What Katy Did at School

by Susan Coolidge

  ‘Oh! don't make me go, papa,’ she implored, clinging to her father's arm. ‘I shall be so homesick! It will kill me, I know it will. Please let me stay. Please let me go home with you.’

  ‘Now, my darling,’ protested Mr Page, ‘this is foolish: you know it is.’

  ‘I can't help it,’ blubbered Lilly. ‘I ca – n't help it. Oh! don't, don't make me go. Don't, papa, dear. I ca – n't bear it.’

  Katy and Clover felt embarrassed during this scene. They had always been used to considering tears as things to be rather ashamed of – to be kept back, if possible; or, if not, shed in private corners, in dark closets, or behind the bed in the nursery. To see the stylish Lilly crying like a baby, in the midst of the railway carriage, with strangers looking on, quite shocked them. It did not last long however. The whistle sounded, the conductor shouted, ‘All right!’ and Mr Page, giving Lilly a last kiss, disengaged her clinging arms, put her into the seat beside Clover, and hurried out of the car. Lilly sobbed loudly for a few seconds; then she dried her eyes, lifted her head, adjusted her veil and the wrists of her three-buttoned gloves, and remarked –

  ‘I always go on in this way. Ma says I am a real cry-baby; and I suppose I am. I don't see how people can be calm and composed when they're leaving home, do you? You'll be just as bad tomorrow, when you come to say good-bye to your papa.’

  ‘Oh! I hope not,’ said Katy. ‘Because papa would feel so badly.’

  Lilly stared. ‘I shall think you real cold-hearted if you don't,’ she said, in an offended tone.

  Katy took no notice of the tone; and before long Lilly recovered from her pettishness, and began to talk about the school. Katy and Clover asked eager questions. They were eager to hear all that Lilly could tell.

  ‘You'll adore Mrs Florence,’ she said. ‘All the girls do. She's the most fascinating woman! She does just what she likes with everybody. Why, even the students think her perfectly splendid; and yet she's just as strict as she can be.’

  ‘Strict with students?’ asked Clover, looking puzzled.

  ‘No; strict with us girls. She never lets any one call, unless it's a brother or a first cousin; and then you must have a letter from your parents, asking permission. I wanted ma to write and say that George Hickman might call on me. He isn't a first cousin exactly, but his father married pa's sister-in-law's sister. So it's just as good. But ma was real mean about it. She says I'm too young to have gentlemen coming to see me! I can't think why. Ever so many girls who are younger than I have ‘em. Which row are you going to sleep in?’ she went on.

  ‘I don't know. Nobody told us that there were any rows.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Shaker Row, and Quaker Row, and Attic Row. Attic Row is the nicest, because it's highest up, and furthest away from Mrs Florence. My room is in Attic Row. Annie Silsbie and I engaged it last term. You'll be in Quaker Row, I guess. Most of the new girls are.’

  ‘Is that a nice row?’ asked Clover, greatly interested.

  ‘Pretty nice. It isn't so good as Attic, but it's very much better than Shaker; because there you're close to Mrs Florence, and can't have a bit of fun without her hearing you. I'd try to get the end room, if I were you. Mary Andrews and I had it once. There is a splendid view of Berry Searles's windows.’

  ‘Berry Searles?’

  ‘Yes; President Searles, you know; his youngest son. He's an elegant fellow. All the girls are cracked about him – perfectly cracked! The President's house is next door to the Nunnery, you know; and Berry rooms at the very end of the back building, just opposite Quaker Row. It used to be such fun! He'd sit at his window, and we'd sit at ours, in silent study hour, you know; and he'd pretend to read, and all the time keep looking over the top of his book at us, and trying to make us laugh. Once Mary did laugh right out; and Miss Jane heard her, and came in. But Berry is just as quick as a flash, and he ducked down under the window-sill; so she didn't see him. It was such fun!’

  ‘Who's Miss Jane?’ asked Katy.

  ‘The horridest old thing. She's Mrs Florence's niece, and engaged to a missionary. Mrs Florence keeps her on purpose to spy on us girls, and report when we break the rules. Oh, those rules! Just wait till you come to read ‘em over. They're nailed up on all the doors – thirty-two of them – and you can't help breaking ‘em if you try ever so much.’

