Blue Bonnet in Boston; or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's

by Caroline Elliott Hoogs Jacobs; Lela Horn Richards

It was five o'clock on the Friday afternoon that Blue Bonnet and Carita had left for Woodford, that Joy Cross entered the room which she and Blue Bonnet occupied jointly. She glanced about, a look closely akin to joy lighting her plain features. Joy Cross was a recluse by nature, and the thought of having the room solely to herself for three days gave her infinite pleasure.

She laid an armful of books on the table by the window, then drew up a comfortable chair and sat for awhile looking out into the gathering twilight. The pleased expression which she had worn when she entered the room gradually died from her face, and in its place came one of discontent.

Between Blue Bonnet Ashe and Joy Cross there was no love lost. They disliked each other with the utmost cordiality. Blue Bonnet disliked Joy on general principles—possibly because she could not approach her, understand her; and Joy disliked Blue Bonnet because Blue Bonnet stood for everything that she herself wanted to stand for, and couldn't.

This evening as she sat looking out into the dusk, her figure, usually so apathetic and lifeless, took on an animated line, and stiffened into something that suggested a smothered, half-dead temperament breathing into life. She took her arms from the back of her neck, where they had been supporting her head, and digging her elbows into her knees made a place for her chin to rest in the palms of her hands. She sat this way for a long time, thinking, and her thoughts, for the most part, were occupied with her room-mate.

She wished she could get rid of her—be alone. She was tired of the running in of the girls who had taken Blue Bonnet up; their incessant gabble; their whispered conversations during the visiting hour. To be sure, Blue Bonnet had tried, time and time again, to draw her into these conversations, but she had no desire to be drawn in. She hated Annabel Jackson—the little snob—and Ruth Biddle's impertinences were beyond endurance. These girls had snubbed her since her entrance as a Sophomore, three years before, leaving her out of their festivities,—ignoring, scorning her, just as on the other hand they had taken up this new room-mate, deluging her with devotion, showering their gifts and attentions upon her.

Joy Cross was a scholar—so reputed, and justly; but one of life's most important lessons had passed her by. She had never learned that to receive, one must give; to be loved, one must love; to attain, one must reach out. It never occurred to her to weigh her own shortcomings and throw them into the balance with those of her enemies. She spent no time in introspection, self examination. She set a high standard on her own virtues, and, like most persons of this character, was oblivious to her faults.

Her three years in the school had been marked by no serious difficulties. She had been able to hide most of the unpleasant things in her nature, by her very aloofness. She had no close friends. She was judged by her work, her attention to duty, her obedience to rules; all of which were apparently beyond criticism. Her teachers, though they respected her, never grew fond of her. She led her classes through assiduous application, rather than brilliancy of mind.

She was an omnivorous reader. The only rule she ever thought of breaking, was to rise in the dead of night, when the house was still, and taking a secreted candle, lock herself in the bathroom—which had an outside window to give back no tell-tale reflection—and read until the dawn.

She changed her position after awhile, and getting up went to the door and locked it, listening for footsteps down the hall. None passed, evidently, for she went over to her bed and turning back the mattress brought out a book which had been carefully hidden. Then she drew up the comfortable chair again, placing it by a table which stood near Blue Bonnet's bureau. Adjusting the reading lamp to a proper angle, she was soon lost in the book, the leaves of which she turned with eager haste.

She had been reading but a short time when a knock at the door startled her. Reaching over, she pulled out one of Blue Bonnet's bureau drawers stealthily, and laid the book inside, carefully covering it with some underwear. Then she opened the door.