Miss Henry came and sewed a week, making new dresses and contriving and turning to make the best of several old ones. Monday morning, when school opened, the three Willis girls started off brave in new ginghams and Doctor Hugh assured them that he was proud of them.
"I wish I was in high school," said Rosemary wistfully, as Jack Welles joined them at the first corner.
"Two more years, and you will be," he consoled her. "I'll be a senior then, and I'll see that no one steps on you, Rosemary."
"Oh, nobody will," said Rosemary confidently.
And indeed she looked quite capable of taking care of herself. There was little of dependency about Rosemary and her lovely soft eyes were balanced by the firm white chin. "She is easily hurt, but her pride helps her to hide that," Winnie was fond of saying, "and don't be after forgetting that there's red in her hair, under the gold!"
The Eastshore school was a splendid type of the modern school, housing in one building the primary, grammar and high school grades. Built on the extreme edge of the town, it faced an acre play-ground, evenly divided among the three schools. Principals and teachers were the best obtainable and indeed the State Board of education was fond of using Eastshore school as a model for others to follow. Mrs. Willis had often declared that she would never have sent her son to boarding school had the public school then been as excellent as that which Rosemary and her sisters attended.
This morning Rosemary was to enter the seventh grade in the grammar school, Sarah would be in the fourth primary and Shirley, having "graduated" from the kindergarten the year before, would attain the dignity of a seat in the first grade. Separating at the broad door, they were swept into the different streams that carried them up different stairways and into different classrooms and it was noon before they saw each other again. Few of the pupils went home to lunch and a large, light airy room on the third floor was set aside for their use as a lunch room. A corner table was reserved for teachers and here a small group usually gathered not only to eat and exchange comment, but to keep an eye on the lunchers and subdue the noise when it rose to a shout. The high school students had their own lunch room, but the grammar and primary grades shared a room together.
"Well, what kind of people are in your room?" demanded Sarah, as she and Shirley met Rosemary at the little corner table the latter had secured and held for them. Rosemary had spread out the lunch Winnie had put up for them, and Shirley was already beginning on a sandwich.
"Oh, I like the girl who sits in front of me ever so much," returned Rosemary, cutting an apple into quarters for Shirley. "Her name is Elsie Stevens and they haven't lived in Eastshore long. Last year she went to the Port Reading school. Elsie Mears sits in back of me; she wasn't promoted. And Nina Edmonds is across the aisle."
"I don't think much of our teacher," announced Sarah, with deplorable frankness. "She doesn't look very bright and she says she is afraid of snakes."