ON CLINTON RIVER
This was not the only unpleasant discussion Nancy Nelson had with her ill-tempered roommate. But it was one of those that hurt Nancy the most.
Whenever Cora hinted at the other girl’s lack of friends and relatives—at the mystery which seemed to surround her private life—Nancy could no longer talk. Sometimes she cried; but not often where her roommate could see her.
There was a scrub crew for the eight-oared shell. Nancy made that, and Carrie Littlefield, who was the captain of the school crew, praised her work.
The athletic instructor, Miss Etching, praised Nancy for her swimming and general athletic work. There wasn’t a freshie or soph who could stand against her on the tennis court. She had learned to play basketball, and played it well. The coach had her eye on Nancy for one of the best teams in the school.
On the other hand the girl from Higbee School stood well in her classes, and she had no black marks against her. No teacher had been forced to admonish Nancy, and Corinne Pevay had a cheerful word for her and a smile whenever Nancy crossed her path.
And yet the girl could not be happy. Her own mates—the freshmen—seemed afraid of her. Or, at least, some of them did. 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.
Therefore, being of a malicious disposition, Cora continued to harp upon this, until she had spread through the school the suspicion that Nancy had come to Pinewood Hall under unusual circumstances. Nobody knew where she had come from. She never spoke of her people, nor of where she had lived.
And, of course, this was quite true. Nancy did not want to tell about her life at Higbee School. Fortunately no girl from Higbee had ever come to Pinewood Hall before, and the girl thought that her secret was safe.
Cora and her friends might suspect, but they really knew nothing about Nancy’s past life. Already some of the girls had received boxes from home—those delightful surprise boxes that give such a zest to boarding-school life. Nancy never received a letter, even.
So, Nancy could not be very happy at Pinewood Hall.
Other girls went around in recreation hours with their arms about each other’s waists, chattering with all the cheerfulness of blackbirds. They had “secrets” together and whispered about them in corners. There were little, harmless gatherings in the dormitories, sometimes after curfew; but Nancy had no part in these girlish dissipations.
Perhaps it was her own fault. But the girl, who felt herself ostracized, feared a rebuff. As Madame Schakael had said to Corinne, Nancy was one of the sensitive ones. And the sensitive girl at boarding school is bound to have a hard time unless she very quickly makes a lasting friendship, or becomes a popular member of some group of her schoolfellows right at the start.
When she felt very lonely in Number 30, or when Cora’s friends made it impossible for her to study, Nancy sought comfort—such as it was—in the gym., or in taking long walks by the river.
The Pinewood estate was a large one and she did not have to go out of bounds to get plenty of walking exercise. Furthermore, as soon as the frost came, all the athletic girls were anxious about the ice.
Clinton River was a quiet, if broad, stream and before the last of October the edges and the quiet pools inshore were skimmed over. Nancy, who loved skating, and had bought a beautiful pair of skates the year before with her own pocket-money, watched the forming ice almost daily.
“Great times on the river when it once freezes over,” she heard one girl say. “And I bet the boys at the Academy are watching just as closely as we are.”
Clinton Academy, Nancy had learned, was only a mile away. She had even seen its towers, from a distance. And some of Dr. Dudley’s boys had passed the lodge one day when Nancy was down there visiting Jessie Pease.
For the girl had occasionally taken advantage of the invitation the lodgekeeper’s wife had extended to her, and had visited her in the neat little cottage. Mrs. Pease frequently got some of the younger girls together in her kitchen on rainy days, and let them pull taffy and pop corn, and otherwise enjoy themselves.
Yet, once away from the presence of the kind-hearted matron, Nancy found herself no closer to her schoolmates than before.
November brought dark nights and black frost. Clintondale was well up toward the Great Lakes and sometimes the winter arrives early in that part of the country.
It did so this year—the first of Nancy Nelson’s sojourn at Pinewood Hall. One morning Nancy got up while it was still dark, slipping out to the bathroom as noiselessly as a little gray ghost—her robe was of that modest color. There she swiftly made her toilet and then as quietly dressed in Number 30.
