Ethel Talbot

“ Gerry quite agreed. “That’s the Daisy plot over there. We choose flowers, all of us. In the War, you know, the beds were used for vegetable growing mostly; and herbs grew there too. I was too little to be here then; but Sybil told us. And then, afterwards, Miss Carey said the girls could show by their gardens how pleased they were that peace had come. It’s—like cheers and flags still, isn’t it?” finished up Gerry.
She was right; the gardens were just like cheers and flags. The gardens of youth; just as the gardens of age and dignity lay on the other side of the house. ”

“ There would have been only thirty-two girls at St. Benedick’s if she were not there, she told herself; but she was here, and so there were thirty-three! The delicious thought made her gulp with pride.
She forgot the pride, though, for shyness again, just for a little while, when the dining-room door was reached. At home meals were generally eaten in a basement room, to save trouble for the general servant whose duties were so never-ending. Here the very idea of a meal in such a lovely room made Betty gasp with shyness at first, and then realize suddenly how hungry she was! ”

“ She had learned to repeat that a Guide’s honour is to be trusted; that a Guide is loyal; that she is a friend of all, and so on: there were ten commandments in the law. Betty, studiously repeating them at odd moments, found herself wondering if she ever would be good enough to be elected a real Guide; whether she could ever be good enough to make the Guide’s promise! The rest of the guide work which Sybil had set her—the tying and untying of sundry boot-lace ends, under the direction of Mona on the lawn in the grounds, into knots—was just like play. ”

“ It had been the solitary look of Betty standing alone “under the clock,” too, among crowds of chatterers, which had brought Gerry to her side; and that same lonely look had been responsible for the mascot idea which had been hatched out of Gerry’s brain, to be hailed with enthusiasm by the entire company of Guides next day.
Betty had wakened, indeed, to “find herself famous.” Everybody had looked at her with friendly grins as the “new mascot.” She was addressed on the subject in a hail-fellow-well-met fashion by girls who had not seemed to notice her existence before. ”

“ It isn’t so miserable as it looks outside,” she told herself, as she ran with her heart thumping. “It must be a fairy house.”
Was it a witch’s cottage?
But as her heart stopped thumping she began to try to think things out more common-sensibly. “I’m thirteen,” said Betty to herself; “and though Sybil does say that fairies aren’t babyish to believe in, yet I do know that to find a cottage like that is absolutely queer. Jan and Jack would believe in it, but I hardly can. Still it was there; and the wood is called Witch’s Wood by everybody. And Rene says that the villagers are afraid of it. ”

“ She gave it a little motherly pat. “Oh, to think that it only belongs to the Daisies till Midsummer Day, and that then, perhaps, we’ll lose it!” She gave a sigh and surveyed her work from a distance.
“I’ll put you back before the sun takes the glitter off you,” remarked Betty, as though addressing one of the twins. Then she broke off and rose hastily to her feet as, from the house, sounding musically peremptory, came the note of the dinner-gong. Certainly the time was no longer her own.
“Oh!” cried Betty in dismay. “Suppose I lose the patrol a mark!” ”

“ And Guides don’t believe in ghosts,” repeated Mona.
“Nor do I. Ghosts are silly and frightening,” burst out Betty impatiently. “I never said a word about them. Witches are quite different; they might be quite nice, only rather cross on top with unhappiness. And I am sure some Guides must believe in fairies anyway!”
But the others appeared to consider that the Mascot was not qualified to express such definite opinions. Only Gerry stood up for her friend.
“Truly, Mona, I don’t see why not either. Betty, you’d better ask Sybil—when you go to repeat the promises, you know. ”

“ Well, there’s poor Paul, who hasn’t any one to care much about him, and who seems to think an uncommon lot of you Guides; suppose you adopt the poor chap as mascot after this, eh?” The doctor’s voice was very cheery and kind. “I know Miss Carey, and I rather think——”
“Oh!” cried Betty in her most motherly voice, clasping the silver Cup with its burden of withered flowers while tears of happiness and trouble chased themselves down her cheeks. “Oh! do let’s hurry back to St. Benedick’s. I truly believe that Sybil and all the Guides will say that that would make everything beautiful and right!” ”

“ Every now and then the girls lifted their heads, but no sound came from the wood on the other side of the fence save the faint soughing of the breeze in the branches and the occasional call of a bird.
“Doesn’t anybody ever go in there, Gerry?” inquired Betty, rather inclined to look upon the wood as the home of Faery.
“Anybody? Why, of course; we often do. The senior girls built their huts in there for the Pioneer badge last summer, and they gave the whole school tea. And we fetch primrose plants for the gardens from the wood—from where the wood doesn’t miss them, you know. ”

