An Advertisement Competition
Though the general census at St. Cyprian's had docketed Mildred emphatically as "musical", she was not on that account entirely debarred from joining other societies. True, she was expected to concentrate her energies on her violin, and win credit with it for the school, but so long as she did not claim a leading part in any of the alliance contests, there was no objection to her being an ordinary member. All the girls were strongly encouraged to play games, so she practised tennis in the dinner hour, and took her turn with the rank and file at cricket. She had not the essential characteristics of a champion—her physique was not vigorous enough, and she lacked perseverance—but the exercise was good for her, and as the term wore on she began to exhibit improvement. Kitty Fletcher was in hard training, and had inspired a select number of suitable votaries with a like enthusiasm.
"We shall have a hard fight presently with the High School, so we must show that St. Cyprian's is capable of something," she said. "They shan't have it all their own way. I'm sorry we can't put you in the team, Mildred."
"I don't want to be in the team. I'd much rather look on when it's a question of matches. At present I'm thoroughly enjoying dabbling in all the societies. I've joined the sketching club, and I'm taking a turn at the Literary."
"That's more in your line than mine. I'd rather spend an afternoon at cricket than compose an essay."
"Oh, I'm not doing any real solid writing. I leave that to Phillis Garnett and Laura Kirby. They're hard at work making a magazine number that's to rival the Nineteenth Century or the Hibbert Journal. My contributions are of a very light character. I sent one in the other day, and—isn't it sad?—it was rejected 'with the editor's compliments'. I tackled Phillis about it, and she said the mag. was meant to be serious, not comic. I thought my poem might have livened things up a little, but she'd have none of it."
"Have you got it here?"
"Yes; like the orthodox unsuccessful minor poet, I have it in my pocket."
"Oh, do let me see it!"
"It has the advantage of shortness, and if brevity is the soul of wit, that ought to be a point in its favour," said Mildred, producing her maiden effort. "I call it a 'compressed novelette'. Perhaps I'd better read it aloud to do it full justice. My writing isn't very clear.
"All ringed and bangled,
At me you angled;
With ways newfangled
The bait you dangled.
Yet ere bells jangled
We two had wrangled,
Our love was tangled,
My heart was mangled!"
"Not half-bad!" laughed Kitty. "I'm afraid it's hardly the style, though, to impress Phillis or Laura. If you could have written it in Greek it might have suited them. What did the others say to it?"
"Haven't had time to show it to them yet."
"Some of them will like it. They're not all as deep as Phillis and Laura. Why don't you get up a little fun among the more frivolous end?"
"It might be worth thinking of if I find an opportunity."
Mildred, who had a strong vein of humour in her composition, treasured up Kitty's suggestion. She knew the bulk of the members could not rise to the height of the learned essay which their leaders considered worthy of the magazine, but they would be quite ready to amuse themselves with work of a less exacting character. Several schemes occurred to her and were put aside, but one day she hit upon something really appropriate, and came to school with visible triumph on her face. At eleven-o'clock break she cajoled the lesser lights of the literary society to a private corner of the playground, and propounded her scheme.
"Look here," she began. "I saw this advertisement in yesterday's Herald, and cut it out:
"Literary.—Wanted, short poems to advertise a famous brand of tea. Prize of three guineas offered for best effort, and ten shillings each for any others selected. Cracker mottoes and comic verses for Christmas cards also considered. Last date for receiving, May 20th.—No. 201x, Kirkton Herald Office.
Well, now, my idea is this. Let's all try and write some verses, put them together, and send them in. It would be such a joke!"
"Could we write verses about tea?" hazarded Maggie Orton doubtfully.
"Of course we can. It rhymes with heaps of things—agree, and free, and qualitee; it shouldn't be hard at all."
"I rather incline towards cracker mottoes," said Clarice Mayfield. "Most that one gets at Christmas parties are such drivel. I've often felt I could make better."
"Then do try. And, Margaret, you ought to be able to turn out some Christmas-card verses. Let's make a syndicate, and pool all our contributions. Everybody to send in not less than one, and more if possible."
"How about the prize, if one of the poems got it? Should we pool that?"
"We could divide it," suggested Myrtle Robinson.
"No, I've a better idea than that," said Mildred. "We'd be public-spirited, and devote any proceeds we got to the school library. We've the most rubbishy set of old books at St. Cyprian's, and want some new ones badly. Who votes for this?"
"Aye! Aye!" came quite unanimously from the girls, though Maggie Orton qualified her assent with a cautious "If we get it".
"Well, that goes without saying, of course. Naturally it's a case of 'first catch your hare'. But there's no harm in trying, so we must all set our wits to work and see what we can manage. It ought to be rather sport."
"Especially if we see the verses in print afterwards," giggled the girls.
"You'd better not tell Phillis," added Myrtle.
