Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall: or, Solving the Campus Mystery

"She comes pretty near being the boss of that club – you can see that. Now, the question is, do we want to be bossed by a girl like her?"

"Then, do you want to be under the noses of the teachers, and toadying to them all the time?" cried Helen.

"If that is what is meant by belonging to the Forward Club, I certainly do not," admitted Ruth.

"Then I don't see but you will have to start a secret society of your own," declared Helen, laughing somewhat ruefully.

"And perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad idea," returned Ruth, slowly. "I understand that there are nearly thirty new girls coming to Briarwood this half who will enter the Junior classes. Of course, the Primary pupils don't count. I talked with a couple of them at dinner. They feel just as I do about it – there is too much pulling and hauling about these societies. They are not sure that they wish to belong to either the Upedes or the F. C.'s."

"But just think!" wailed Helen. "How much fun we would be cut out of! We wouldn't have any friends – "

"That's nonsense. At least, if the whole of us thirty Infants, as they call us, flocked together by ourselves, why wouldn't we have plenty of society? I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to suggest it to the others."

"Oh, my! would you dare?" gasped Helen. "And we've only just arrived ourselves?"

"Self-protection is the first selfish law of nature," paraphrased Ruth, smiling; "and I'm not sure that it's a bad idea to be selfish on such an occasion."

"You'd just make yourself ridiculous," scoffed Helen. "To think of a crowd of freshies getting up an order – a secret society."

"In self-protection," laughed Ruth.

"I guess Mrs. Tellingham would have something to say about it, too," declared Helen.

It was not the subject of school clubs that was the burden of Ruth Fielding's thought for most of that day, however. Nor did the arrival of so many new scholars put the main idea in her mind aside. This troubling thought was of Miss Picolet and the sound of the harp on the campus at midnight. The absence of the French teacher from the dormitory, the connection of the little lady with the obese foreigner who played the harp on the Lanawaxa, and the sounding of harp-strings on the campus in the middle of the night, were all dovetailed together in Ruth Fielding's mind. She wondered what the mystery meant.

She saw Tony Foyle cleaning the campus lanterns during the day, and she stopped and spoke to him.

"I heard you tell Jennie Stone last night that you had to drive street musicians away from the school grounds, sir?" said Ruth, quietly. "Was there a man with a harp among them?"

"Sure an' there was," declared Tony, nodding. "And he was a sassy dago, at that! 'Tis well I'm a mon who kapes his temper, or 'twould ha' gone har-r-rd wid him."

"A big man, was he, Mr. Foyle?" asked Ruth.

"What had that to do wid it?" demanded the old man, belligerently. "When the Foyles' dander is riz it ain't size that's goin' to stop wan o' that name from pitchin' into an' wallopin' the biggest felly that iver stepped. He was big," he added; "but I've seen bigger. Him an' his red vest – and jabberin' like the foreign monkey he was. I'll show him!"

Ruth left Tony shaking his head and muttering angrily as he pursued his occupation. Ruth found herself deeply interested in the mystery of the campus; but if she had actually solved the problem of the sounding of the harp at midnight, the reason for the happening, and what really brought that remarkable manifestation about, was as deep a puzzle to her as before.

CHAPTER XIII

BEGINNINGS

Youth adapts itself easily and naturally to all change. Ruth Fielding and her chum, before that second evening at Briarwood Hall drew in, felt as though they had known the place for months and some of the girls all their lives. It was thus the most natural thing in the world to assemble at meals when the school-bell tapped its summons, to stand while the grace was being said, to chatter and laugh with those at the table at which they sat, to speak and laugh with the waitresses, and with old Tony Foyle, and with Miss Scrimp, the matron of their house, and to bow respectfully to Miss Picolet, Miss Kennedy, the English teacher; Miss O'Hara, before whom Ruth and Helen would come in mathematics, and the other teachers as they learned their names.

