Margaret Vandercook

“ For the enemy she had so dreaded was only another girl like herself with a smile on her face and a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before her illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had the same bright bronze hair and firm line to her chin and the same proud way of holding up her head.
“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living in this underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the same color that I did not see you at first.” ”

“ For now that the discipline of school life had been relaxed, the principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her favorite pupil in a light that would have surprised most of her students. She was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive with an affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl would sit close together under the shadow of “The Winged Victory,” reading aloud or talking of the great world of men and cities about which Miss Winthrop knew so much and Olive so little. ”

“ Not far off they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda holding on to his hands like little girls.
Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.
“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw each other again you would forget what has separated you and only remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill, love seems the only thing that is really important.” ”

“ If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the path to weep like a naughty child about to be punished for a fault, Olive would have felt it a great relief, and only the thought of her age prevented her doing this. Could she ever live through the embarrassment of facing fifty strange girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on being introduced to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and Frieda with her for protection, had she not felt as tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? ”

“ As the girl’s startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty, forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary. ”

“ Jean had not intended to desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began she forgot her and marched off with an enthusiastic partner, who had asked Gerry Ferrows to introduce him to the most fascinating girl in the room, and Gerry had unhesitatingly chosen Jean.
There were two or three other girls and young men standing near Olive when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds later and she was entirely alone.
Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to society to find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? ”

“ Olive said wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”
“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?” ”

“ And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.
Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. ”

“ Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered, although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.” ”

“ To the people not afflicted with timidity, most fears are ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid one, but before one criticizes her, remember her childhood. Now with her heart pounding and her breath coming in short gasps, she quickened her pace into a run, recalling at the same time their chaperon’s forgotten instruction that she must no longer expect the happy freedom of their western lands. ”

“ The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over the question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I believe I can in a measure understand this problem that troubles you. Half the memories that we have in the world come through association. It is the sight of an object that recalls something in our past which brings that past back to us. Now when you were living at the Rainbow Ranch the memory of your life with Laska, the fear that she might take you away from your friends, was so close to you that you thought of little else. ”

“ I have tried very hard to bear my difficulties here and truly I would have gone on without complaining, for I can live without the friendship of other girls so long as you and the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot bear is to be a drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as I do here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot go back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do now and am able to teach them. Can I not go to some little school where the girls will not care so much about my past? ”

“ Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her upstairs, nor a moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred recited Ophelia’s famous description of Hamlet, ending with the words, “O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see.” Then for just a moment she paused with a pretty, pathetic gesture and her gaze swept the faces of her judges before she vanished from the stage amid much clapping of hands. Three times Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each call Gerry’s heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots. ”

“ I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas. To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter over sensibly together and she might be able to help. ”

“ But this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have told to other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon, Miss Drew. What I most wish you to confide to me are the ideas and impressions of the years when you may not always have lived in the Indian village.”
Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that I have had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can confide even to you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be possible that a human being can remember things at one time of their life and not have known them always? ”

“ Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a good deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there are lots of people who are not one of those three things.”
And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the moment, Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she returned, “but I am afraid that I want a man to be more and to mean more in this world than just that.” She was about to leave the room when Olive put her hand on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica, Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but I so often think of you as a girl like the rest of us. ”

“ Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not learn the bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had an immediate effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and Margaret. Both girls stiffened up at once.
“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it will never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior class just because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of the girls did vote for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely, why Winifred Graham and her set can’t crow over us half so much as if we show our chagrin.” ”

“ Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman, what all we women must hope to be some day. ”

“ I believe there are but three types of people in this world, be they men or women, that I cannot endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob. Unfortunately I have discovered that there are among the girls here in my school a good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to me and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am very sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the weakness, the ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. ”

“ In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling so penitent over her escapade as the two older ranch girls supposed. But Frieda had always been a good deal spoiled and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed her failure to say good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault upon her mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that both little girls and big receive their punishment for a fault so soon as the fault is committed, in order not to keep on growing naughtier and naughtier until Fate punishes us for many sins at once. ”

“ No man or woman who has lived a great deal out of doors in their youth fails to draw new strength and cheerfulness from the air and sunshine, and Olive, who had left school thinking only that Jack’s operation might not be successful and of the pain her friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the beautiful possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some day not too far off. ”

“ That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep, child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so silly and tiresome. ”

“ However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her, who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and was trying her best to discover their cause. ”

“ But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few inches from where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion to the study of literature and the classics will prevent one from jumping up with a scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at the same instant, and behold, there, with only the prostrate screen dividing them, were Gerry and Margaret, Lucy and Mollie Johnson, besides several other members of their Junior class! ”

“ Gerry Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back view of herself in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly lovely, Winifred, and I would not be a bit surprised if you get the Shakespeare prize after all, even though Olive has the best class record for the year and I the highest mark for my essay. We are so close together in this contest that the least thing may change the balance. It is my private opinion that whoever gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the prize.” ”

“ In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake. Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else her classmates must see how charming she was. ”