Amy Bell Marlowe

“ Nancy followed the senior out of the principal’s presence, feeling much encouraged. Madame Schakael was so different from Miss Prentice, the principal of the school at which Nancy had lived so many years.
“Isn’t she just the sweetest woman you ever met?” demanded Corinne, enthusiastically.
“She is lovely,” responded Nancy.
“But she is firm. Don’t try to take any advantage of her,” laughed the senior. “You will find that she is only doll-like in appearance. She is a very scholarly woman, and she believes strongly in discipline. But she gets effects without dealing out much punishment. ”

“ It’ll all be strange to you here for a while; but when you can’t stand it any more—when it does seem as though you’d got to be mothered—you come down to the lodge to Jessie Pease. Remember, now! You will surely come?”
“I will,” promised Nancy.
“Now wipe your eyes and laugh!” commanded Jessie Pease. “Why, Pinewood Hall is the finest place in the world for girls—especially for those that are like you. Here’s a great, big family of sisters and cousins ready waiting for you. Get acquainted!” ”

“ I do not encourage meannesses of any kind at Pinewood Hall. The tattler is one of the most abominable of our trials.
“As for the breaking of the rules by girls who wish to stuff themselves with goodies after hours, I have little to say. A junior who is president of her class, and on the road to being one of our most prominent pupils, knows best what she wishes to do.”
“Oh, Madame! Forgive me!” begged Nancy, greatly troubled. And even Jennie saw nothing humorous in the incident.
“You are forgiven, Miss Nelson,” said Madame Schakael, cheerfully. ”

“ Of course, the other girls at Higbee had always looked down upon her and considered her “a charity scholar;” but Nancy believed that at Pinewood Hall she could hold up her head with the best.
Nobody would know her there. She would begin a fresh page of her history. She would make the girls love her for herself; it would not matter there that she had no near relatives. Mr. Henry Gordon, her guardian, must know all about her, and with regard to this gentleman the girl had a very grave determination in her mind—a determination which she did not confide even to Miss Trigg. ”

“ Yet she remains the same gentle, rather timid girl she always was. She can fight for the rights of others; but she does not put forth her own claims to particular attention.
“Pshaw! You let folks walk all over you just the same as ever, Nance!” her chum, Jennie, declares. “Haven’t you any spunk?”
“I—I don’t want to fight them,” Nancy replies.
“Goodness to gracious and eight hands around!” ejaculates Jennie, with exasperation. “If it hadn’t been for Scorch and me you’d never got hold of your fortune and sent the Montgomerys back to the tall pines. You know you wouldn’t!” ”

“ Jennie suddenly became grave. “She’d say,” declared the fun-loving girl, her voice shaking a little, “she’d say: ‘That’s a good girl, Jennie. She’s an orphan—be kind to her.’”
“Oh, rats!” cried Judy. “She doesn’t even know she’s an orphan. Cora says she believes Nancy’s parents are in jail.” ”

“ She was a kindergartner when Miss Prentice accepted the responsibility of training her—the very youngest and smallest girl who had ever come to Higbee School.
Miss Prentice was too firm a disciplinarian to be a very warm-hearted woman. Save for Miss Trigg’s awkward attempts at motherliness, and the surreptitious hugs and kisses of certain womanly servants about the school who pitied the lonely child, Nancy Nelson had experienced little affection. ”

“ Miss Trigg was also a lonely person; perhaps that was why she showed some appreciation for “Miss Nobody from Nowhere.” Sometimes in the long summer vacation she and Nancy were alone at the school. That drew the two together a little. But Miss Trigg was a spinster of very, very uncertain age—saving that she couldn’t be young!—and it was the more surprising that she seemed to understand something of what the sore-hearted young girl felt.
“The really great people of this world—the worth-while people—have almost all been known by one name. ”

“ In the morning, when she awoke, she knew that what she had been trying to hide—what she must 85hide, indeed—was the knowledge that she was “Miss Nobody” from all these eager, inquisitive, perhaps heartless girls.
Nancy had been in the habit of rising early, and she was up and dressed before rising bell at seven. When Cora rolled over sleepily and blinked about the sun-flooded room, she saw Nancy tying her hair-ribbon, being otherwise completely dressed, and she whined:
“Well! I sha’n’t like you, Miss. I can see that, plainly. You don’t know enough to lie abed and let a fellow sleep.” ”