"I don't intend to," laughed Mildred.
The various members of the syndicate were rather taken with the idea of the competition, and exercised their brains to the utmost in evolving eulogies of the unknown brand of tea. Some of their effusions they tore up, and some they kept. In the end, after being carefully read aloud and voted on, three only were judged worthy of being submitted. These were by Maggie Orton, Myrtle Robinson, and Mildred herself. They ran as follows:—
OUR BRAND
"If a good tea you would buy,
You can always quite rely
On our excellent and justly famous blend.
'T is a most delicious cup,
That will tone and cheer you up,
And one that we can safely recommend.
"If you want good honest tea,
That will rich in flavour be,
So fragrant, so refreshing, and so pure,
Just try our special brand
Of young leaves picked by hand,
'T will give you satisfaction, we are sure.
"Let the water be fresh boiled,
Or the tea'll perchance be spoiled,
And brewed for just three minutes let it be.
Then we think you'll never tire
Of sitting by the fire,
And enjoying our delicious brand of tea."
A FAMOUS BLEND
"All those who try
Good tea to buy,
And oft have found
The price too high,
We recommend
That you should try
Our famous blend.
"By careful choice
All crops among,
We mix a blend
That can't go wrong;
For flavour rare
Housewives declare
'T is past compare.
"The huge demand
On every hand
Shows to the wise
It takes the prize.
We can rely,
If once you try,
You'll always buy."
WORLD-FAMOUS TEA
"If a tea you would find that is just to your mind,
Yet that won't be too dear for your pocket,
Try our world-famous blend, when your money you spend,
And remember our branches all stock it.
So come to our shop for your tea,
Our famous, rich, syrupy tea;
If once you will get it, you'll never regret it,
But join in the praise of our tea.
"Home's a glad happy place, with a smile on each face,
If our world-famous brand you will sample;
'T is the tea ladies love, as the large demands prove.
And three spoons in the pot will be ample.
So come to our shop for your tea,
Our famous, rich, syrupy tea;
Mansion, cottage, or hall, it is suited to all,
The best that can possibly be."
A few cracker mottoes and Christmas-card verses were also selected, and the whole set put together. Mildred, as the originator of the scheme, took charge of them, and promised to send them off in good time for the competition. It seemed no use forwarding them too soon, as they would probably only lie waiting at the Herald offices, so she put them by in a drawer to post when the right date arrived. Now, unfortunately, though Mildred could be extremely keen upon a thing at the moment, once the first excitement of it was over it was apt to slip from her memory. She had enjoyed trying her 'prentice muse at tea verses, but, having finished them, she turned her thoughts to something else. Music was at present absorbing most of her time, and in the interest of her violin the papers lay in her drawer forgotten. On the afternoon of May 20th she was sitting in the studio working at her drawing copy, with no more idea of advertisements for tea in her thoughts than if that beverage had never existed. At three o'clock she was due for her music lesson from Herr Hoffmann, and she was putting in time rather languidly at her chalk head of Venus, and wondering whether the Professor would be in a good temper, or whether he would scold her for faulty rendering of her study. Myrtle Robinson was sitting at the desk behind, and presently contrived, without attracting the attention of the teacher, to hand her a slip of paper. She opened it carelessly enough, and read:
"I suppose you posted the competitions all right? M. R."
Mildred dropped her pencil and broke its point in her agitation. Posted the competitions? She had done nothing of the sort. They were still lying in her drawer at home, though to-day was the last date for receiving them.
"Oh, what a lunatic I am!" she groaned to herself, "I, who suggested the whole thing, and made the others write, to be the one to forget all about it! Something has to be done, that's clear. And it must be done at once, too. I mustn't on any account let the girls know I failed them."
Mildred was impulsive to a fault. At this moment the one business in life seemed to be to get the competitions to their destination, even at the eleventh hour. It was futile to post them, but they might still be delivered at the offices of the Kirkton Herald. There was nothing else for it, she must take them herself, and that immediately. It was almost three o'clock, and the art mistress knew that she had to go to her music lesson. She rose, therefore, received the nod of dismissal, and, ignoring Myrtle's signal demanding an answer to her question, put away her drawing-board, and hurried from the studio. Instead, however, of fetching her violin, and going straight to No. 6 practising room, where Herr Hoffmann would just be finishing Mary Hutton's lesson, she walked to the dressing-room, and put on her hat and coat. She knew she was going to do a most dreadfully unauthorized and unorthodox act, and she shivered to think of the consequences, but she did not hesitate for one moment.
"That competition's got to go in time," she told herself, "even though the Professor rages, and Miss Cartwright storms, and I get myself into the biggest pickle I've ever been in, in all my life. I can't fail the girls now. I couldn't look them in the face again. It would be too ignominious. No, I've a pressing engagement elsewhere this afternoon, and can't keep my appointment with Herr Hoffmann, though I shan't write a note and tell him so!"
