A Dear Little Girl at School

“Oh, well, so he can, but he isn’t all the time and Aunt Elizabeth is.”

“I hope this year you will find out that it is only Aunt Elizabeth’s eyebrows, too.”

“It couldn’t be, for she hasn’t any to speak of,” returned Edna. As she talked she was carefully packing the little trunk in which Ada’s clothes were kept. It was a tiny trunk, only about six inches long. Aunt Elizabeth had made it, herself, by covering a box with leather and strapping the leather across with strips of wood glued on. Edna liked the trunk much better than a larger one which had been bought at the store. Aunt Elizabeth was very clever in making things of this kind and would sometimes surprise her little niece with some home-made gift which was the more prized because it was unusual. The child remembered this now and began to feel that she had not shown herself very grateful in speaking as she had done a moment before. “Mother,” she said. “I didn’t mean that Aunt Elizabeth was frightful all the time. She is very kind when she gives me things like this trunk.”

“You don’t mean frightful,” replied Mrs. Conway laughing, “you mean she is rather formidable.”

But that was too much of a word for Edna, though she did not say so. Having stowed away Ada’s belongings, three frocks, two petticoats, a red hood and sacque, a blue dressing-gown and apron, she shut the lid. “I don’t think I’ll take her furs this week because she’ll not need them,” she remarked, “and I don’t think I will take any of my other dolls because I will be so glad to see them next Friday. Mother, if you come into town any time during the week will you come out to see us?”

“If I have time I certainly shall.”

Edna gave a sigh of content. It was surely going to be much better than last year. “Mother,” she said, changing the subject, “do you think Cousin Ben is silly?”

“He can be rather silly but he can also be very sensible. He is silly only when he wants to tease or when he wants to amuse a little girl I know.”

“I like his silly better than some of the big girls’s sillies. They giggle so much and aren’t funny at all. I think he is very funny. He says such queer things about the trees and plants in the woods. He twists their names around so they mean something else. Like the dog-wood, bark, you know. Mother, what is hazing?”

“It is the kind of thing the college boys do to those in a lower class; they play tricks on them which sometimes are really very cruel.”

“Do you mean they really hurt them?”

“Sometimes they hurt them very much. I knew of one young man who was forced into a pond of water on an icy day in the fall, and who nearly died of pneumonia in consequence of the cold he took from having to be in his wet clothes so long.”

“Do you think they will do anything like that to Cousin Ben?”

“I certainly hope not, though no doubt there will be some tricks played on him as he is a Freshman.”

Edna knew what a Freshman was but the matter of hazing was quite new to her and troubled her very much. Cousin Ben had gone out alone to the woods. Perhaps this very moment someone was lying in wait for him.

Hastily setting away the doll and trunk she ran downstairs, put on her coat and hat and started up the road toward the woods nearest. She had no exact plan in her mind, but she knew Cousin Ben had probably gone to see one of his classmates who lived just beyond this piece of woods. The college was on the outskirts of the city and the dormitories were within easy walking distance, so that one was liable to see a group of college boys at almost any time. Edna trotted along hoping to overtake her cousin. She did not believe anyone would attack him unless he were alone, and she meant to keep him company on his return walk. Just as she reached the edge of the woods she came upon a group of Sophomores standing a short distance away and she heard one say. “We’ll nab him as he comes out, boys.”

Who could they mean but Cousin Ben? She walked slowly that she might, if possible, hear more.

“You’re sure he came this way?” she heard another say.

“Sure,” was the reply. “We saw him go in Abercrombie’s gate.”

That settled it in Edna’s mind, for it was Will Abercrombie whose house Cousin Ben most frequented. She hesitated a moment, wondering what path her cousin would take, and then she remembered that the short cut was through the woods; it was much longer by the road. It was already getting rather late and it looked grim and gloomy in the woods, but there was nothing to do but face any danger and go straight ahead. She was crafty enough not to turn in at once for fear the boys might suspect, so she kept on a short distance to where the road turned and then she cut into the bit of forest scrambling up the bank and scratching her hands, with the brambles, but reaching the path in a few minutes. The further she went the darker it grew. The sun was setting and she could see long fingers of light between the trees. She wished she had some one with her, that Cousin Ben would appear before she went much further, but there was no sign of him and she plodded on, the dead leaves rustling about her feet or falling from overhead, giving her little starts of fear. It seemed a long, long way, and she almost wished she had not undertaken the work of rescue, but at last she saw, dimly ahead of her, a figure approaching and heard a cheerful whistling which she recognized as her cousin’s. And she darted forward to meet him.

