The Ranch Girls at Boarding School

CHAPTER I
“STILL AS THE NIGHT”

Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to announce the coming of morning.

“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in the other room was occupied by two persons.

Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the “Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.

“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying to waken them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they sleep so soundly the first night at a strange boarding school when I am so homesick and lonely I know that I am going to die or cry or do something else desperate? If only Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch, sliding to the floor again, sat with her legs crossed under her and her head resting on her hands in a curious Indian posture of grief. And while she waited, watching beside the bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now quietly asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New York City, which held her beloved friend Jack.

The Ranch Girls at Boarding School

CHAPTER I“STILL AS THE NIGHT”

CHAPTER I
“STILL AS THE NIGHT”