Margaret Penrose

“ Jean Faval did drop her gold purse just as she was alighting (she did not “get off”) but Tavia was so anxious that all should escape that she crawled under the oily wheels and dragged out the golden trinket. The new girl thanked her, and, for the time, an armistice was established.
“Are we all here?” called Dorothy, who was assisting Edna because of the lame arm.
“All but King, and he is cleaning out the other cars,” replied Tavia. “There, look out, Dick! Land sakes alive! We won’t have thread and needles enough in the tower to sew our tears, if this keeps up. ”

“ Dorothy glanced for a moment at Tavia, and then fled from the room, her head held high, and her eyes flashing.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Tavia, “I wonder what she is going to do? I have always heard that a quiet girl ‘riled’ is worse than I am. But I don’t believe I will follow her. Dear Doro!” and the frivolous one’s eyes filled. “I would give anything to save her from all of this.”
Dorothy, leaving her room, had gone straight to the office of the principal. Delicate girl that she was, when a question of family honor arose, she had more courage than some who might boast of power. ”

“ Now Tavia was able, or ought to be able, to take care of herself, and here was poor little Zada rubbing her eyes out!
“I’ll tell you, dear,” Dorothy began, “I have found that some girls cannot get along away from home without keeping up trouble for other girls. They do not mean to have things go so wrong. It’s almost a habit—this plotting and scheming against those of the other sets. Do be sensible, and just rest your head down there, while I hang up your things again. You will feel entirely different in the morning.” ”

“ She does not want an honest truth-seeker to live. For years she has threatened her girls. But they come, for they know Shebad tells the truth.”
“I must go,” exclaimed Jean, realizing that the time was not waiting for fortunes. “I thank you, and will remember your kindness.”
“You are a good girl—one who will be famous some day,” and, with these flattering words, the fortune teller bowed as Jean hurried off.
“So my enemy was Tavia,” thought Jean. “Well, I have always known that Tavia spilled that glass of water down my neck purposely. ”

“ Her costume was as wonderful as it was gorgeous, the most prominent feature being the beaded portiers from Edna’s room, and they fell so gracefully over the robe of cheese cloth, donated by Molly Richards. Her crown was golden, real, good paper-of-gold, and this was studded with as many gem hatpins as could be purloined, or borrowed.
It was at once suspected that the very dark “slave,” who waved a feather duster over the queen’s head was Tavia, because there were no sleeves in her wrappings, and she wore on her feet a pair of grass slippers, taken from the wall of a stranger. ”

“ I can no longer be a pupil of any boarding school, and I deeply regret that I made such poor use of my time while I had the chance to do better. While I had plenty of money I felt no responsibility, but since my uncle’s failure, and the showing to me of his true character, I feel more like a woman than a girl. I want to apologize for any disturbance I made at Glenwood,239 particularly to Dorothy Dale, whom I thought it was sport to distress. It is I, and not Dorothy, who will now have to go out into the world to work. ”

“ Dorothy had just received a letter from home. Brave as she wished to be, and fearful as she had been, of that investment company, when her father wrote, in his careful way, that there might be trouble, Dorothy at once prepared to go to him, and to her two small brothers.
195 “Dorothy, I would have told you but really I felt it was a trick.”
“A trick! On such a serious matter?”
“You believe every one to be as noble as yourself,” said Tavia, “but there are people in this world born without the sense of kindness, or the instinct of charity. We seem to have a few such girls around here.” ”

“ Amy Brooks had sunk in the bog!
The weight of the soggy earth had dragged her down, until she lay helpless, clinging to some underbrush!
And how dark it was now!
“Quick! Quick!” called Dorothy. “This may be a bog hole!”
“Team play! Team play!” shouted Tavia, and instantly every girl, whether leading or following, was making for the spot from which Amy’s cries came. ”

“ Have you ever seen a lizard in the woods in Autumn? Do you think you could keep one in an open handbag?
The woods were explored to the satisfaction of the teachers, and the delight of their pupils. Then they all started for the Hall.
At a little spring house, a shed built over a crystal spring, they stopped for a drink. Tavia, of course dipped her very nose in the water; and those who did not intend to do likewise did so without intending.
But how beautiful that little strip of woodland road was! No wonder teachers and pupils lingered. ”

“ Little time was taken for the dining room ceremonies, for everyone had her share to get ready for the initiation of new members of the school, and for merry-making for those who had gone through the same ordeals, two or three years before.
The corridors seemed alive with whispers, the rooms fairly quaked with secrets, and if there was one girl not on a committee, she must have been the manager of one.
The “T’s” were all new members, and Jean Faval was their leader. The “Glens” depended upon Cologne, or more properly speaking for this important occasion, she was Miss Rose-Mary Markin. ”

“ Dorothy looked harder than ever out of the window, and did not bother to reply.
“Because, Doro,” went on Tavia, “if she told you a friend is going to be married it’s me. If she said you would get a letter, asking for money, that’s from me. If she said a very dear friend was going to get in some new kind of trouble, that will also be me, and last, if she said you were going to cross water, it will be on account of my health. I love fortune tellers, they pick out such good news,” and Tavia glanced across the aisle at a rather good-looking young man, who was reading a theatrical paper. ”

“ Well, I must go to class. Be sure, whoever comes to look after you, that you are at least civil.”
“That depends,” sauced Tavia. “If Higley comes I’ll plead smallpox to scare her off. She would sprain my other ankle.”
Dorothy went down the hall, and, as she passed Room Ten, Cologne was just coming out of her door.
“What do you think?” exclaimed the latter. “That Jean Faval blames us for telling about last night! Why, we never even knew about it, Dorothy! Can’t we do something to squelch her? She is ringleader of a crowd of insurgents, and they are all against us.” ”