  ‘What are they? what sort of rules?’ cried Katy and Clover in a breath.

  ‘Oh! about being punctual to prayers, and turning your mattress, and smoothing over the under-sheet before you leave your room, and never speaking a word in the hall, or in private-study hour, and hanging your towel on your own nail in the wash-room, and all that.’

  ‘Wash-room? what do you mean?’ said Katy, aghast.

  ‘At the head of Quaker Row, you know. All the girls wash there, except on Saturdays, when they go to the bath-house. You have your own bowl and soap-dish, and a hook for your towel. Why, what's the matter? How big your eyes are!’

  ‘I never heard anything so horrid!’ cried Katy, when she had recovered her breath. ‘Do you really mean that the girls don't have wash-stands in their own rooms?’

  ‘You'll get used to it. All the girls do,’ responded Lilly.

  ‘I don't want to get used to it,’ said Katy, resolving to appeal to papa; but papa had gone into the smoking-car, and she had to wait. Meantime Lilly went on talking.

  ‘If you have that end room in Quaker Row, you'll see all the fun that goes on at commencement time. Mrs Searles always has a big party, and you can look right in, and watch the people and the supper-table, just as if you were there. Last summer Berry and Alpheus Seccomb got a lot of cakes and mottoes from the table and came out into the yard, and threw them up one by one to Rose Red and her room-mate. They didn't have the end room, though; but the one next to it.’

  ‘What a funny name! – Rose Red,’ said Clover.

  ‘Oh! her real name is Rosamund Redding; but the girls call her Rose Red. She's the greatest witch in the school; not exactly pretty, you know, but sort of killing and fascinating. She's always getting into the most awful scrapes. Mrs Florence would have expelled her long ago if she hadn't been such a favourite; and Mr Redding's daughter, beside. He's a member of Congress, you know, and all that; and Mrs Florence is quite proud of having Rose in her school.

  ‘Berry Searles is so funny!’ she continued. ‘His mother is a horrid old thing, and always interfering with him. Sometimes when he has a party of fellows in his room, and they're playing cards, we can see her coming with her candle through the house; and when she gets to his door, she tries it, and then she knocks, and calls out, “Abernethy, my son!” And the fellows whip the cards into their pockets, and stick the bottles under the table and get out their books and dictionaries in a minute; and when Berry unlocks the door, there they sit, studying away; and Mrs Searles looks so disappointed! I thought I should die one night, me and Mary Andrews laughed so.’

  I verily believe that if Dr Carr had been present at this conversation, he would have stopped at the next station, and taken the girls back to Burnet. But he did not return from the smoking-car till the anecdotes about Berry were finished, and Lilly had begun again on Mrs Florence.

  ‘She's a sort of queen, you know. Everybody minds her. She's tall, and always dresses beautifully. Her eyes are lovely; but, when she gets angry, they're perfectly awful. Rose Red says she'd rather face a mad bull any day than Mrs Florence in a fury; and Rose ought to know, for she's had more reprimands than any girl in the school.’

  ‘How many girls are there?’ inquired Dr Carr.

  ‘There were forty-eight last term. I don't know how many there'll be this, for they say Mrs Florence is going to give up. It's she who makes the school so popular.’

  All this time the train was moving northward. With every mile the country grew prettier. Spring had not fairly opened; but the grass was green, and the buds on the trees gave a tender mist-like colour to the woods. The road followed the river, which here and there turned upon itself in long links and w
indings. Ranges of blue hills closed the distance. Now and then a nearer mountain rose, single and alone, from the plain. The air was cool, and full of a brilliant zest, which the Western girls had never before tasted. Katy felt as if she were drinking champagne. She and Clover flew from window to window, exclaiming with such delight that Lilly was surprised.

  ‘I can't see what there is to make such a fuss about,’ she remarked. ‘That's only Deerfield. It's quite a small place.’

  ‘But how pretty it looks, nestled in among the hills! Hills are lovely, Clover, aren't they?’