Dr. Tellingham, although affording some little amusement for the pupils because of his personal peculiarities, was really considered by the girls in general a deeply learned man, and when he chanced to trot by a group of the students on the campus, in his stoop-shouldered, purblind way, their voices became hushed and they looked after him as though he really was all he pretended to be – or all he thought he was. He delved in histories – ate, slept, and seemed to draw the breath of his nostrils from histories. That the pamphlets and books he wrote were of trivial importance, and seldom if ever saw the light of print, was not made manifest to the Briarwood girls in general.

Ruth and Helen were not unpopular from the start. Helen was so pretty and so vivacious, that she was bound to gather around her almost at once those girls who were the more easily attracted by such a nature; while for Ruth's part, the little Primes found that she was both kind and loving. She did not snub the smaller girls who came to her for any help, and before this day was over (which was Friday) they began to steal into the chums' duet, in twos and threes, to talk with Ruth Fielding. It had been so at the school near the Red Mill, and Ruth was glad the little folk took to her.

Late in the afternoon the two friends from Cheslow went out to the main entrance of the grounds to meet Old Dolliver's stage from Seven Oaks. It had been noised abroad that a whole nursery of Infants was expected by that conveyance, and Mary Cox and Madge Steele, each with her respective committee, were in waiting to greet the new-comers on behalf of their separate societies.

"And we'll welcome them as fellow-infants," whispered Ruth to Helen. "Let's hold a reception in our room this evening to all the newcomers. What say, Helen?"

Her chum was a little doubtful as to the wisdom of this course. She did not like to offend their friends in the Upedes. Yet the suggestion attracted Helen, too.

"I suppose if we freshmen stick together we'll have a better time, after all," she agreed.

As the time for the appearance of the stage drew near, approximately half the school was gathered to see the Infants disembark from Old Dolliver's Ark. Mary Cox arranged her Upedes on one side of the path and they began to sing:

"Uncle Noah, he drove an Ark —
One wide river to cross!
He made a landing at Briarwood Park —
One wide river to cross!
One wide river!
One wide river of Jordan!
One wide river!
One wide river to cross!"

Old Dolliver, all one wide grin and flapping duster, drove his bony horses to the stopping place with a flourish.

"Here we be!" he croaked. "The old craft is jest a-bulgin' over with Infants."

Mary Cox pulled open the door and the first newcomer popped out as though she had been clinging to the handle when The Fox made the movement.

"The Infants got out, one by one —
One wide river to cross!
First Infant bumps into a great big Stone —
One wide river to cross!"

And there really was Heavy to receive the newcomer with open arms, who said, while the others chanted the refrain:

"My name's Jennie Stone, and you're very welcome to Briarwood, and what's your name, Infant?"

The girls in the stage-coach had been forewarned by Old Dolliver as to their probable greeting, and they took this all in good part. They disembarked with their bags and parcels, while Tony Foyle appeared to help Old Dolliver down with the heavier luggage that was strapped upon the roof and in the boot behind. Mary Cox continued to line out the doggerel, inventing some telling hits as she went along, while the Upedes came in strongly on the refrain.

There was much laughter and confusion; but the arriving Infants were lined up two by two between the long rows of Briarwood girls and were forced to march toward the Hall by this narrow path.

"Come! we are Infants, too," exclaimed Ruth, pulling Helen by the sleeve. "We will lead the march."

She drew her chum away with her, and they introduced themselves to the girls at the head of the column of freshies.

"We are Helen Cameron and Ruth Fielding," said Ruth, cordially. "We only got here yesterday, so we are Infants, too. We will take you to the office of the Preceptress."

So the chums bore their share of the indignity of being marched up through the grounds like culprits, and halted the file at the steps of the main building.

"We have Duet Number 2 in the West Dormitory," said Ruth, boldly, to the new-comers. "When you have found your rooms and got settled – after supper, that will be, – you are all invited to come to our room and get acquainted with the other Infants. We're going to get as many together this evening as we can. Now, do come!"

"Oh, Ruth!" whispered Helen, when they were out of ear-shot of the others. "What will the Upedes say?"

"We're not interfering with either of the school clubs," declared her chum, emphatically. "But I guess it won't hurt us to become acquainted with those who are as new here as ourselves. The old girls don't feel strange, or lost; it is these new ones that need to be made to feel at home."