She had learned to do all this without rousing Cora, for her roommate was very unpleasant indeed if she woke up in the morning and found Nancy stirring about the room. No matter if the rising bell had rung, Cora always accused Nancy, on these occasions, of deliberately spoiling her morning nap. Cora was a sleepy-head in the morning, and always appeared to “get out of bed on the wrong side.”
However, Nancy left Number 30 without disturbing her roommate on this morning and, well wrapped up against the biting cold, slipped downstairs and out of one of the rear doors. The front door of Pinewood Hall had not been unchained at that hour.
She was the first girl out and it was an hour yet to breakfast time. She ran straight through the pine woods at the back, passing the gymnasium and frozen courts, and so down to the river.
A pale moon still hung low on the horizon. The river seemed as black as ink and not a ripple appeared upon its surface.
“Oh, dear! it’s not frozen at all,” was Nancy’s, first thought.
And then she saw the sheen of the moonlight across the black surface.
“That never is water in the world!” she gasped, and half running, half sliding, descended the steep bank to the verge of the river.
The wide expanse of the stream proved to be sheathed entirely in black, new ice.
Nancy uttered a cry of delight and touched it with one strongly-shod foot, and then the other. It rang under her heel—there was not a single crack of protest. It bore her weight as firmly as a rock.
Breathlessly Nancy tried it farther out. The keen frost of a single night had chained the river firmly. She slid a little way. Then she ran for momentum, and slid smoothly, well balanced from her hips, with her feet wide spread. Her red lips opened with a sigh of delight. Her eyes sparkled and the hair was tossed back from under her woolen cap.
“Great! Great!” she cried aloud, when she came to a stop.
She went back down the slide. Her boots rang on the ice as though it were steel. Again and again she slid until there was a well-defined path upon the ice—a path at least ten yards long.
But the horizon grew rosy-red and the dropping moon paled into insignificance. This warned her that the breakfast call would soon sound and she left the ice reluctantly and ran back to the hall.
Before she reached the kitchens the sun popped up and she ran in the path made by its glowing rays across the frozen fields.
It was so cold that the early rising girls were hugging the radiators in the big hall when Nancy came in from the rear, all in a delightful glow. Some of them nodded to her. One girl even said:
“You’ve got pluck to go out for your constitutional a morning like this, Miss Nelson.”
But to Nancy’s ear it seemed as though the girl said it in a patronizing way. She was a junior. Nobody else spoke to the freshman. So Nancy had the secret of the frozen river to herself. She meant to go skating that day if she could.
Every morning the girls of Pinewood Hall took their places after breakfast—class by class—in the hall which balanced the dining room in the other wing of the big house. A brief service of a devotional character always began the real work of the day. Usually Madame Schakael presided at these exercises. And sometimes she had that to say before dismissing the girls that showed them that she had a keen oversight of the school’s manners and morals.
“I know,” she said, on this morning, standing upon the footstool which was always kept behind the desk-pulpit for her; “I know that many of you have been watching and waiting, with great eagerness, for the skating season to set in. Jack Frost, young ladies, seldom disappoints us here at Pinewood Hall. The river is frozen over.”
Here her remarks were punctuated by applause, and some suppressed “Oh, goodies!” The Madame smiled indulgently at this enthusiasm.
“Our rules regarding the sport are pretty well understood, I believe. No skating save during certain designated hours, and never unless Mr. Pease, or the under gardener, is at the boathouse. Bounds extend from the railroad bridge up the river toward town, to the Big Bend half a mile below our boathouse. The girl who skates out of bounds—they are plain enough—will not skate again for a month. Don’t forget that, girls.
“And now, for the rule that has always been in force at Pinewood,” pursued the Madame, more earnestly, “and the one to which I must demand perfect obedience.
“No girl is to try the ice by herself. No venturesome one must go down there and try the ice without Mr. Pease, or Samuel, being on hand. Remember!
“And,” said Madame Schakael, slowly, “I hear that there has already been somebody on the ice this morning. Whether it was one of you girls, or not, we do not know. But when Mr. Pease came to report to me that the ice was safe for skating he informed me that somebody had been sliding down there, early as it was when he reached the river.
