Miss Lochinvar: A Story for Girls

by Marion Ames Taggart

One day was very like another in the first two weeks of Janet’s new school life. The teachers soon liked the sunny girl with the ready dimples and readier wit, joined with honest industry and determination to learn. The girls—the best girls—liked Jan at once, but the little knot of companions whom Gwen had disrespectfully called “that gang” disliked her every day a little more than the previous one, and chiefly because of the liking of the better faction. Gladys—and this was what made the attitude of these girls hard to bear—Gladys arrayed herself with them, and showed positive dislike to “Miss Lochinvar,” who certainly did not deserve it at her hands.

At home, after school, during the five hours between its dismissal and dinner time, life was a trifle dreary, or would have been but for Jack, Viva, and Jerry. Gwen thoughtlessly, in spite of her liking for Jan, betook herself to her own pursuits. Sydney did not seem like part of the family at all, but rather like some one who was fortunate enough to have secured an unusually well-appointed lodging-house and restaurant. He came and went unnoted, to Jan’s amazed distress. She had heard so much said by her father and mother of the necessity of keeping close to their boys and making home pleasant to them that motherly little Jan quite yearned over the handsome lad who had no one to see that he kept straight. She longed to make friends with him; a longing intensified by her intimacy with her own elder brother, Fred, whom she missed more than any of the children she had left behind her, unless it was the baby, Poppet. But though Sydney was perfectly polite to Jan, he made no recognition of her overtures of friendship, and, it seemed to his cousin, grew more indifferent to his surroundings, and more heavy-browed at each succeeding dinner.

Mrs. Graham soon got over her annoyance at Janet’s coming, and was always pleasant, pretty, and kindly, but not less busy than at first. As the autumn advanced into winter she was more deeply engulfed in engagements than ever, and Jan shared her children’s lack of their mother’s society. Unfortunately, with her aunt’s displeasure at her coming had disappeared her uncle’s pleasure in receiving his favorite sister’s child, and Jan quite longed for another of the evenings with him, such as she had tasted on her arrival a month ago.

Every afternoon when she came home from school—except on the afternoon of the dancing-class—Jan went into the nursery and sat down with Hummie, Jack, Viva, and the baby—who would have resented the title. Jack found the steep hill of learning which—to speak metaphorically—had so winded him turned into “the primrose path of dalliance” by this pretty cousin, who was so honest that she would not do his tasks for him, yet so clear-headed that she turned them into positive joys. Then she told the jolliest stories of the doings of her brothers and sisters, whom Jack burned to know, considering them more attractive than any youngsters he had had the luck to meet with, either in or out of a book, and whose feats filled him with envious admiration. Peals of laughter floated down the hall frequently during these hours—laughter which reached Gwen in her shrine of genius, and sometimes brought her out to share the fun. Gwen was surprised to find herself half jealous of the children’s love which Jan had won in a short month, and which she had missed because she had never thought about them at all. She sometimes felt quite shut out and hurt when she saw how the faces of the three youngest brightened at the sight of Jan and heard the whoop of delight with which they welcomed her.

Quiet little Viva found that Jan knew ways of playing housekeeping which her own naturally domestic little brain could not have devised, and that she could dress dolls, and play with them, too, as no one—not only her own sisters, but her friends—could begin to hope to do. And she could tell stories, not only the funny stories of life in Crescendo and the Howes’ frolics, but the fairy-tales which Viva preferred, in a way that would make the lady who told stories in the Arabian Nights’ green with envy. Viva loved Jan with a sort of dumb adoration. She was a sensitive little creature, and Jan had come into her solitude like sunshine. As to Jerry, she adopted Jan—whom she called “Yan” with a pure Norwegian pronunciation—as her own property, and loved her with tumultuous affection. Jerry had grown so well-behaved in the dining-room—never tipping over her oatmeal spoon, still less kicking “Tsusan”—that her father and mother wondered at the reform. They did not know that if “Yan” lifted her eyebrows in shocked surprise at the dawn of naughtiness in the wilful tot, Miss Geraldine immediately resumed the behavior which should make “Yan” show her dimples in smiling at her, for “Yan’s” dimples had become Jerry’s barometer, and she could not exist if their absence indicated disapproval.

It was fortunate for Janet that she was so sincerely fond of younger children and that her little cousins did cling to her with such devotion, for without their love she would have had many lonely hours and would have found the atmosphere of the splendid home she had come to too frigid for happiness.

Helen Watterson was to give a party, and the school was stirred by the announcement. Not only did Helen live in a house so large that her party was sure to be an event, but she had announced it as a “fagot party,” and all the girls invited protested that they could never, never fulfil its requirements. These requirements were for each guest to bring a fagot of wood—and “fagot” could be interpreted very liberally to mean anything from a few toothpicks bound together to a large bundle of real sticks. These fagots were to be laid in turn on the open fire, and while his fagot was burning each guest must tell a story.

The Grahams, Gwen, Gladys, and Janet Howe, were invited, as well as most of the girls of their age at “the Hydra.” Gwen felt no uneasiness as to her powers in the story-telling line, nor did Jan, though she was rather frightened at the thought of lifting up her voice in such an august assembly, but Gladys was dismayed, and declared, without meaning it, that she would not go if she had to tell a story, but would plead some excuse at the last moment. As it happened, it was Gwen, who longed to go, that pleaded the excuse at the last moment, a painfully real excuse, for she had a bad sore throat, and could not leave her room. Jan begged to be allowed to stay at home with her, partly through kindness to the cousin whom she really loved, and partly from a strong preference for doing so, for the prospect of going to a party without Gwen and with Gladys was worse than going alone. But Gwen would not hear of Jan’s staying behind.

“It will be the nicest party, I’m sure, Jan,” she said, “and I wouldn’t have you miss it. Besides, it is really the first affair we’ve been asked to since you came, so it will be your introduction to New York society. And another ‘besides’ is that I shall want to hear all about it, every story repeated, and everything, and Gladys never would tell me one thing.”

“I don’t feel as though I could go with Gladys, Gwen,” Jan said involuntarily. “She does dislike me so, and it makes me more awkward and scared than ever.”