thathe has something to go back to every night that has a real touch ofhome about it. He boards there, so that he can keep an eye on the boys.One is five, the other seven. He said he had to give the older one,Cuthbert, a fatherly spanking one day, but it didn't seem to make anydifference in the kid's feeling towards him.

  They seem to be very fond of each other, judging from the secondsnapshot, labelled "Uncle Dick and his acrobats." The two boys wereclimbing up on his shoulders like little monkeys, all three in overallsand all grinning as if they enjoyed it. It seems too queer for words tothink of Richard being dignified and settled down enough for anybody tolook up to him as authority. But the sights he sees are enough to makehim old and grave beyond his years. He has written several times ofgoing to the station to help with a train-load of soldiers returned fromthe front. They are constantly coming back, crippled and blinded andmaimed in all sorts of ways. He says that sights like that make himdesperate to get a whack at the ones who did it. He'll soon be in shapeto do something worth while, for he's learning to fly, so he can testthe machines they are making.

  Lillian looked at the acrobat picture rather sniffily when it came. Ithink she took him for just an ordinary mechanic in his workingclothes. But when I told her what a Sir Gareth deed he is doing herindifference changed almost to hero-worship. She's so temperamental. Notlong ago he sent another picture of himself, a large one, in the act ofseating himself in the plane, ready for flight. She wanted to know ifshe had anything I'd be willing to trade with her for it. She'd gladlygive me one of Duff in place of it.

  It put me in rather an awkward position for I didn't want Duffield'spicture, and I most certainly didn't want her to have Richard's.