The Ranch Girls at Boarding School

by Margaret Vandercook

And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.

Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for it.

Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.

While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch, who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the “Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her pride.

Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall as a training school for the larger social world and desired her students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore, although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students and their friends together, the older woman could often give her students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted from either the Junior or Senior girls.

It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in overcoming her shyness.

Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?

But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.

“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”

“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”