“If any girl has broken our ironclad rule on this point, I want to know it. I expect to see that girl at once after prayers. Of course, if nobody here is guilty we must believe that some passer-by ventured down upon the river while crossing Pinewood estate.
“Now, young ladies, I need say nothing more on this subject, I believe. After recitations to-day, those who wish may enjoy the pleasure and exercise of ice-skating. The boathouse will be warmed. Samuel will be there to sharpen skates for those who wish. And he can supply you with extra straps or other appliances. You understand that he makes a little extra money that way, and I approve of it.”
Then she touched the rising bell, and instantly the girls arose and a bustle of low converse and the rustle of dresses and clack of shoes on the polished floor made up the usual confusion of sounds as the girls separated for their classrooms. Nearly four hundred girls manage to make considerable noise.
Nancy went immediately to the Madame’s office. It was the first time she had ever been called there; it was the first time, indeed, that she had ever been accused of any kind of a fault since arriving at the school.
So she did not feel very happy. She had not known of the rule which Madame Schakael had said was so well understood. She had not meant to break the law.
But she could see very clearly that the rule was a just one. She had no business to venture on the ice without asking permission. And her heart throbbed and her face flushed and paled by turns as she waited for the principal to appear.
But when Madame Schakael entered the anteroom she was not alone. Nancy, from within, heard another voice—a shrill and unpleasant voice which she very well knew.
“Well, I don’t care what you say, Madame, it was her. There’s no other girl in the whole school who gets up so early and disturbs us other girls—so now! She’s stirring around half the night, I declare! And she was the only girl out of doors this morning so early.”
“And she is your roommate; is she, Miss Rathmore?” interrupted the Madame’s smooth, low voice.
“Well! I never wanted her! I wrote home and told my mother she was a nobody——”
“Your mother was kind enough to write to me on the subject,” said the principal of Pinewood Hall. “But I could not allow any change in the dormitory arrangements for the inconsequential reasons given. Nancy Nelson is quite the same as any other girl at the Hall. I wish to hear nothing more on that topic, Cora.
“But this other matter, of course, is different. If a rule has been broken of course I must take cognizance of it. And I feel sure that if your roommate was the person on the ice this morning, she will report the fact to me herself——”
She pushed the office door wide open. Nancy had listened to this conversation perforce. There had been no escape for her.
“Ah! As I expected,” said the doll-like little woman, smiling calmly at Nancy. “You see how mistaken one may be, Cora? Nancy is here ahead of us.”
Cora Rathmore shrank back from the door with a very red face. Nancy’s eyes flashed as she looked at her ill-natured roommate. She realized well enough that Cora had deliberately—and without sufficient evidence herself—tried to get her into trouble with the principal.
Cora was not easily embarrassed, however. In a moment she shot the other girl a scornful glance and, without a word to Madame Schakael, walked out of the office. It really did seem as though it was Nancy who had done the wrong, instead of her roommate.
“You are here to see me, Miss Nelson?” asked the Madame, briskly, ignoring the other girl and her report.
“Yes, Madame.”
“Because of what I said at prayers?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“You are a new girl. Did you not know of the rule that all girls must keep off the river until it is pronounced safe by Mr. Pease?”
“I did not know of the rule. And I did not think that I was doing wrong when I went on the ice this morning,” returned Nancy, quietly.
“I believe you, Miss Nelson. You are excused. Don’t do it again. I can’t afford to have any of my girls drowned—especially one who stands as well as you do in the weekly reports,” and the little woman patted her on her cheek and smiled.
“You may go skating this afternoon, if you wish, and if you are perfect in your recitations, as I suppose you will be,” continued Madame Schakael. “Wait, my dear! Here are two letters for you. They are both from Mr. Henry Gordon’s office, and I presume they are from him. I make it a rule never to open letters from the parents or guardians of my girls; other letters, you understand, must be scrutinized unless the correspondence has already been arranged for.”
She passed the wondering Nancy two businesslike looking envelopes with the card printed in the corner of “Ambrose, Necker & Boles.”
“Thank you, Madame,” said the girl, and hurried away to her first class with the letters fairly burning a hole in her pocket.
There would be no opportunity before the first intermission—at 10:30 o’clock—to look at their contents.