CHAPTER VII
PEGGY STEWART: CHATELAINE
Peggy had entered a new world. Plunged into one, would perhaps better express it, so sudden had been her entrance, and her letters to Daddy Neil, now on his way to Guantanamo for the fall drills, were full of an enthusiasm which almost bewildered him and started a new train of thought.
As he knew most members of the personnel of the ships comprising the Atlantic fleet, he, of course, knew Commander Harold, though it had never occurred to him to associate him with Annapolis, or to make any inquiry regarding his home or his connections. Like many another, he was merely a fellow-officer. He was not a classmate, so his interest was less keen than it would have been had such been the case. Moreover, Harold was in a different division of the fleet and they very rarely met. But now the whole situation was changed by Peggy's letter. He would hunt up Mr. Harold at the first opportunity and with this common interest to bind them, much pleasure was in store.
True to her word, Peggy sent her letter off every Sunday afternoon—a conscientious report of the week's happenings. Her "log," she called it, and it was the comfort of Daddy Neil's life.
Meanwhile, she spent about half of her time with Mrs. Harold and Polly, and in a very short time became as good a chum of Mrs. Harold's "boys," the midshipmen, as was Polly. There was always something doing over at the Academy, and as Mrs. Harold's guest, Peggy was naturally included. At present football practice was absorbing the interest of the Academic world and its friends, for in a few weeks the big Army-Navy game would take place up in Philadelphia and Mrs. Harold had already invited Peggy to go to it with her party. Peggy had never even seen a practice game until taken over to the Naval Academy field with her friends, where the boys teased her unmercifully because she asked why they didn't "have a decently shaped ROUND ball instead of a leather watermelon which wouldn't do a thing but flop every which way, and call it tussle-ball instead of football?"
There was a little circle which gathered about Mrs. Harold, and which was always alluded to as "her big children." These were men from the different classes in the Academy, for there were no "class rates" in "Middies' Haven," as they called her sitting-room. Peggy met them all, though, naturally, there were some she liked better than others. Among the upper-classmen who would graduate in the spring were three who were at Middies' Haven whenever there was the slightest excuse for being there. These boys who seemed quite grown-up men to fourteen-year-old Peggy, though she soon lost her shyness with them, and learned that they could frolic as well as the younger ones, went by the names of Happy, Wheedles and Shortie, the latter so nicknamed because he was six feet, four inches tall, though the others' nicknames had been bestowed because they really fitted. There were also two or three second-classmen and youngsters who frequently visited Mrs. Harold, one in particular, who fascinated every one with whom he came in touch. His name was Durand Leroux, and, strange to state, he looked enough like Peggy to be her own brother, yet try as they would, no vestige of a relationship could be traced, for Peggy came of purely Southern stock while Durand claimed New England for his birthplace. Nevertheless, it became a good joke and they were often spoken of as the twins, though Durand was three years Peggy's senior.
Polly's chum, Ralph Wilbur, was about the same age as Durand, though in the lowest or fourth class, having just entered the Academy, and consequently was counted as very small fry indeed. He was a quiet, undemonstrative chap but Peggy liked him from the moment she met him. He had mastered one important bit of knowledge: That a "plebe" does well to lie low, and as the result of mastering that salient fact he was well liked by the upper-classmen and found them ready to do him a good many friendly turns which a more "raty" fourth-classman would not have found coming his way.
Altogether, Peggy found herself a member of a very delightful little circle and was happier than she had ever been in her life. In Mrs. Harold she found the love she had missed without understanding it, and in Polly a companion who filled her days with delight.
And what busy days they were. So full of plans, duties and pleasures, for Mrs. Harold had been very quick to understand the barrenness of Peggy's life in spite of her rich supply of this world's goods, and she promptly set about rounding it out as it should have been.