THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED
It was long past the hour when, on ordinary nights, Oak Knowe would have been in darkness, relieved only by a glimmer here and there, at the head of some stairway, and in absolute stillness.
But the Hallowe’en party had made everything give way and the servants were up late, putting the great Assembly Hall into the spotless order required for the routine of the next day.
Nut shells and scattered pop corn, apple-skins that had been tossed over the merrymakers’ shoulders to see what initial might be formed, broken masks that had been discarded, fragments of the flimsy costumes, splashes of spilled cider, scattered crumbs and misplaced furniture, made Dawkins and her aids lift hands in dismay as, armed with brooms and scrubbing brushes they came to “clear up.”
“Clear up, indeed! Never was such a mess as this since ever I set foot at Oak Knowe. After the sweepin’ the scrubbin’; and after the scrubbin’ the polishin’, and the chair fetchin’ and—my heart! ’Tis the dear bit lassie she is, but may I be further afore Dorothy Dixie gets up another Hallowe’en prank!” grumbled Dawkins, yet with a tender smile on her lips, remembering the thousand and one trifles which the willing girl had done for her.
For Dawkins was growing old. Under her maid’s cap the hair was thin and gray, and stooping to pick up things the girls had carelessly thrown down was no longer an easy task.
The rules against carelessness were stringent enough and fairly well obeyed, yet among three hundred lively girls some rules were bound to be ignored. But from the first, as soon as she understood them, Dorothy had been obedient to all these rules; and it was Dawkins’s pride, when showing visitors through the building to point to Dolly’s cubicle as a model. Here was never an article left out of place; because not only school regulations but real affection for the maid, who had been her first friend at Oak Knowe, made Dorothy “take care.”
Then busy at their tasks, the workers talked of the evening’s events and laughingly recalled the incident of the goat, which they had witnessed from the upper gallery; a place prepared for them by the good Bishop’s orders, that nobody at his great school should be prohibited from enjoying a sight of the pupils’ frequent entertainments.
“But sure, ’tis that lad, Jack, which frets me as one not belongin’ to Oak Knowe,” said Dora, with conviction.