“ Grace made many of her friends in the sophomore class.
The teachers, however, were decidedly in favor of Nancy. She gained the head of her classes in most studies, and did not slight lessons to join in the fun of the other girls. Yet she was no prig—no matter what Grace and Cora said.
A rather solemn thought had come to the girl on the night of that day when she had started to run away from Pinewood Hall. Suppose she should, suddenly and without warning, be thrown upon her own resources?
Most girls of Nancy’s age do not think of such unpleasant things. ”

“ Nancy looked up, startled, but could not speak.
“Now we know where you came from, and what and who you are, Nancy Nelson!” pursued Cora. “A girl like you—a nobody—a foundling—Oh! I’ll see if I have got to associate with such scum!”
She wheeled sharply away, and had Nancy recovered her powers of speech she would have had no time to reply to this tirade. ”

“ She remembered very well now that she had heard various other girls at Pinewood Hall talk of Bob Endress. He was some distant connection of the haughty Grace Montgomery.
And he had left Grace and all those other girls in a minute to renew his odd acquaintance with Nancy.
The latter could not fail to feel a glow all through her at this thought. She had all the aspirations of other girls. She wanted to be liked by people—even by boys. And Bob was evidently a great favorite with her schoolmates. ”

“ Soon there were creaking of doors, faint rustlings in the corridors, giggling half-suppressed, and then the door of Number 40 opened again softly.
“Oh, gee!” exclaimed Sally. “Is she here?”
“Yes, she is,” replied Jenny, tartly. “What have you got to say against it?”
“Oh, you needn’t be so short, Jennie Bruce,” said Sally.
She slipped out of her wrapper and into her bed. Nancy got up, kissed Jennie warmly, and left the room silently. When she got back to Number 30 Cora was alone. All traces of the spread were hidden.
Cora said never a word; neither did Nancy. But she wondered much. ”

“ Spring came and then the budding summer, and again the long line of white-robed girls walked the winding paths of Pinewood Hall. The school year seemed to have fairly flown and Nancy and her mates found themselves facing the fact that they were no longer sophomores, but juniors!
The Montgomery clique “got busy” again and tried to balk the election of Nancy for a third time to the office of president of the class. To be president in junior year was just as good as an appointment to the captaincy of a Side in senior year. ”

“ Scorch O’Brien is fine,” laughed Jennie. “Let’s hear all about you, Nancy Nelson. I bet you’ve got lots of the queerest friends, only you don’t know it. I—I’ve got nothing but brothers, and sisters, and cousins, and all that sort of trash. The Bruces hold most all the political offices in the town where I come from. You couldn’t throw a stone anywhere in Hollyburg without hitting one of the family.
“But just think! You’ve got no folks to bother you. There are no teasing cousins. You haven’t got to ‘be nice’ to relatives that you fairly can’t help hating! ”

“ Corinne and Carrie were of course favorites of the seniors; but the juniors were sure they had a champion in one of their number, and even the sophs shouted for Judy Craig and were willing to back her even against the Canadian senior who had, as Jennie Bruce declared, “been born on skates.”
“But just the same,” said Nancy’s roommate, “you stand a good chance in the straightaway races and in the two-mile. Don’t you lose courage, Nance. I’ve watched you and I say that the freshies can afford to cheer for you, just as the sophs are rooting for Judy.” ”

“ He says he is not my guardian and that he doesn’t know anything about me. He only has money sent to him to spend for me.”
“You don’t mean it?” cried Scorch, his eyes twinkling. “That’s like a story; ain’t it? You’re the mysterious heiress who doesn’t know who she is. That’s great!”
“Do you think so?” demanded Nancy, rather warmly. “Well, let me tell you it isn’t nice at all.”
“Why not?” demanded the romance-loving youth.
“Why.... The girls at school think it’s so odd. I’m just Miss Nobody from Nowhere. And they’ve all got folks.”
“Gee!” observed Scorch, getting a new idea of the situation. ”

“ And I shall deal out the same sort of punishment to Sally that I do to you, Nancy.
“And that is,” pursued Madame Schakael, slowly, “that you will be denied recreation, save that which is a part of the school curriculum, until the Christmas recess.”
Nancy said nothing. But she fully understood what it meant. No outdoor runs alone, no skating, nothing save the exercises prescribed by the physical instructor.
“You may wait for Sally’s return. And you are both forbidden to speak of this visit,” the principal said, and withdrew from the room as softly as she had entered it. ”