  ‘These hills are nothing. You should see the White Mountains,’ said the experienced Lilly. ‘Ma and me spent three weeks at the Profile House last vacation. It was perfectly elegant.’

  In the course of the afternoon Katy drew papa away to a distant seat, and confided her distress about the wash-stands.

  ‘Don't you think it is horrid, pa? Aunt Izzie always said it isn't lady-like not to take a sponge-bath every morning; but how can we, with forty-eight girls in the room? I don't see what we are going to do.’

  ‘I fancy we can arrange it; don't be distressed, my dear,’ replied Dr Carr. And Katy was satisfied; for when papa undertook to arrange things, they were very apt to be done.

  It was almost evening when they reached their final stopping-place.

  ‘Now, two miles in the stage, and then we're at the horrid old Nunnery,’ said Lilly. ‘Ugh! look at that snow. It never melts here till long after it's all gone at home. How I do hate this station! I'm going to be frightfully homesick: I know I am.’

  But just then she caught sight of the stagecoach, which stood waiting, and her mood changed: for the stage was full of girls who had come by the other train.

  ‘Hurrah! there's Mary Edwards and Mary Silver,’ she exclaimed; ‘and, I declare, Rose Red! Oh, you precious darling! how do you do?’ Scrambling up the steps, she plunged at a girl with waving hair, and a rosy, mischievous face; and began kissing her with effusion.

  Rose Red did not seem equally enchanted. ‘Well, Lilly, how are you?’ she said, and then went on talking to a girl who sat by her side, and whose hand she held; while Lilly rushed up and down the line, embracing and being embraced. She did not introduce Katy and Clover; and, as papa was outside, on the driver's box, they felt a little lonely and strange. All the rest were chattering merrily, and were evidently well acquainted: they were the only ones left out.

  Clover watched Rose Red, to whose face she had taken a fancy. It made her think of a pink carnation, or of a twinkling wild rose, with saucy whiskers of brown calyx. Whatever she said or did seemed full of a flavour especially her own. Her eyes, which were blue and not very large, sparkled with fun and mischief. Her cheeks were round and soft, like a baby's: when she laughed, two dimples broke their pink, and made you want to laugh too. A cunning white throat supported this pretty head, as a stem supports a flower; and, altogether, she was like a flower, except that flowers don't talk, and she talked all the time. What she said seemed very droll, for the girls about her were in fits of laughter; but Clover only caught a word now and then, the stage made such a noise.

  Suddenly Rose Red leaned forward, and touched Clover's hand.

  ‘What's your name?’ she said. ‘You've got eyes like my sister's. Are you coming to the Nunnery?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Clover, smiling back. ‘My name is Clover – Clover Carr.’

  ‘What a dear little name! It sounds just as you look!’

  ‘So does your name – Rose Red,’ said Clover shyly.

  ‘It's a ridiculous name,’ protested Rose Red, trying to pout.

  Just then the stage stopped.

  ‘Why? Who's going to the hotel?’ cried the school-girls in a chorus.

  ‘I am,’ said Dr Carr, putting his head in at the door, with a smile which captivated every girl there. ‘Come, Katy; come, Clover. I've decided that you shan't begin school till tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, my! Don't I wish he was my pa!’ cried Rose Red. Then the stage moved on.

  ‘Who are they? What's their name?’ asked the girls. ‘They look nice.’

  ‘They're sort of cousins of mine, and they come from the West,’ replied Lilly, not unwilling to own the relationship, now that she perceived that Dr Carr had made a favourable impression.

  ‘Why on earth didn't you introduce them, then? I declare that was just like you, Lilly Page,’ put in Rose Red, indignantly. ‘They looked so lonesome that I wanted to pat and stroke both of ‘em. That little one has the sweetest eyes!’

  Meantime Katy and Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights after the confusions of the day and Lilly's extraordinary talk. It was very evident that the Nunnery was to be quite different from their expectations; but another thing was equally evident – it would not be dull! Rose Red by herself, and without any one to help her, would be enough to prevent that!

