Youth adapts itself easily and naturally
to all change. Ruth Fielding and her chum, before
that second evening at Briarwood Hall drew in, felt
as though they had known the place for months and some
of the girls all their lives. It was thus the
most natural thing in the world to assemble at meals
when the school-bell tapped its summons, to stand
while the grace was being said, to chatter and laugh
with those at the table at which they sat, to speak
and laugh with the waitresses, and with old Tony Foyle,
and with Miss Scrimp, the matron of their house, and
to bow respectfully to Miss Picolet, Miss Kennedy,
the English teacher; Miss O’Hara, before whom
Ruth and Helen would come in mathematics, and the
other teachers as they learned their names.
Dr. Tellingham, although affording
some little amusement for the pupils because of his
personal peculiarities, was really considered by the
girls in general a deeply learned man, and when he
chanced to trot by a group of the students on the
campus, in his stoop-shouldered, purblind way, their
voices became hushed and they looked after him as though
he really was all he pretended to be or
all he thought he was. He delved in histories ate,
slept, and seemed to draw the breath of his nostrils
from histories. That the pamphlets and books
he wrote were of trivial importance, and seldom if
ever saw the light of print, was not made manifest
to the Briarwood girls in general.
Ruth and Helen were not unpopular
from the start. Helen was so pretty and so vivacious,
that she was bound to gather around her almost at
once those girls who were the more easily attracted
by such a nature; while for Ruth’s part, the
little Primes found that she was both kind and loving.
She did not snub the smaller girls who came to her
for any help, and before this day was over (which
was Friday) they began to steal into the chums’
duet, in twos and threes, to talk with Ruth Fielding.
It had been so at the school near the Red Mill, and
Ruth was glad the little folk took to her.
Late in the afternoon the two friends
from Cheslow went out to the main entrance of the
grounds to meet Old Dolliver’s stage from Seven
Oaks. It had been noised abroad that a whole
nursery of Infants was expected by that conveyance,
and Mary Cox and Madge Steele, each with her respective
committee, were in waiting to greet the new-comers
on behalf of their separate societies.
“And we’ll welcome them
as fellow-infants,” whispered Ruth to Helen.
“Let’s hold a reception in our room this
evening to all the newcomers. What say, Helen?”
Her chum was a little doubtful as
to the wisdom of this course. She did not like
to offend their friends in the Upedes. Yet the
suggestion attracted Helen, too.
“I suppose if we freshmen stick
together we’ll have a better time, after all,”
she agreed.
As the time for the appearance of
the stage drew near, approximately half the school
was gathered to see the Infants disembark from Old
Dolliver’s Ark. Mary Cox arranged her Upedes
on one side of the path and they began to sing:
“Uncle Noah, he drove an Ark
One wide river
to cross!
He made a landing at Briarwood Park
One wide river
to cross!
One
wide river!
One
wide river of Jordan!
One
wide river!
One
wide river to cross!”
Old Dolliver, all one wide grin and
flapping duster, drove his bony horses to the stopping
place with a flourish.
“Here we be!” he croaked.
“The old craft is jest a-bulgin’ over
with Infants.”
Mary Cox pulled open the door and
the first newcomer popped out as though she had been
clinging to the handle when The Fox made the movement.
“The Infants got out, one by one
One wide river to cross!
First Infant bumps into a great big Stone
One wide river to cross!”
And there really was Heavy to receive
the newcomer with open arms, who said, while the others
chanted the refrain:
“My name’s Jennie Stone,
and you’re very welcome to Briarwood, and what’s
your name, Infant?”
The girls in the stage-coach had been
forewarned by Old Dolliver as to their probable greeting,
and they took this all in good part. They disembarked
with their bags and parcels, while Tony Foyle appeared
to help Old Dolliver down with the heavier luggage
that was strapped upon the roof and in the boot behind.
Mary Cox continued to line out the doggerel, inventing
some telling hits as she went along, while the Upedes
came in strongly on the refrain.
There was much laughter and confusion;
but the arriving Infants were lined up two by two
between the long rows of Briarwood girls and were
forced to march toward the Hall by this narrow path.
“Come! we are Infants, too,”
exclaimed Ruth, pulling Helen by the sleeve.
“We will lead the march.”
She drew her chum away with her, and
they introduced themselves to the girls at the head
of the column of freshies.
“We are Helen Cameron and Ruth
Fielding,” said Ruth, cordially. “We
only got here yesterday, so we are Infants, too.
We will take you to the office of the Preceptress.”
So the chums bore their share of the
indignity of being marched up through the grounds
like culprits, and halted the file at the steps of
the main building.
“We have Duet Number 2 in the
West Dormitory,” said Ruth, boldly, to the new-comers.
“When you have found your rooms and got settled after
supper, that will be, you are all invited
to come to our room and get acquainted with the other
Infants. We’re going to get as many together
this evening as we can. Now, do come!”
