Brenda, Her School and Her Club

by Helen Leah Reed

"No," replied Brenda, "I forgot mine, too. There were so many other things to think of last week."

It happened, naturally enough, that Brenda and Frances and several other girls who had neglected their compositions in the same way received a reprimand from Miss Crawdon, who thereupon said,

"Since so little English written work has been handed in to-day, I will submit a composition of my own to you for criticism. It is very simple, and consists merely of a brief description of an evening party, supposed to be the work of a girl of about your age.

"Now listen, 'I have seldom had so nice a time as at Clara Gordon's party. In the first place the house is a particularly nice one, and the room where we danced has the nicest floor for waltzing that I ever saw. Then there were so many nice people there, all the girls and young men whom I know especially well, and some others from out of town. The orchestra played divinely. I never heard nicer music, and John Brent, my partner in the German, was just as nice to me as he could be. I wish that I could describe the nice supper that we had at nice little tables in the dining-room. There was every imaginable kind of nice thing, ices, salads, and cakes. The sherbet was so nice that some persons who sat down late could not get any. It was all gone. I got along very nicely, for John Brent looked out for me. I have not told you about the dresses, but they were all so nice that it is hard to say which was the nicest. I danced until I could hardly stand, for I was determined not to miss a single dance, but when my aunt tried to urge me to go home before twelve o'clock so that I wouldn't be tired to death, I wouldn't give in for a moment, but told her that I felt quite nicely.'

"There," said Miss Crawdon, "this is a longer composition than many of you have prepared to-day, and mine is voluntary, while many of you have failed to carry out what was really a command laid upon you. What do you think of my composition?"

While she was reading, some of the girls had rubbed their eyes in amazement. It did not take even the duller very long however to see that Miss Crawdon had been playing a practical joke upon them. She had always had a great deal to say to them on the necessity of a wide vocabulary, and she had been particularly severe towards those girls who made the adjective "nice" take the place of more expressive words. "You noticed, perhaps," continued Miss Crawdon, "that I have not been extravagant in the matter of adjectives, at least I have been extravagant in the use of only one, for I have been able to make 'nice' serve in almost every instance where an adjective was needed, and in none of these instances was it used in its own proper sense."

Those girls who had not previously seen the joke, now glanced at one another in amazement. Yes, it really was a practical joke, this little composition by Miss Crawdon, and they had only begun to find it out. Then Miss Crawdon spoke again.

"I will not pretend that my composition has cost me much effort. Indeed, I only wrote it here in school in the few minutes at my disposal before the opening hour. I need not say also that it is the result of a few hastily jotted notes, based on scraps of conversation which came to me as I passed various groups of my pupils, at recess or before school. But, seriously," and all eyes were fixed on her, "I do wish that you would avoid the word 'nice' altogether for the present, unless you can resist the temptation to make it do duty on all occasions. Now, hoping that you will take this lesson to heart, I will leave you to Miss South, who will talk to you for a quarter of an hour on the subject of letter writing."

Thereupon Miss South took Miss Crawdon's place, and the girls had no opportunity to exchange opinions regarding Miss Crawdon's humorous, if brief, essay.

Miss Crawdon and Miss South were joint teachers of this class in English. Miss South had charge of it oftener than Miss Crawdon. But the latter had general supervision of it, and as the first hour of certain mornings was given to it, occasionally Miss South was permitted to arrive at school a little late, while Miss Crawdon took her place. When Miss South was late it was not on account of any dilatoriness of her own; it was usually business of Miss Crawdon's that detained her—for she was Miss Crawdon's trusted friend—and she often had to go to the bank, or to hold an interview with an anxious parent, or to do some other thing by which Miss Crawdon might be spared care or unnecessary steps.