CHAPTER XX—THE VIGILANTES’ LAST MEETING
“It’s absolutely unbelievable!” cried Priscilla.
“It’s a fairy-tale!” said Vivian.
“I’ll just count the minutes till August!” declared Virginia.
“Mine is a reward for getting all A’s,” said Priscilla. “My! but I’m glad I worked!”
“I’m thankful papa came for Commencement,” said Vivian. “Mamma would never have said ‘Yes.’ She still thinks I’m going to be killed. Are you sure you have room for us all, Virginia? Is a ranch large?”
“Of course we have room. Besides, I sleep in a tent summers.”
“Oh, may we, too?”
“Why, yes, if you like. Mary wants to. It’s lovely out-of-doors.”
“Aren’t there any rattle-snakes around?”
“Only on the hills, and in rocky and sandy places. Oh, Dorothy, we’re selfish talking like this when you can’t come!”
“No, you’re not. I dote on hearing about it. I wish I could come, but I’m glad I’m going to be with father. It makes me frightfully proud to think he wants me to keep house for him; and we’re going to have a heavenly little bungalow right by the ocean. It will be lovely, I think; and we haven’t been together for so long, it will be like getting acquainted over again.”
“I think it’s splendid, Dorothy,” said Priscilla, “and I’m so proud of you! Mother is too—she said so. And being all Vigilantes, we’ll be together in thought, anyway. Oh, Virginia, I think your father was perfectly lovely to give us our pins!”
“Wonderful!” cried Dorothy.
“They’re the sweetest things!” said Vivian.
“Wasn’t that your secret when we held our first meeting in May?” asked Dorothy.
“Yes, that was it. When you mentioned the hepatica, I thought how lovely it would be to have little hepatica pins. I wrote father all about it, and he said he’d love to have them made for us as a gift from him. They are sweet! I love them!”
She lifted hers from her blouse and examined it, while the other Vigilantes did the same. They were little hepaticas in dull gold. In the heart of each glowed three small pearls; and in a circle around the pearls were engraved in tiny letters the words, “Ever Vigilant.”
“They’ll be such a help to us this summer, I think,” said Dorothy. “I know mine will. It will help me remember—lots of things.”
They were sitting on their rock back of the Retreat. It was afternoon of the day following the pageant, and this was their last Vigilante meeting.
“Doesn’t it seem as though everything had come out just right?” asked Priscilla after a little pause. “This morning in chapel when Miss King announced that we’d won the cup, I could have screamed, I was so glad! And that’s due to you, Dorothy, more than to any one else. Just think of your Latin examination! Miss Baxter has put it in the exhibit of class work. I’m so glad!”
“I can’t help feeling glad, too. But then it isn’t any more than I ought to have done toward my share of winning the cup. I helped toward losing it the first of the year.”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that part—ever again!” cried the founder of the Vigilantes. “It’s never going to happen any more, and that’s what makes me so happy, because now we understand each other, and next year we’ll all be working for the same thing! Oh, I get happier every minute!”
“Won’t it be lovely to have the Blackmores in The Hermitage?”
“Has Miss King really said they could come?”
“Yes, Jess told me this morning after chapel. At least, she’s going to try them for three months.”
“They’re going to Germany this summer. I wonder what they’ll learn to do over there!”
“You can depend upon it they’ll learn something! You’ll have enough to do to keep them straight, Priscilla.”
“Oh, dear,” said Priscilla. “Why did you ever choose me monitor? I’ll probably get into more scrapes than any one else, especially with the Blackmores around. I’ll try to be like Mary, but I know I can’t.”
“Oh, won’t we miss Mary and Anne?”
“Anne’s going abroad, too, with her mother; and then she’s going to college in the fall with Mary.”
“College seems so far away, and so big some way. I’m glad we’re going to be at St. Helen’s.”
A bell sounded across the campus.
“It’s time for the Senior song,” said Priscilla. “We must go in a minute. I’m going to take a piece of pine for my Memory Book to remember the last meeting.”
They all followed her example. Then, standing on the big rock with their arms around one another’s shoulders, they repeated earnestly their Vigilante principles:
“We stand for fair play and true friendship.”
“And for taking care of our roots,” added Virginia, as a postscript.
Then they scrambled down from the rock, and ran through the wood path to the campus, where the lower classes were gathering for the annual Senior song, which was held the last day of Commencement. From the woods north of the campus came the twenty Seniors in white dresses. They marched two by two between long lines of crimson ribbon, which they held. As they drew near the campus where the other classes awaited them, they sang their Senior song.
“We’re the St. Helen’s Seniors,
The crimson and the white,
We stand for fun and friendship,
For loyalty and right,
We’ll ever praise St. Helen’s,
Her wisdom and her fame,
The only school in all this land
Our loyalty can claim.”
Cheers from Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshmen greeted them. They marched to all the buildings, before each one singing farewell songs, written by Senior poets; and then back again to the gathering-place of the admiring lower classes, who, as they approached, rose, and with greater volume, but no greater feeling, saluted them with a song, also written expressly for the occasion.
“Farewell to the Seniors,
We’ll surely miss you sore
When we come back again next fall,
And find you here no more.
We’ll try to follow in your steps,
Of loyalty and right,
And never, never will forget
The crimson and the white.”