“Oh, Ruth!” whispered
Helen, when they were out of ear-shot of the others.
“What will the Upedes say?”
“We’re not interfering
with either of the school clubs,” declared her
chum, emphatically. “But I guess it won’t
hurt us to become acquainted with those who are as
new here as ourselves. The old girls don’t
feel strange, or lost; it is these new ones that need
to be made to feel at home.”
Timid for herself, Ruth had begun
to develop that side of her character which urged
her to be bold for the general good. She appreciated
keenly how awkward she had felt when she arrived at
Briarwood the day before. Helen, although not
lacking in kindliness, was less thoughtful than her
chum; and she was actually less bold than her chum,
too.
Ruth made it a point to see and speak
with all the new scholars whom she could find, repeating
her invitation for a meeting in her room. Whether
Helen helped in this matter she did not know.
Her chum was not enthusiastic in the task,
that was certain. And indeed, when the hour
came, after supper, Helen was closeted with Mary Cox
in the quartette room next door to the chamber and
study which she and Ruth Fielding shared together.
That Ruth felt more than a little
hurt, it is unnecessary to say. She had felt
the entering wedge between them within a few hours
of their coming to the school. The Upedes were
much more friendly to Helen than to herself, and Helen
was vastly interested in Mary Cox, Belle Tingley,
Lluella Fairfax, and some of the other livelier members
of the Up and Doing Club.
But, after a while Helen strolled
into her own room and mingled with the Infants who
had there assembled. They had come almost to
their full strength. There were no sessions
of either the F. C.’s or the Upedes on this
evening, and Miss Picolet, to whom Ruth had spoken
about the little reception to be held in her room,
approved of it. Helen was bound to be popular
among any crowd of girls, for she was so gay and good-tempered.
But when somebody broached the subject of school clubs,
Ruth was surprised that Helen should at once talk boldly
for the Upedes. She really urged their cause
as though she was already a member.
“I am not at all sure that I
wish to join either the Forwards or the Up and Doings,”
said Ruth, quietly, when one of the other Infants asked
her what she intended doing.
“But you’ll have no friends
here not among the Juniors and Seniors,
at least if you don’t join some club!”
Helen exclaimed.
“There are enough of us right
here to found a society, I should say,” laughed
Ruth. “And we’re all in the same
boat, too.”
“Yes!” agreed Sarah Fish,
one of the Infants just arrived. “And what
do these older girls really care about us? Very
little, I am sure, except to strengthen their own
clubs. I can see that,” she continued,
being a very practical, sensible girl, and downright
in speech and manner. “Two of them came
into our room at once the girl they call
The Fox, and Miss Steele. One argued for the
Forwards and the other for the Up and Doings.
I don’t want either.”
“I don’t want to join
either,” broke in another girl, by name Phyllis
Short. “I think it would be nicer for us
Infants, as they call us, to keep together.
And we’re no younger than a good many of the
Juniors!”
Ruth laughed. “We expect
to take all that good-naturedly. But I
don’t like the idea of being driven into one
society, or the other. And I don’t mean
to be,” she said, emphatically.
“Hear! hear!” cried Miss Fish.
“Well, I don’t think it
will be nice at all,” said Helen, in some heat,
“to refuse to associate with the older girls
here. I, for one, want to get into the real
school society ”
“But suppose we start a club
of our own?” interrupted the practical Sarah.
“Why, what could just a handful
of new girls do in a society? It would look
silly,” cried Helen.
“We won’t keep the older
girls out of it, if they want to join,” laughed
Sarah.
“And there has to be a beginning
to everything,” rejoined Phyllis Short.
“I don’t believe those
Upedes have many more members than are right in this
room to-night,” said Ruth, quietly. “How
many do we number here twenty-six?”
“Twenty-six, counting your room-mate,”
said Sarah.
“Well, you can count her room-mate
out,” declared Helen, sharply. “I
am not going to make myself a laughing-stock of the
school by joining any baby society.”
“Well,” said Phyllis Short,
calmly. “It’s always nicer, I
think, to be a big frog in a little puddle than to
be an unrecognised croaker in a great, big pool.”
Most of the girls laughed at that.
And the suggestion of a separate club for the Infants
seemed to be well received. Ruth, however, was
very much troubled by Helen’s attitude, and she
would say no more beyond this:
“We will think of it.
There is plenty of time. Only, those who feel
as we do ”
“As you do!” snapped Helen.
“As I do, then, if you
insist,” said Ruth, bravely, “would better
not pledge themselves to either the F. C.’s
or the Upedes until we have talked this new idea over.”
And with that the company broke up
and the new girls went away to their rooms.
But Helen and Ruth found a barrier raised between them
that evening, and the latter sprinkled her pillow
with a few quiet tears before she went to sleep.