“You missed a lot,” assured Maude. “Charles left a large heap of stuff he had clipped from the hedges and the grass he had raked up after galloping around all the morning with his lawn mower, in a lovely big pile right in front of the office windows. Well, the minute I saw it yesterday afternoon, I forgot that I was a boarding school ‘Young lady’—I was back in my childhood—I was a girl again.”
“What did you do?” demanded Isabelle.
“You mean, how many did I do.”
“You didn’t really turn somersaults!”
“I did, and I loved it. And that was too much for Victoria. She did some, too—just lovely ones. So did Cora and Jane and Bettie—nearly all the West Corridor girls. All they needed was little Maude to start them.”
“You’d have thought they weren’t more than six years old,” said Hazel.
“What did Miss Woodruff say?”
“She was going to stop them,” returned Hazel, “but Doctor Rhodes and Mrs. Henry and Miss Blossom came out on the porch and clapped their hands and Doctor Rhodes said he’d give a prize for the girl that could do the best handspring. He offered a quarter, and who do you think got it!”
“Victoria Webster, of course.”
“Dead wrong. It was Eleanor Pratt.”