by Nell Speed
CHAPTER IV.
RULES AND RESULTS.
The strangest thing about Miss Plympton was that she never was able totell the Tucker Twins apart. This was an unforgivable offense in theireyes and in the eyes of their friends. They were as alike as two peas insome ways and the antipodes in others. They might mystify you from theback but once you got a good look in their eyes, the mirrors of theirsouls, you were pretty apt to get them straight and keep them straight.Then their colouring was so different. Dee's hair was black with bluelights and Dum's was black with red lights; Dee's eyes were grey andDum's hazel; Dee had a dimple in her chin, while Dum's chin had anuncompromising squareness to it that gave you to understand that hercharacter was quite as fixed as Gibraltar, and she had no more idea ofchanging her mind than Miss Plympton had of toying with unalterablefacts, such as 1066 or 1492.
From the very beginning I scented trouble between the new principal andthe Tuckers. Miss Plympton called them Miss Tucker indiscriminately, andsometimes both of them answered and sometimes neither of them. Eitherway irritated Miss Plympton. She seemed to think they should know byinstinct which one she meant. She finally grasped the fact that they hadseparate names but was more than apt to call Dee, Virginia, and Dum,Caroline, which was quite as unpardonable as saying Columbus discoveredAmerica in 1066 would have been to her.
"The very next time she calls me Caroline, I'm going to call herPlumpton," declared Dum. "I don't mean that Dee ain't as good as I amand a heap better, but I'm me----"
"Yes, and in the same vernacular Dee's her," I teased. We had a compactto correct the grammar of our roommates.
"I stand corrected about ain't but I still stick to 'I'm me.' It is moreforceful and means more than 'I'm I.' Of course I'm I, but in MissPlumpton's mind there seems to be strong doubt whether I'm me. I is akind of ladylike, sissy outside of a person, but me is the inmost,inward, soul self--I'm me--me--me!"
"Well, you certainly are and there is no one quite like you. I don't seewhy Miss Plympton can't see it, too."
"I know why! It's because she doesn't understand people. She thinks ofus as being human beings of the female sex, who weigh a certain amount,are just so tall and so wide, have lived a certain time and come fromsuch and such a city. Why, the only difference she sees between you andMary Flannagan is that you are in 117 and Mary is in 115, and you havebrown hair and Mary has red, and Mary is better on dates than you are.The real true Page Allison is a closed book to that fat head. I believeMiss Peyton knew our souls as well as she did our bodies."
We missed Miss Peyton every hour of the day. Her reign had been wise andgentle and always just. We never forgot her kindness to us the time Deekept the kitten in her room all night. She won us over for life then andthere. Miss Plympton had retained all of Miss Peyton's rules and addedto them. She fenced us around with so many rules that the honour systemwas abolished.
Study hall was a very different place from what it had been in MissPeyton's time. Then order had ruled because we were on our honour not tocommunicate with one another by word or sign. Of course some girls donot regard honour as a very precious thing and they broke their word,but most girls, I am glad to say, have as keen a sense of honour as thebest of men. Miss Plympton's attitude toward us was one of doubt andsuspicion and, the honour system being abolished, we naturally felt thatthe most serious fault we could commit would be breaking the eleventhcommandment: "Thou shalt not be found out." We developed astonishingagility in evading the authorities and getting out of scrapes. Fromhaving been five law-abiding citizens, we turned into extremely slickoutlaws. Even Annie Pore would sometimes suggest escapades that no onewould dream could find harbour behind that calm, sweet brow.
The same unrest pervaded the whole school. A day never passed that somegroup of girls was not called to the office to have a serious reprimand.We got so hardened that it meant no more to us than the ordinary routineof the day, while the year before to be called to the office to haveMiss Peyton censure you about something was a calamity that every oneearnestly prayed to avoid. Miss Peyton never talked to you like a DutchUncle unless you needed it, while Miss Plympton never talked to you anyother way.
"She makes me feel like an inmate of a detention home or some placewhere the criminally insane are sent," stormed Dee. "She makes out Ihave done things I never even thought of doing and has not got senseenough to know I never lie."
"What was it this time?" I asked.
"She said I changed the record on the Victrola Sunday night from 'Lead,Kindly Light,' sung by Louise Homer, to 'A-Roaming in the Gloaming,' byHarry Lauder. You see all that bunch of preachers was here, and, ofcourse, only sacred music was permissible under the circumstances."