“ Benedick’s, we ‘study to be quiet,’ you will not be the less fitted, I think, when you leave for the world outside, if you go out remembering that in quietness and in confidence is your greatest strength. No, all I have to say to you at the opening of this term can be summed up again, I think, in our motto: Festina lente (Hasten slowly) ; for nothing in life is worth having that can be gained by snatching. Our motto means much, and it may grow to mean more and more through life to each one of you if you will remember it. ”

“ Gerry, there’s a picture in the post-office at home—framed, you know, and to sell. There’s a boy there, sitting under a tree—a kind of fairy boy, I think—playing a pipe. And rabbits and birds are round his knees listening to him, and not minding him. I’ve often taken the twins to see it”—Betty gave a little gulp of remembrance—“and some day when I’m rich I shall buy it for them. But even then I shan’t like it any better than I do now, I don’t think. Perhaps not so much. It’s nice not to have a thing for altogether, but to have to go out and look at it.” ”

“ And yet there was a “something” in the bearing of all the girls—a “something” she had noticed more in the two seniors of the train, perhaps, than in the juniors, and most of all in Sybil—a “something” which was akin to the feeling that this old building gave.
“No fuss,” it seemed to say as it stood there beautiful as though from unhurried age. “Easy does it.” Almost the first words she had heard Sybil utter had been just those. So many years it had taken for the beauty of the old house to grow. The age of hurry-scurry had never had a part in the making of this old mansion. ”

“ He’s got a bad granny, poor boy, who doesn’t do her best by him, and he’s taken to camping there. Plays his pipe, too, there; he’s a bit of a musician, poor lad, as these naturals often are. Spoke of the fairies—well, poor lad, poor lad, he’s got paid out with a bad attack of rheumatic fever for any trespassing he’s done. Oh yes, the Cup’s there, evidently as safe as can be, in the little house. He says he was guarding it for you, Miss Betty; and for you, by the way, he seems to have a genuine devotion. He told me that you wanted it kept safe till Midsummer Day! ”

“ The Pioneer hut-makers had spent an energetic week. They had taken advice from Miss Drury and from older girls who had pioneered before them; their camp kitchen’s possibilities had been secretly and privately tested; their huts had received all finishing touches in good time. “The ‘hut-warming’ only lasts for two hours—from four to six,” as Gerry told Betty; “but it’s tremendous fun. They do everything, you see—baking the cakes and all. It generally takes the whole two hours, though, just to eat the meal because it’s all such fun! ”

“ While she was wondering whether she, too, had a place in the ranks, the second order had come from the lips of the headmistress, and quietly, in orderly fashion, the four prefects had led their patrols from the room.
On the floor of the big Oak Hall Betty found herself alone; but as she turned, wondering whether to follow the rest, the new girl found the headmistress at her side. ”

“ Gerry nodded. “That’s Sybil. She’s the head of our patrol. She’s head girl too this term of the school. Our patrol is the Daisies. I’m in it; and Mona and Irene as well. We’ve got four patrols at school, you know; there are the Buttercups and the Cowslips and the Foxgloves as well as us. I don’t see how you can possibly be in our bedroom without being a Daisy; but, you see—” Gerry’s tone broke off in rather a worried note.
“Oh, I do hope—” began Betty feverishly, just as silence fell suddenly upon the room as Miss Stewart tapped on the table. ”

“ She sleeps in our room. She’s talking to Molly now, but I’ll make her look presently. We don’t talk across tables, you know.
“Isn’t it nice that you’re a ‘window-table’ girl! It’s much the nicest table, we say, though the ‘wallflower-table’ girls (that’s what we call the girls at the wall table) say they can see far farther over the garden than we can. All the same we sometimes get bees flying right in, and once a butterfly too.” Gerry stopped for breath.
“I love this table,” said Betty shyly. ”

“ Betty stood still, unable to remember.
“You don’t know. I don’t blame you to-day. But you’ll arrange this differently, I hope, before I’ve done with you. We’ve all got the same amount of time—all the time there is! Some of you think that if you hurry-scurry over what you’ve got to do, that you save some of it for something else. They’ve generally wasted it instead, as they find out! Now there’s ten minutes of the half-hour left before the rest come up, so you can take your things out of this drawer and lay them in again. ”

“ Every day that we spend here should teach us more of what our motto means. Years and years have passed as it has stood here, and its beauty has grown. ‘Festina lente’ seems to me to have been its motto too. ”

