“Poor Geraldine!” Matilda laughed. “Now she will have to choose between a farmer’s daughter and a ghost.”
Just then a bell rang and Peggy leaped to her feet, declaring that it was her practice hour, and the other girls went with her.
When Matilda was alone, she stood for a moment looking out of the window. She saw a little wood in a shimmer of spring green down the hillside, and, since she had always lived on a prairie, she longed to know what a wood looked like.
“If only I had a hat and coat like other people,” she thought, “I would take a walk by myself.” Then she added wisely, “The girls, whose friendship is worth having, do not care what I wear, and moreover, every one is busy at this hour, and no one will notice me.” So thinking, she took her plaid shawl from the closet and twined it about her head and shoulders. Then she started out. She met no one in the corridors or garden and soon she reached the edge of the little wood. She stood for a moment looking about her truly awed. She had been brought up on a treeless prairie and this was the first time in her fifteen years that she had entered a wood. There was a shimmer of pale green on the twigs that would soon be in full leaf. The ground was moist and ferns were beginning to uncurl. A warm breeze wafted to Matilda an exquisite fragrance. Her wonderful eyes brightened. Surely there must be some wild flower in blossom, she thought, and eagerly she went deeper into the wood to find it. The hill became steeper and in places it was rocky. Again that exquisite fragrance and she paused to breathe deep of it. Then it was that she spied something pink among the dry, brown leaves. Stooping, she found that loveliest of spring flowers, a clump of trailing arbutus.
“Oh, you sweet, sweet thing,” she whispered as she held the blossoms close. “How I wish that I might find a spray for each of the girls who have been so kind to me.” She continued her search, looking under the leaves. She was nearing a heap of rocks, when from the other side came a low moaning sound. Matilda stood very still and listened. Fear was unknown to this prairie girl, but for one fleeting second she recalled the story of Peggy’s ghost. Then, when the sound was repeated, she hurried in that direction. Beyond a clump of bushes was the figure of a girl lying on the ground. Matilda saw that it was Geraldine Barrington. Forgetting everything but her desire to help, she hurried to the side of her roommate.
“Oh, Miss Barrington,” she exclaimed, “you have hurt your ankle, haven’t you? Let me get you into a more comfortable position and then I will run back to the school for assistance.”
“I don’t want to go back to the school,” Geraldine declared angrily. “I have left that place forever. I was just on my way to the Linden Station when I slipped and wrenched my ankle. I was going to Buffalo on the next train and have Madame Deriby send my things.”
“And all because you do not want to be my roommate,” Matilda said sorrowfully. Then she added brightly, “I’ll tell you what, Miss Barrington, let me help you back to the school and then I will ask Madame Deriby to permit me to move into the cupola and you shall have your room again all by yourself.”
Geraldine looked up in surprise. She endeavored to rise but fell back with a groan. “Do lie still,” Matilda urged. “I’ll run down to the road. I see a farmer driving this way and I am sure that he will help us.”
