The passengers in the Seven Oaks and
Lumberton stage sat facing one another on the two
broad seats. Mademoiselle Picolet had established
herself in one corner of the forward seat, riding with
her back to the driver. Ruth and Helen were
side by side upon the other seat, and this newcomer
slid quickly in beside them and smiled a very broad
and friendly smile at the two chums.
“When you’ve been a little
while at Briarwood Hall,” she said, in her quick,
pert way, “you’ll learn that that’s
the only way to do with Old Dolliver. Make your
bargain before you get into the Ark that’s
what we call this stage or he surely will
overcharge you. Oh! how-do, Miss Picolet!”
She spoke to the French teacher so
carelessly indeed, in so scornful a tone that
Ruth was startled. Miss Picolet bowed gravely
and said something in return in her own language which
made Miss Cox flush, and her eyes sparkle. It
was doubtless of an admonishing nature, but Ruth and
Helen did not understand it.
“Of course, you are the two
girls whom we ex that is, who were expected
to-day?” the girl asked the chums, quickly.
“We are going to Briarwood Hall,” said
Ruth, timidly.
“Well, I’m glad I happened
to be out walking and overtook the stage,” their
new acquaintance said, with apparent frankness and
cordiality. “I’m Mary Cox.
I’m a Junior. The school is divided into
Primary, Junior and Senior. Of course, there
are many younger girls than either of you at Briarwood,
but all newcomers are called Infants. Probably,
however, you two will soon be in the Junior grade,
if you do not at once enter it.”
“I am afraid we shall both feel
very green and new,” Ruth said. “You
see, neither Helen nor I have ever been to a school
like this before. My friend is Helen Cameron
and my name is Ruth Fielding.”
“Ah! you’re going to room
together. You have a nice room assigned to you,
too. It’s on my corridor one
of the small rooms. Most of us are in quartettes;
but yours is a duet room. That’s nice,
too, when you are already friends.”
She seemed to have informed herself
regarding these particular newcomers, even if she
had met them quite by accident.
Helen, who evidently quite admired
Mary Cox, now ventured to say that she presumed most
of the girls were already gathered for the Autumn
term.
“There are a good many on hand.
Some have been here a week and more. But classes
won’t begin until Saturday, and then the work
will only be planned for the real opening of the term
on Monday. But we’re all supposed to arrive
in time to attend service Sunday morning. Mrs.
Tellingham is very strict about that. Those who
arrive after that have a demerit to work off at the
start.”
Mary Cox explained the system under
which Briarwood was carried on, too, with much good
nature; but all the time she never addressed the French
teacher, nor did she pay the least attention to her.
The cool way in which she conducted the conversation,
commenting upon the school system, the teachers, and
all other matters discussed, without the least reference
to Miss Picolet, made Ruth, at least, feel unhappy.
It was so plain that Mary Cox ignored and slighted
the little foreign lady by intention.
“I tell you what we will do,”
said Mary Cox, finally. “We’ll slip
out of the stage at the end of Cedar Walk. It’s
farther to the dormitories that way, but I fancy there’ll
be few of the girls there. The stage, you see,
goes much nearer to Briarwood; but I fancy you girls
would just as lief escape the warm greeting we usually
give to the arriving Infants,” and she laughed.
Ruth and Helen, with a vivid remembrance
of what they had seen at Seven Oaks, coincided with
this suggestion. It seemed very kind of a Junior
to put herself out for them, and the chums told her
so.
“Don’t bother,”
said Mary Cox. “Lots of the girls especially
girls of our age, coming to Briarwood for the first
time get in with the wrong crowd.
You don’t want to do that, you know.”
Now, the chums could not help being
a little flattered by this statement. Mary Cox
was older than Ruth and Helen, and the latter were
at an age when a year seemed to be a long time indeed.
Besides, Miss Cox was an assured Junior, and knew
all about what was still a closed book to Ruth Fielding
and Helen Cameron.
“I should suppose in a school
like Briarwood,” Ruth said, hesitatingly, “that
all the girls are pretty nice.”
“Oh! they are, to a degree.
Oh, yes!” cried Mary Cox. “Briarwood
is very select and Mrs. Tellingham is very careful.
You must know that, Miss Cameron,” she
added, point-blank to Helen, “or your father
would not have sent you here.”
Helen flushed at this boldly implied
compliment. Ruth thought to herself again that
Mary Cox must have taken pains to learn all about
them before they arrived, and she wondered why the
Junior had done so.
“You see, a duo-room costs some
money at Briarwood,” explained Miss Cox.
“Most of us are glad, when we get to be Juniors,
to get into a quarto a quartette, you understand.
The primary girls are in big dormitories, anyway.
Of course, we all know who your father is, Miss Cameron,
and there will be plenty of the girls fishing for your
friendship. And there’s a good deal of
rivalry at the beginning of each year,
especially.”
“Rivalry over what?” queried Ruth.