At three o'clock it was extremely easy to leave the school unobserved. Nobody was about, so Mildred simply walked out through the gate. She took the electric car home, and was rather relieved to find that neither her uncle nor her aunt was in the house. She felt she would rather not enter into any explanations just at present. The papers were quite ready in an envelope, and duly addressed, so she took them from her drawer, and caught the next tram-car into Kirkton. The Herald offices were in Corporation Street, a business part of the city she did not know at all, but she thought she could find it. She felt rather adventurous and decidedly naughty, for she was not supposed to go on expeditions by herself without first asking leave at home, to say nothing of having run away from St. Cyprian's.
She left the tram at the High Street corner, and turned down Corporation Street. The town was very crowded, and she was almost jostled off the pavement by the numbers of people who were passing to and fro. By dint of asking a policeman she at last found the offices of the Kirkton Herald. She did not know whether she was expected to ring, knock, or walk in, but she could see no bell, and as business men kept passing in and out by a large swinging door, she plucked up her courage, and followed in the wake of a new-comer. She had done the right thing, for she found herself in a big room, having a counter like a bank to divide clerks from customers. She handed in her envelope with a timid enquiry as to whether it was in time.
"Just in time," was the reply. "We close the box-office department at four-thirty."
With a sigh of intense relief, Mildred watched the clerk place her communication in a pigeonhole. So it was safe, and she had not betrayed her trust after all. She felt the satisfaction was worth almost any amount of scolding. She turned leisurely to leave the office, when the big door swung open, and she found herself face to face with no less a person than Herr Hoffmann. Most egregiously caught, Mildred turned crimson, and would have beaten a swift retreat had not the Professor barred the way.
"So, Miss Lancaster! I find you here! Are you then having a violin lesson from ze newspaper? I wait half an hour for you at ze school, and you not come! How is it you fail to-day to be at your lesson?"
Mildred blushed still redder, tried to stammer an excuse, then seeing a twinkle of amusement gleaming under Herr Hoffmann's bushy eyebrows, she took a sudden resolution, and blurted out the truth. She made her little story as short as possible, and the Professor nodded his head with German gravity at the principal points. When she had finished, he chuckled softly.
"So you would turn poets at St. Cyprian's, and write songs in praise of tea? You shall show me ze verses? Yes, some day. But while you write ze poetry, ze violin does not make progress. To-day we were to have taken ze concerto and ze 'Frühlingslied'. Is it not so?"
"Yes," murmured Mildred, much abashed.
"I like not that you miss your lesson. You shall come to me to-morrow at my house, No. 50 Basil Street, and I will hear you play ze concerto. Yes, at four-thirty. You will be there?"
"Oh, thank you!" said Mildred. "Yes, of course I'll come. It's very good of you to make up the lesson."
"Some day you shall read me ze tea verses. Miss Cartwright, is she also satisfied for you to miss school?" said Herr Hoffmann, with a friendly nod, as he dismissed his pupil and turned to the counter.
Mildred hurried home, feeling that she had not only Miss Cartwright to reckon with, but her aunt as well. She had a very open, truthful disposition, and did not dream of concealing her escapade. She told Mrs. Graham the exact facts as they had occurred.
"I just had to do it, Tantie dear! I don't see how I could possibly have done anything else."
Fortunately for Mildred, though Mrs. Graham shook her head, she did not take a severe view of the matter.
"It's extremely good of Herr Hoffmann to make up the lesson," she remarked. "You must try to get in an extra half-hour's practice to-day, so as to have the concerto better prepared. You really don't deserve that he should give up his time to you."
"I'm rather scared at the prospect of going to his house," confessed Mildred. "But I will have an extra tussle with the concerto to-night. I hope he won't ask to see the tea verses."
At five minutes to nine on the following morning, Mildred walked into Miss Cartwright's study, and tendered an explanation of her absence the afternoon before, together with an apology for her behaviour.
"It was a hard case, I own," said the Principal. "But why did you not come at once to me, and ask leave? If I pass over it, you must not let this prove a precedent, Mildred. It would never do for girls to walk out of school just when they like."
"I know. I ought to have come and asked. But somehow I never thought of it. I was in such a hurry, I could do nothing but rush home for the papers. I'll never do it again, Miss Cartwright, on my honour."
"Very well; as you have told me of it yourself, and apologized, I'll say no more about it. You can go."
Mildred passed from the study, congratulating herself that she had escaped so easily. She told her thrilling story to the other members of the syndicate, and they rejoiced together that the competition was received in time.
"When shall we hear the result?" asked Myrtle.
"Not for weeks, I expect. Besides, I don't really suppose that anything will come of it," returned Mildred.