Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

"So these are the little girls I have been expecting," she said, shaking hands with them.

She asked them a few questions about their journey, and whether they had come together, and then she talked again with the ladies.

While this conversation was going on, the children looked about them, Maude no less curiously than Ruby, for boarding-school was a new experience to her, too.

It was a pleasant room. In one corner of it was a table with a globe upon it, and some books, and in another corner was a what-not, with shells and other curious things that Ruby wished she might go over and examine.

She was wondering whether she might not whisper to Aunt Emma how eager she was to go over to the what-not, and ask whether she might do so, when Miss Chapman rose, and took the party up to their rooms. Ruby was to room with her Aunt Emma, which was a very good arrangement for more than one reason; for she would be less apt to be homesick with her aunt, and besides that she would not be in danger of transgressing rules by speaking to other pupils after the lights had been put out for the night.

Maude was to room with one of the other girls, and her room was at the end of the hall. It was a very comfortable little room with two little white beds in it, but Maude did not seem very well satisfied with it. The room in which Ruby was to sleep was larger, because it was a teacher's room, and it did not please Maude to find that Ruby or indeed any one else, should have anything that was better than what she herself had. She looked very sullen, but she did not say anything while Miss Chapman was upstairs.

After Miss Emma and Ruby had gone to their own room and she was left alone with her mother in the room which she was to share, she threw herself down upon one of the beds, exclaiming angrily,—

"I don't want to stay here, mamma. I just wish you would either make them give me the nicest room in the house, or take me home with you. Do you spose I want a mean little room like this when Ruby Harper has such a nice one? The idea of a little country girl having a better room than I have! I won't stay if I have to have this room, so."

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Birkenbaum, soothingly. "Yes, you will stay, Maude. The only reason that Ruby has a larger room is because it is her aunt's room, and of course a teacher has to have a larger and nicer room than the scholars. It will be ever so much nicer to be in this room. I am sure you would not like to be in the same room with a teacher and have her listening to everything you said. And now mind, you must be careful what you say to Ruby, for she will probably tell her aunt everything, and the teachers won't like you if you complain about things. Don't fuss about the room, that is a good child, and I will send you a new ring, and you shall have a great big box of cake every month, and then all the other girls will want to be friends with you. This is a nice room; see, it has two windows."

But Maude did not feel disposed to let herself be coaxed into liking the room.