“ Tavia is hurt!”
“Hurt! How? Where?” and Dorothy turned pale.
“She is out on the road and I cannot get her in. If we are found to have been off the grounds, and it’s so dark now——”
She stopped, panting and frightened.
“Why were you off the grounds?” demanded Dorothy, while she hastily got into a sweater to go to the rescue of Tavia.
“Oh, I can’t tell you! It’s a real secret, not a foolish one. If only we could get Jake to carry her in! But I couldn’t go to the barn alone.”
“Come and show me where she is,” commanded Dorothy, “and I do hope you girls will get a little sense soon,” she added. ”

“ I hate to see Jean toting that baby Zada around. She is so innocent she would do anything Jean might suggest—when Jean would be too cute to do it herself. She keeps fixing her up with sweets all the time, and Zada thinks she loves her.”
“And Cecilia Reynolds is another who would not cry if anything unpleasant should happen to Dorothy. Well, we have got to keep our team close, and stick together,” declared Edna, “and I do hope this dog business will not spoil us again.”
“‘Let sleeping dogs lie,’” quoted Tavia. “And, speaking of dogs, there come the Jean set now. ”

“ TEACHERS AND PUPILS
The excitement following Jean’s encounter brought up no end of surmises for the girls at school. Some said she made up the story, others declared she knew who took her purse, and check, while her friends, of course, were in deepest sympathy. For the shock really took the color from her cheeks, took all her courage, and it was difficult even for Mrs. Pangborn to interest her in anything.
Dorothy tried to show Jean that she bore her no ill feelings, and even brought some books to her room, when she was unable to attend class, but Jean would never make friends with Dorothy. ”

“ It might have been different if Tavia, and the girls who had met Mr. Armstrong on the train, had chosen to go toward the depot instead of seeking Dorothy in the opposite direction; but when Jean Faval met her, there were with Jean three of the new girls, and of course, they neither knew Dorothy nor her companion.
Small things grow quickly when they have plenty of room, and Dorothy’s escapade, being the one thing worth talking of at Glenwood, soon amounted to a sensational story, fanned by the gossips and nurtured by her rival in the school. ”

“ After the rescue of Ravelings, Dorothy hurried back to the hall. As she was met at the door by Tavia and Edna she was too excited and exhausted to proffer any information. In fact she considered it was due the girls that they look around, and hunt up things on their own account. Why should she be their mediator? They should learn a lesson, and it might be just as well to learn it at this time. ”

“ Pangborn, those girls seem to want to keep by themselves. They have refused every effort we have made to be friendly,” Dorothy answered.
“They may be shy. That little one from the South is the daughter of a friend of mine. Her name is Zada Hillis, and I am most anxious that she shall not get homesick,” insisted Mrs. Pangborn.
“I will do all I can to make her contented,” Dorothy replied, “but she seems on such friendly terms with some of the other girls—in fact Jean Faval has taken her up quite exclusively, and Jean refuses to be friends with me.” ”

“ I think Rose,—Mary and Dorothy the very nicest girls in the school,” said Hazel, just as Molly Richards found a little red lizard, not more than an inch long, and just cute enough for a stick pin.
The lizard was placed upon a flat stone and was, for the time being, the centre of all attraction.191 So beautifully red, so small, so perfect, and just like a pattern for an alligator!
“It must not be killed,” said Miss Cummings. “We will put it in our aquarium.”
“I’ll take it,” offered Tavia, for whom a bug, that could crawl, creep or fly, had no terrors. ”

“ Reaching the swamp, all sorts of nature “weeds” were discovered. The girls, glad to be entirely free from the schoolroom for that beautiful day, set to digging up roots and bulbs, hunting out frogs and snails, and doing all the absurd things that students usually do when allowed a day in the woods.
“Isn’t it too bad Jean could not be with us,” said Cecilia to Hazel.
“Yes,” replied Hazel rather doubtfully. “But what makes Jean so bitter toward the Glens? I think the best girls are in the older club.” ”

“ Just because I got to be someone else. I mean that I had to be made over.”
“Oh, nonsense, Tavia. You were always the best girl in the world. We were not speaking of polish, but disposition,” insisted Dorothy.
“Well, we will see about Jean in the morning. It appears to be our duty, since you and I have given her the most cause to be mean,” decided Tavia, in her queer way of reasoning.
Dorothy smiled as she looked fondly again at the riot of pretty things about her dresser. “I think it was too much for the girls to give me all these things,” she remarked. ”

“ Perhaps an hour passed, and the girls did not return. Then Dorothy walked to the stable.
“Good afternoon, Jacob,” she said pleasantly, to the man who was polishing harness. “I thought some of the girls came up this way.”
“They did, miss, but it was them two that I can’t watch, so I told them I was busy in a way that meant they were not welcome,” replied Jacob. “Them two are always up to some mischief. Not but they’re jolly enough, and good company, but sometimes I’m afraid they’ll steal out after dark and hitch up a team. I believe they would!” ”

“ Should she tell Tavia?
“I am waiting, Doro,” Tavia said. “Now confess.”
“It’s really nothing so very serious, dear,” she replied, “but you know father is getting old and—he has put all his money into the Marsall Investment Company, of New York. Just before I left home father heard—that the money may be—lost!”
“All your money?”
“Yes, isn’t that dreadful? Of course, if it is lost we could never live with Aunt Winnie. We would be too proud, although she and the boys have always been so lovely to us. Yet to have no home makes it different.”
“But, Dorothy, I can’t believe that will happen. ”

“ Then “Dorothy Dale’s Queer Holidays,” shows how very queer some holidays may be, indeed, when girls and boys unite to discover the mystery of an old castle, where they eventually find and rescue an aged and demented man. ”