“ And if Nancy was to have chums she must find them, of course, in her own class.
For the first few weeks of a school year the new girls gradually get settled—both in their studies and in their friendships. Had Nancy by good chance been paired with a different girl—with a girl who had not already formed her own associates—matters might have gone along much more smoothly.
But Cora disliked her from the start. And the black-eyed girl was sharp enough to see that accusing Nancy of being “a nobody” for some reason hurt her roommate more than anything else. ”

“ Jennie’s parents and brothers and sisters were just as well pleased with the quiet little orphan as Jennie herself had been. They were glad to have her in their big house between terms.
So June approached, and the yearly exams, and other finishing work, loomed ahead.
Pinewood Hall was a beautiful place now. The park was in its very best condition. Mr. Pease and Samuel, and their helpers, made every path straight and clean, raked the groves of all rubbish, and the two horse mowers and the roller were at work on the lawns, making them like velvet carpets. ”

“ But she remembered that she had been forbidden to leave the building at this time of day, and that Madame Schakael had trusted her.
“So Nance wouldn’t break her word, and I found her crying in the back hall there, and told her I would bring back her bag. That’s the truth! You girls have driven her to all that.
“And now,” continued the wrathful Jennie, “I’m going in there to tell Madame Schakael all about it. You girls don’t want to associate with Nancy because she is an orphan and has no home? Well, I don’t want to associate with you because you are all too mean to bother with! There now!” ”

“ Nancy stooped and forced the cloth into the hole again; but her motion rocked the boat dangerously. A ripple came along and lapped right in, and the girls were almost waist deep!
“Oh, dear me!” wailed Jennie. “We might just as well be drowned as be like this. We are drowned from our waists down.”
“Nev—er—say—die!” gasped Nancy, struggling with the jacket-sleeve to make it stay in the hole.
“We’ve got to get out!” cried Jennie. “This is where we get off—even if it is a wet landing. If we’re out of the boat, it will only sink so that the gunwales are level with the water. ”

“ Nancy Nelson, the single remaining freshman on the ice, was the hope of the class. Corinne and Carrie and one of the juniors were still struggling far ahead; but the school as a whole soon began to be more deeply interested in the progress of Nancy than in the struggle of the leading girls.
“That little Nelson is making them all look sick,” declared the stout soph, Belle Macdonald. “I hated to see our Judy drop out; but I’d rather see a freshman win over those juniors and seniors, if a sophomore can’t do it.” ”

“ They came to the station, got Nancy’s bag, and Scorch insisted upon taking her to the very step of the car. When she shook hands with him Nancy had the banknote ready and she left it in his hand.
Before she got up the steps, however, he ran back, pushed aside the brakeman, and reached her.
“Say! you can’t do that,” he gasped, his face as red as his hair.
“Do what?” demanded the girl.
“You can’t tip me. Say! I ain’t the waiter—nor the janitor of the flat. I’m the hero—and the heroine never tips the hero—nix on that!” ”

“ Just above the millrace was a quiet pool under the bank where great, fragrant water-lilies floated upon the surface. Those lilies always attracted Nancy. She wished she were a boy. Boys could do so many things forbidden to girls! ”

“ Who are you rooting for, Cora?”
“Grace, of course! Why, her father’s a senator, and she’s got lots of money. She’s influential. She ought to be class president.”
“All right; but the election isn’t allowed until just before Christmas. It will be the most popular girl then, you’ll find. And she’ll have to be popular with the teachers as well as with you girls.”
This conversation in Number 30, West Side, occurred something like a fortnight after school had opened. The girls were all at work by that time—those who would work, at least. ”

“ This was the endurance test that Miss Etching was anxious to have go off well. The physical instructor of Pinewood Hall had an object in putting her girls against a two-mile skate. More than Jennie Bruce had noted the fact that many of the best skaters among the juniors and seniors lacked “wind.”
It was hard for the instructor to watch all the girls closely enough to be sure that they dressed properly even in the gym work. She had warned them to dress loosely under their warm sweaters for the ice, too; for in skating every muscle in the body needs free play. ”

“ So Miss Trigg’s suggestion about the monogram was not entirely satisfactory to Nancy. It is all right to have brave thoughts about doing great deeds in the future; but—supposing there is no future?
That’s the way it looked to Nancy Nelson. June was approaching and all the other girls of the graduating class were exchanging stories of what they were to do, where they were to go, and all about their future lives. But Nancy couldn’t tell a single thing that was going to happen to her after breakfast the day following graduation. ”