CHAPTER II

THE SECRET

Cousin Ben striding along did not at first see the little girl, but at her calling “Cousin Ben, Cousin Ben,” he stopped short.

“Why, you little monkey, what are you doing here?” he said. “The bugaboos will catch you here in these dark woods.”

“There isn’t such a thing as bugaboos,” returned Edna stoutly, “and I should be very silly to think so, but something will catch you if you don’t look out.”

“‘The gob-e-lins will get you if you don’t look out,’” replied Cousin Ben, laughing. “Is that what you are trying to say? If you are not afraid of bugaboos neither am I afraid of goblins. What do you think is going to get a big fellow like me?”

“Why,” said Edna at once becoming serious, “I will tell you; I heard some college boys talking back there by the edge of the woods.”

“You did? and what did they say?”

“They said: ‘We’ll nab him as he comes out, boys.’”

“Humph! What did they look like? Did you know any of them?”

“The one who said that was John Fielding, and there was another that I’ve seen before. He sits back of our pew at church.”

“Sophs, both of them, and did you come all this way to tell me about it?”

“Why, yes, I was afraid they wanted to haze you.”

“What do you know about hazing?”

“Mother told me about a young man who nearly died of pneumonia because some of the boys doused him in cold water, in a pond or something.”

“And you didn’t want me to have pneumonia. I won’t on this occasion, I promise you. I think we can circumnavigate those fellows. I won’t see Johnny-jump-up to-day.”

Edna laughed. “Won’t they be disappointed?”

“They will that. Now come along and let’s get out of here.”

“Which way shall we go?”

“Oh, we will take the back road and come out there below the MacDonald barn so they won’t get a hint of our coming home, for the barn is below the woods, you know. It is a little further, but I hope you don’t mind that.”

“No, indeed, I am so glad to have you get out of the way of those boys.”

“If I can manage to side-track them for a while perhaps they won’t be so keen. I thought they had it in for me, and have been rather expecting an onslaught.”

They cut through the woods, coming out the other side and taking a short road not much used, which brought them out a little distance from the main road which was then easily reached. “Now we’re safe,” said Edna with satisfaction as she saw her own gate.

“We? You don’t suppose they’d haze you, do you?”

“Oh, no, but I feel safer when I am near home.”

Ben dropped his bantering tone when they came up to the gate. “I say, Edna,” he said, “you are a real Trojan to do this for me, and I shall not forget it in a hurry. Lots of big girls and boys, too, would have let the thing go, and not have taken the trouble. I am a thousand times obliged to you.”

“Oh, but I wanted to do it, you know. I should have been very unhappy if anything had happened to you.”

“I believe you would,” returned Ben seriously; and they went in the house together.

This was the last Edna heard of hazing and if Cousin Ben was ever caught he did not tell her or anyone else.

Monday came around quite soon enough and Edna started off with her sister Celia to go to the city. It seemed quite natural to be back in the room which she had occupied the year before, only now Celia would share it with her. Ada was put in her old place on a little chair, her trunk by her side, and then the two girls went down to the school-room where a number of the pupils had already gathered. One of these was Clara Adams, a little girl whom Edna was sorry to see entering the school that year. She was a spoiled, discontented child who was continually pouting over some fancied grievance, and was what Dorothy and Edna called “fusty.” For some reason she was always trying to pick a quarrel with Edna, and by the whispering which went on when Edna entered the room and the sidelong looks which were cast at her, as two or three girls, with hands to mouths, nudged one another, she felt sure that on this special occasion she was being talked about. However, she paid no attention to this little group but went over to where Dorothy was sitting and began to tell her about the preserves which Celia had successfully given in Ellen’s charge.