“Well, I don’t care if you do laugh at me,” Sue declared. “It’s true. She comes from the far West, and I don’t see how she ever got into Calvert Hall as teacher.”
“I’ll ask her to-night, Sue,” promised Polly, gayly.
“But, really and truly, Polly, how did she? Isn’t she unresponsive and ordinary looking? I’ve tried to talk to her ever so many times, and all she says is, ‘Perhaps,’ or ‘I should judge so.’ I don’t think she has any imagination at all.”
Sue pronounced sentence in a very grieved tone of voice, but the girls only laughed at her.
“Miss Murray is in earnest, though,” Ruth said, finally. “She has always seemed strange to us girls, but maybe we’ve seemed so to her. She surely is in earnest, girls, and Miss Calvert says that’s the very first quality a teacher needs. Maybe if we knew her better, we’d like her.”
“Eat your shortcake, children, and stop criticizing your elders,” Polly ordered. “This meeting is not called to discuss Miss Murray or Crullers either. This is the first call for action on the part of the vacation club.”
“Isn’t it pretty early even to think of vacation, Polly?” asked Isabel, with a sigh. “It’s weeks and weeks ahead of us.”
“Don’t groan, good pilgrim, over the hills ahead. They lead to glory,” chanted Polly. “Indeed, it isn’t too early; not if we expect to accomplish anything worth while. Haven’t we planned for it ever since last December, when we gave the first outing bazaar? How much did we glean that time, Ruth?”
“Thirty-four dollars and seventy-two cents,” replied the treasurer, proudly.
“Do you know, Polly,” interrupted Sue, “I think that was a dandy idea; to take the spoils of one vacation, and make them help out on the coming one. We sold off all the frames of seaweed Isabel made, at twenty-five cents each, remember, and the shell curtains went at five dollars each. That’s what swelled the fund.”