A Dixie School Girl

by Gabrielle E. Jackson

Now it so happened that Miss Stetson’s recitation room adjoined Monsieur Sautelle’s. She heard his call and responded with wingéd feet, arriving upon the scene just as Eleanor Allen, Petty’s bosom friend, had sprung to her side, and while in reality striving to untwine Petty’s clinging arms seemed also to be in the act of embracing the French teacher.

What followed is almost too painful to dwell upon, but within ten minutes, all three actors in the little drama were arraigned before Miss Woodhull and it was only Eleanor’s clever tongue which saved the situation. She stated very emphatically that Petty had been too ill to study on Saturday evening; she did not feel it necessary to name the nature of the malady. That it had been impossible for Petty to prepare her lessons for Monday and that her act was purely the outcome of nervous excitement and held no personal demonstration toward Professor Sautelle.

This statement the Professor was more than delighted to back up and Petty’s tears clenched it. Miss Woodhull could not endure tears; she had never shed one in her life so far as she could recall—and she wished to end the scene forthwith. Consequently the Professor was politely dismissed and speedily went to procure fresh linen. Under Miss Stetson’s charge Petty was sent to the Infirmary, where she was detained a week, and Eleanor was bidden to go to her next recitation. But Eleanor, who was Petty’s confidant in all things, instantly decided to keep her trump card to be played when the moment should be ripe. Eleanor had missed her vocation in life. She should have been in the Turkish diplomatic service instead of in an American boarding school.

Eleanor had taken the note from Beverly’s history. She did so because, having seen Beverly pick it up and place it there she decided, from innate suspicion of all her fellow beings, that Beverly meant to use it to Petty’s undoing. It never occurred to her that Beverly could entertain a generous motive toward a girl whom she held in aversion if not contempt. Then the note once in her possession she wished to keep it a day or so, in the hope that Petty might discover for herself where it had gone. It never entered her head that Beverly would go straight to Petty and explain the situation, and in a reticent freak quite uncommon to her nature, Petty had not confided this fact to Eleanor. And now it was out of the question to do so for the pupils were not permitted to visit the girls in the Infirmary.

Two weeks later the basket-ball game with the rival school was imminent and the team was working like mad. Leslie Manor had been beaten the year before and a second defeat would spell disgrace. Eleanor was on the sub-team. So was Electra. The captain and one forward were seniors. Aileen center, Sally a forward, Beverly had made good as guard and was working like a Trojan for the great event.

The Friday afternoon before the game a party of girls were taken to the village to do some shopping. Nothing more diverting than purchasing new shoe ties, hairpins, bows, and various other trifles. Also to make sure that the decorations ordered for the gymnasium would be punctually sent over to the school that afternoon and last, but by no means least, to indulge in chocolate sodas etc., at the big drug store.

It so happened that Miss Forsdyke, the Latin teacher was acting as chaperone that afternoon and Miss Forsdyke was alive just exactly two thousand years after her time. She should have lived about 55 B.C., for in reality she was living in that period right in the Twentieth Century A.D. and was so lost to all things modern, and so buried in all things ancient, that she was never quite fully alive to those happening all around her. As a chaperone she was “just dead easy” Sally said. A more absent-minded creature it would have been hard to come upon.

Sally, Aileen and Beverly were lingering over the last delicious mouthfuls of nut sundaes. Electra had finished hers and gone to an adjoining counter to make a purchase. Miss Forsdyke, who had declined Sally’s invitation to have a sundae, was selecting a tooth brush at an adjoining counter when Beverly asked:

“Miss Forsdyke, why can’t we carry the flags and ribbons back with us? Then we would be sure of them.”

Miss Forsdyke laid down the tooth brush, picked it up again, hesitated, then walked toward Beverly, saying, “I am not quite sure that Miss Woodhull would approve. She does not like the pupils to carry parcels—large ones, I mean—and these would be quite large, would they not?”