  4

  THE NUNNERY

  The night seemed short; for the girls, tired by their journey, slept like dormice. About seven o'clock Katy was roused by the click of a blind; and, opening her eyes, saw Clover standing in the window, and peeping out through the half-opened shutters. When she heard Katy move, she cried out –

  ‘Oh, do come! It's so interesting! I can see the colleges and the church, and, I guess, the Nunnery; only I am not quite sure, because the houses are all so much alike.’

  Katy jumped up and hurried to the window. The hotel stood on one side of a green common, planted with trees. The common had a lead-coloured fence, and gravel paths, which ran across it from corner to corner. Opposite the hotel was a long row of red buildings, broken by one or two brown ones, with cupolas. These were evidently the colleges, and a large grey building with a spire was as evidently the church; but which one of the many white, green-blinded houses which filled the other sides of the common, was the Nunnery, the girls could not tell. Clover thought it was one with a garden at the side; but Katy thought not, because Lilly had said nothing of a garden. They discussed the point so long, that the breakfast-bell took them by surprise; and they were forced to rush through their dressing as fast as possible, so as not to keep papa waiting.

  When breakfast was over, Dr Carr told them to put on their hats, and get ready to walk with him to the school. Clover took one arm, and Katy the other; and the three passed between some lead-coloured posts, and took one of the diagonal paths which led across the common.

  ‘That's the house,’ said Dr Carr, pointing.

  ‘It isn't the one you picked out, Clover,’ said Katy.

  ‘No,’ replied Clover, a little disappointed. The house papa indicated was by no means so pleasant as the one she had chosen.

  It was a tall, narrow building, with dormer windows in the roof, and a square porch supported by whitewashed pillars. A pile of trunks stood in the porch. From above came sounds of voices. Girls' heads were popped out of upper windows at the swinging of the gate; and, as the door opened, more heads appeared looking over the balusters from the hall above.

  The parlour into which they were taken was full of heavy, old-fashioned furniture, stiffly arranged. The sofa and chairs were covered with black haircloth, and stood closely against the wall. Some books lay upon the table, arranged two by two, each upper book being exactly at a right angle with each lower book. A bunch of dried grasses stood in the fire-place. There were no pictures, except one portrait in oils, of a forbidding old gentleman in a wig and glasses, sitting with his middle finger majestically inserted in a half-open Bible. Altogether, it was not a cheerful room, nor one calculated to raise the spirits of newcomers; and Katy, whose long seclusion had made her sensitive on the subject of rooms, shrank instinctively nearer papa as they went in.

  Two ladies rose to receive them. One, a tall, dignified person, was Mrs Florence. The other she introduced as, ‘My assistant principal, Mrs Nipson‘. Mrs Nipson was not tall. She had a round face, pinched l
ips, and half-shut grey eyes.

  ‘This lady is fully associated with me in the management of the school,’ explained Mrs Florence. ‘When I go, she will assume the entire control.’

  ‘Is that likely to be soon?’ inquired Dr Carr, surprised, and not well pleased that the teacher of whom he had heard, and with whom he had proposed to leave his children, was planning to yield her place to a stranger.

  ‘The time is not yet determined,’ replied Mrs Florence. Then she changed the subject – gracefully, but so decidedly, that Dr Carr had no chance for further question. She spoke of classes, and discussed what Katy and Clover were to study. Finally, she proposed to take them upstairs to see their room. Papa might come too, she said.

  ‘I dare say that Lilly Page, who tells me that she is a cousin of yours, has described the arrangements of the house,’ she remarked to Katy. ‘The room I have assigned to you is in the back building. “Quaker Row”, the girls call it.’

  She smiled as she spoke; and Katy, meeting her eyes for the first time, felt that there was something in what Lilly had said, Mrs Florence was a sort of queen.

  They went upstairs. Some girls, who were peeping over the baluster, hurried away at their approach. Mrs Florence shook her head at them.

  ‘The first day is always one of licence,’ she said, leading the way along an uncarpeted entry to a door at the end, from which, by a couple of steps, they went down into a square room – round three sides of which ran a shelf, on which stood rows of wash-bowls and pitchers. Above were hooks for towels. Katy perceived that this was the much-dreaded wash-room.