“They like it,” declared Mrs. Henry Rhodes. “Boarding school girls always do it, and they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t enjoy it.”
There was one Sunday evening, however, when the gloom was somewhat lightened; and when giggles supplanted sobs. Stout Miss Woodruff, clad in her smooth gray serge gown, with its white vest for Sunday use only, usually sat in a large arm-chair at the end of the room, in order to lend dignity to the meeting. But on this occasion she was absent and had asked Abbie to take her place. Poor scatter-brained Abbie had forgotten all about it so the chair was vacant. But not for long.
The chief ornament of the high mantel shelf was a large stuffed bird—a penguin. When it became evident to the waiting girls that no one was coming to occupy that vacant chair, Maude Wilder, always resourceful, climbed upon a chair, seized the stately penguin and placed him in the chair. With his dignity, his mildly disapproving eye and his smooth gray and white plumage, his resemblance to stern Miss Woodruff—vest and all—was so striking and so amusing that the astonished girls burst forth with a chorus of giggles instead of words when Mrs. Henry Rhodes, at the piano, played the opening notes of the first hymn.
Of course Mrs. Henry turned around to see what caused this most unusual hilarity. When she saw the solemn penguin doing his birdlike best to be human and succeeding so admirably in filling Miss Woodruff’s place, Mrs. Henry not only giggled but laughed outright; and all the pupils, including the lofty Seniors, joined in. For the rest of the evening, even the saddest hymns failed to bring on a single case of homesickness.
“But,” warned Mrs. Henry, restoring the bird to his lofty perch when the singing was finished, “we must never do this again. We’ve all been very bad.”
“I love that lady,” said Maude, on the way upstairs. “If she were my teacher I’d be good all the time.”
“I hope,” giggled Sallie Dickinson, “I won’t forget and call Miss Woodruff ‘Miss Penguin.’ I shall never be able to dust that bird again without thinking of her.”
[CHAPTER VII—AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE]
One morning, late in October, there was great excitement at Highland Hall. It was just at recess time and all the girls (except Maude Wilder and Debbie Clark who were under the porch foraging for pie) were on the veranda or the graveled walk. Two new pupils were arriving. They were not together for they came in separate hacks. The first was a large girl of fourteen who, followed by a small, meek father, marched fearlessly up the steps and looked each girl straight in the eye until she reached Sallie Dickinson, who stood in the doorway, smiling a welcome.
“I’m Victoria Webster of Iowa,” said she, “and I’ve come here to school. Where’s Doctor What d’ye-callum? I’ve come here after an education and I want it right away.”