“ She rose to her feet.
“I’d rather—rather anything happened,” said Betty vigorously, joining her friend as they walked down the grassy slope between the gardens, “than that we should lose the Cup. So why——”
Gerry tried to explain why. “We’ve tried to be the best patrol all this year, and we are likely to keep it,” she said, “unless something dreadful happens. We all know that, and the other patrols know it too. We’re top in badges, you see; and we got top marks at the display last term. And those things count. Miss Carey gives the decision, of course, at the end, though. ”

“ Mona only followed on, Sybil. And it’s not that we don’t want Betty in the Daisies.”
“Want! I should rather think we do want her when Guides are friends of the whole world.” Sybil spoke quite indignantly. “The Cowslips want her, and the Foxgloves too, and the Buttercups, as well as the Daisies—-in fact, the whole company wants her. So she mustn’t think of being a Lone Guide again! The only difficulty is—or rather, was—that we wondered which patrol she should be attached to as a recruit while she works up for her Tenderfoot badge.” ”

“ Betty was still drowsily and happily “perhapsing” on the subject under the shade of one of the great old trees in the grounds, when the prefect whose duty that afternoon it was to preside over the juniors’ quiet hour gave the signal for them to rise.
“I say, Betty, tell us. We’ve not had a single chance to ask you about yesterday afternoon till now. You never said a word about it in the dormitory; but the other girls know. There’s plenty of time while we get our letter-writing things. You can even tell us while we write them. ”

“ Benedick’s without as yet visiting the wood herself, yet that was only because there had been so many other things to do.
Now the moment had come, however. She clambered over the fence and reached the other side, intent on discovering whether there really was a “piper of dreams.”
The tracking of “sign” is not easy for a beginner—especially alone and in the deepness of a wood. In the Guiding lesson over which Eve had presided the older girl had helped the younger ones more than Betty had realized until she started off on this quest of her own. ”

“ She felt rather shy of the second girl too, and she was relieved when Sybil took up the conversation. “Any age is Guide age,” said she with a jolly look, “as you’ll soon decide. I only wish I could fit you into the Daisies; but I’m afraid we’re a tight pack.” Then she turned and, without looking at Betty again, began to speak to her companion about matters which seemed “just as Greeky,” as Betty decided, “as before.” ”

“ Their food depends on their scouting, you see, and their family’s food. They learn ‘stalking’ because they would die if they did not understand how to stalk. In our country, too, keepers and others look for ‘sign’ from morning till night. In the war, you’ll remember, scouting played a tremendous part.”
“I say, Sybil, gipsies leave ‘sign’ behind,” put in Mona, as they all squatted on the grass.
“Yes, they do. Patrin, they call it. And the gipsies can follow each other just because of it. It helps them more than we’d understand, I expect, since they are roaming all the time. ”

“ And however came you to be in the road at all?” finished up Mona.
“And that Robby-boy saw me climbing out.”
“Anybody in the world, not only Guides,” said Betty with rising colour, “would help a boy with a cut cheek, I should trust and hope—especially when he was frightened, and seeing that he was sort of queer, you know. When Drina and Maud came along, though, it was they who helped him more than me.”
“They know First Aid, being senior Guides, of course,” put in Mona informatively. “And Drina anyway, being head of the Foxgloves, has heaps of badges. She would know simply anything! ”

“ And when the huts are ready there’ll be a ‘hut-warming.’”
“A hut-warming?” repeated Betty.
“Yes, and it’s to be the Saturday before Midsummer Day. That’s decided,” Gerry informed her. “They’re making a camp kitchen, too, and on the night after the ‘warming’ the Pioneers are to be allowed to camp there. Miss Drury’s camping with them. It will be tremendous fun for them, I should think; they’re to cook their own supper and breakfast next day, and act just like Robinson Crusoes. I’m simply longing to be far enough on to work up for my Pioneer badge!” ”

“ Not that they were assembled in the dormitory, but “hasten slowly” time was just over on the afternoon of the day following Betty’s adventure in the wood.
“Hasten slowly” time occurred every day, and occupied the hour immediately following each midday meal. The name had originated after the utterance of an apt remark by one of the middle school girls who had discovered that the hour’s rest enforced by rule at St. Benedick’s was not waste of valuable time after all, but tended rather, in the end, to help towards a fuller use of energy. ”

“ I was wondering, though, if I could post this letter,” she began to a passing porter, just as two Benedick girls came along.
“Letter, eh? We’ll do it for you!” said one of them. “See, there’s the red pillar. No, no. Don’t fuss; there’s plenty of time. New girl, are you? Left something special at home?” The stranger took the envelope from Betty’s hand.
Betty had known that they were Benedick girls from the colour of their labels. ”