“Why, the clubs,” said Mary Cox.
Helen became wonderfully interested
at once. Everything pertaining to the life before
her at Briarwood was bound to interest Helen.
And the suggestion of society in the way of clubs
and associations appealed to her.
“What clubs are there?” she demanded of
the Junior.
“Why, there are several associations
in the school. The Basket Ball Association is
popular; but that’s athletic, not social.
Anybody can belong to that who wishes to play.
And we have a good school team which often plays
teams from other schools. It’s made up
mostly of Seniors, however.”
“But the other clubs?” urged Helen.
“Why, the principal clubs of
Briarwood are the Upedes and the Fussy Curls,”
said their new friend.
“What ridiculous names!”
cried Helen. “I suppose they mean
something, though?”
“That’s just our way of
speaking of them. The Upedes are the Up and
Doing Club. The Fussy Curls are the F. C.’s.”
“The F. C.’s?” questioned
Ruth. “What do the letters really stand
for?”
“Forward Club, I believe.
I don’t know much about the Fussy Curls,”
Mary said, with the same tone and air that she used
in addressing the little French teacher.
“You’re a Upede!” cried Helen, quickly.
“Yes,” said Mary Cox,
nodding, and seemed to have finished with that subject.
But Helen was interested; she had begun to like this
Cox girl, and kept to the subject.
“What are the Upedes and the F. C.’s rivals
about?”
“Both clubs are anxious to get
members,” Mary Cox said. “Both are
putting out considerable effort to gain new members especially
among these who enter Briarwood at the beginning of
the year.”
“What are the objects of the
rival clubs?” put in Ruth, quietly.
“I couldn’t tell you much
about the Fussy Curls,” said Mary, carelessly.
“Not being one of them I couldn’t be expected
to take much interest in their objects. But
our name tells our object at once. ‘Up
and Doing’! No slow-coaches about the Upedes.
We’re all alive and wide awake.”
“I hope we will get in with
a lively set of girls,” said Helen, with a sigh.
“It will be your own fault if you don’t,”
said Mary Cox.
Oddly enough, she did not show any
desire to urge the newcomers to join the Upedes.
Helen was quite piqued by this. But before the
discussion could be carried farther, Mary put her
head out of the window and called to the driver.
“Stop at the Cedar Walk, Dolliver.
We want to get out there. Here’s your
ten cents.”
Meanwhile the little foreign lady
had scarcely moved. She had turned her face
toward the open window all the time, and being veiled,
the girls could not see whether she was asleep, or
awake. She made no move to get out at this point,
nor did she seem to notice the girls when Mary flung
open the door on the other side of the coach, and Ruth
and Helen picked up their bags to follow her.
The chums saw that the stage had halted
where a shady, winding path seemed to lead up a slight
rise through a plantation of cedars. But the
spot was not lonely. Several girls were waiting
here for the coach, and they greeted Mary Cox when
she jumped down, vociferously.
“Well, Mary Cox! I guess
we know what you’ve been up to,” exclaimed
one who seemed older than the other girls in waiting.
“Did you rope any Infants, Mary?” cried
somebody else.
“‘The Fox’ never took all that long
walk for nothing,” declared another.
But Mary Cox paid her respects to the first speaker
only, by saying:
“If you want to get ahead of
the Upedes, Madge Steele, you Fussy Curls had better
set your alarm clocks a little earlier.”
Ruth and Helen were climbing out of
the old coach now, and the girl named Madge Steele
looked them over sharply.
“Pledged, are they?” she
said to Mary Cox, in a low tone.
“Well! I’ve been
riding in the Ark with them for the last three miles.
Do you suppose I have been asleep?” returned
Miss Cox, with a malicious smile.
Ruth and Helen did not distinctly
hear this interchange of words between their new friend
and Madge Steele; but Ruth saw that the latter was
a very well dressed and quiet looking girl that
she was really very pretty and ladylike. Ruth
liked her appearance much more than she did that of
Mary Cox. But the latter started at once into
the cedar plantation, up a serpentine walk, and Helen
and Ruth, perforce, went with her. The other
girls stood aside some of them whispering
together and smiling at the newcomers. The chums
could not help but feel strange and nervous, and Mary
Cox’s friendship seemed of value to them just
then.
Ruth, however, looked back at the
tall girl whose appearance had so impressed her.
The coach had not started on at once. Old Dolliver
did everything slowly. But Ruth Fielding saw
a hand beckoning at the coach window. It was
the hand of Miss Picolet, the French teacher, and it
beckoned Madge Steele.
The latter young lady ran to the coach
as it lurched forward on its way. Miss Picolet’s
face appeared at the window for an instant, and she
seemed to say something of importance to Madge Steele.
Ruth saw the pretty girl pull open the stage-coach
door again, and hop inside. Then the Ark lumbered
out of view, and Ruth turned to follow her chum and
Mary Cox up the winding Cedar Walk.