"Why, I did that!" exclaimed Dum, "and didn't the preachers like it,though! Well, I reckon it is up to me to go 'fess up."
"Not a bit of it!" declared Dee. "She never asked who did it--that's nother way. She works with a spy system, so let her work that way. I bet wecan outwit any spy she can get."
It seems strange when I look back on it that this spirit of mischief hadentered into our crowd to such an extent, but we were not the same girlswe had been the year before, all because of this head of the school whodid not understand girls. If she had trusted us, we would have beentrustworthy, I am sure.
There was a printed list of don'ts a yard long tacked up in everyavailable spot, and I can safely declare that during the year we didevery single thing we were told not to do. If we missed one of them itwas an accident. They were such silly don'ts. "No food must be kept inthe rooms." Now, what school girl is going to keep such a rule as that?"No talking in the halls or corridors." That would be impossible exceptin a deaf and dumb institution. "No washing of clothes of any sort inthe rooms or bath rooms." Then what is the use of having little crepe dechine handkerchiefs and waists if they must be sent in the laundry andcome back starched and all the nice crinkle ironed out of them? Whowould put her best silk stockings in wash to have them come back minus afoot? "No ink to be taken to rooms." We would just as soon have writtenwith pencils except that the rule made us long to break it. Of course,break it we did. "No talking after lights are out." Now what nonsensewas that? When lights are out is the very time to talk to your roommate.I verily believe that there was not one single rule on that list thatwas necessary. There were lots more of them and all of them equallysilly. The worst one of all was: "Absolutely no visiting in rooms."That meant no social life at all.
We had looked forward to having Annie and Mary next to us, but if therewas to be no visiting it would not do us much good. Annie thought up ascheme that surprised and delighted us.
"Let's have telephonic communication. Our closets adjoin."
"Good! So they do," tweedled the Tuckers. "We'll get Zebedee to send usthe things to make it." Of course Zebedee sent them the required thingsas he always aided and abetted us in every scheme to have a good time.He bought one of the toy telephones that has a tiny battery attached andis really excellent as a house telephone. We installed it quite easilywith the aid of an auger that Zebedee had the forethought to send withthe toy. The things came disguised as shoes. That telephone was a greatsource of pleasure to us and at times proved to be a real friend. It wasconcealed behind Dum's Sunday dress and it would have been a cleverdetective who could have discovered it.
"Let's not tell a soul about it," said Mary, "because you know howthings spread. You know," holding up one finger, "and I know," holdingup another, "and that makes eleven."
We kept our secret faithfully and often mystified the other girls bycommunicating things to our neighbours when they knew we had not been totheir room and had not spoken to them in the halls. Of course we did nothave a bell as that would have been a dangerous method of attractingattention, but three knocks on the wall was a signal that you werewanted at the phone.
Annie was the originator of another scheme that saved us many a demerit.Every one of us had a dummy that could be made in a few moments, andthese we always carefully put in our beds when we went off
on thespreads or what not that took us out of our rooms when we were supposedto be in them.
"How on earth did you ever think of such a thing, Annie?" asked theadmiring Mary.
"I am ashamed to say the Katzenjammer Kids in the comic supplement putit in my head," blushed Annie. "I know it is not very refined but Ialways read it."
It was rather incongruous to think of Annie Pore, the timid, shy, veryladylike English girl, who a little more than a year ago looked asthough she had not a friend in the world and had never read anythingmore recent than Tennyson's "Maud," not only reading the funny paper butlearning mischief from it and imparting the same to the Tucker Twins,past masters in the art of getting into scrapes. These dummies weretopped by boudoir caps with combings carefully saved and stitched in theedge of the caps, giving a most life like look when stuffed out withanything that came to hand. A sofa cushion dressed up in a night gown,tucked carefully under the cover with the boudoir cap reposing on thepillow, would fool any teacher who came creeping into our room afterlights out to see if we were in any mischief.
Mary's hair, being that strong healthy kind of red hair, never came out,so she had no combings, never had had any. We ravelled out Dum's oldred sweater sleeve and made a wonderful wig, some redder than Mary's,but in the subdued light in which it was to be viewed it did very well.
"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," Mary would quote asshe tucked her counterfeit self up in her warm bed preparatory to somemidnight escapade.