The Little Colonel at Boarding-School

Rob threw back his shoulders complacently. "Daddy says that is why I am so awkward; that my height is too much for a fourteen-year-old boy to manage gracefully. I'll soon be through growing at this rate. Maybe after a couple of years more I'll not have to change the mark on the tree."

"I should certainly hope so," cried Lloyd, "unless you want to be a giant in a side-show. Heah! Measuah me."

She stiffened herself against the trunk of the tree, standing as erect as possible, while he stuck the blade of his knife into the bark, so close to the top of her head that he almost pinned a lock of the light hair to the tree.

"You've grown a lot too, this last year, Lloyd," he said, looking down at her approvingly.

"Oh, Rob," she cried, with a quick, wistful look upward into his face. "I don't want to grow up. It would be so much nicah if we could stay children always."

"We have had a lot of fun under these old locusts, that's a fact," he admitted, as he began cutting the date opposite the measurements he had just taken. Then he became so absorbed in trying to make the figures neatly that he said nothing more until the task was done.

Lloyd, kneeling on the rustic bench to watch him, was silent also, and for a few minutes the only sound in all the late afternoon sunshine was the soft rustling of the leaves overhead.

"If they could only stay children always!" the locusts were repeating one to another. "Children always! That is the happiest time!" Rob, intent on his carving, never noticed the stirring of the leaves, but the Little Colonel, who in a vague way always seemed to understand the whisperings of these old family sentinels, looked up and listened. As if she were one of them, she began recalling with them the scenes they had looked upon. How long ago seemed those summer days when she measured up only to the first notch. Mom Beck and Rob's faithful old nurse, Dinah, sat on the bench where she was now kneeling, and watched the two children that the locusts were whispering about, romping up and down the avenue. How well she remembered the little blue shoes she wore, and the jingling of the bells on the gay knitted bridle, as they played horse, with Fritz barking wildly at their heels.

The locusts had watched them in all the playtimes that lay between the first and last of those seven notches, eight it would be when Rob had finished; for it was in their friendly shade they had rolled their hoops and spun their tops and played at marbles and made their kites. Here, too, they had set their target when he taught her to shoot with his air rifle, and up and down in the winter holidays they had passed with their skates over their shoulders, with their sleds dragging after them, or their arms piled high with Christmas greens. Here they had tramped, shoulder to shoulder, whistling like two boys; here they had raced their ponies; here they had strolled and played and sung together, the strong, deep friendship yearly growing stronger between them, as they yearly cut a higher notch in the bark of the old measuring-tree.

"If they could only stay children always!" whispered the locusts again, with something so like a sigh in the refrain, that Lloyd felt the tears spring to her eyes, she scarcely knew why.

"There," said Rob, closing his knife and slipping it into his pocket. "I must go now."

As usual, Lloyd walked down to the gate with him. He whistled as he went, a musical, rollicking negro chorus, and she joined in with an accompaniment of little trills and calls, in clever imitation of a mocking-bird. But just before they reached the gate her whistling stopped. Her quick eyes spied a four-leafed clover in the grass, and she sprang forward to get it.

"And heah's anothah!" she cried, triumphantly. "One for you too, Rob. That means good luck for both of us. Put it in yoah pocket."

Rob took the little charm she held out, with a skeptical smile, yet he had imbibed too great a belief in such omens from his old coloured nurse not to regard it with respect. "Thanks," he said, "I have a safer place than my pocket. I'll need all the luck this or anything else can bring me in my Latin this year, so I'll carry it to every recitation." Opening the back of his watch he carefully smoothed the green petals and laid them inside, then closed the case with a snap. "Now I'm fixed," he said, with a nod of satisfaction.

At the gate they did not shake hands, but parted as they had done so many times before, as if they expected to begin their playtime on the morrow.

"Good-bye, Lloyd," was all he said, with a slight lifting of his cap as he walked away.

"Good-bye, Bobby," she answered. She stood for a moment shading her eyes from the sunset, with the hand that held the four-leafed clover, as she watched him go striding down the road toward Oaklea, switching with his tennis racket at the asters and goldenrod along his path. Then she went slowly back to the house, thinking how tall he looked as he strode away. As she passed the measuring-tree she looked up at the old locusts overhead, and sure of their sympathy, said, half-aloud, "Oh, I wish we didn't have to grow up!"

CHAPTER II

A NEW FRIEND

Lloydsboro Seminary was not an especially attractive place viewed from the outside of the high picket fence, which surrounded its entire domain. The fence itself was forbidding. Its tall pickets, sharp-pointed and close together, seemed to suggest that strict rules were to be found inside; rules like the pickets, too firm and pointed to be easily broken through or climbed over.

The building was old and weather-beaten, but in its prime the school had been one of the best in the State, and many a woman remembered it loyally in after years when she had daughters of her own to educate. So it happened that some of the pupils came long distances, and from many parts of the country, to sit at the same old desks their mothers sat at, to study the same old lessons, and to learn to love every rock and tree on the seminary grounds, because of their associations with all the warm young friendships formed there.

A group of maples and cedars stood between the seminary and the high green picket gate in front, with a score of rustic seats and wooden swings scattered about in their shade. On the east an old neglected apple orchard sloped away from the house, where during the first few weeks of school, hard juicy winesaps, russets, and bellflowers lay in hiding from the hungry schoolgirls, who searched for them in the tall grass, waving knee-deep among the trees. On the other side, the high fence separated the grounds from the closely clipped lawn of Clovercroft, one of the hospitable old homesteads of the Valley, whose wide porches and vine-covered tower made a charming picture from the western windows of the seminary.

The opening day of school was always a sort of gala occasion. No regular work could be done, for pupils were continually coming in on the various trains to be registered and assigned to classes. After chapel exercises the day pupils were at liberty to go home, but it was a time-honoured custom for them to adjourn to the apple orchard, to hold a reunion with all the last year's boarders who had returned.

The swings and seats in front of the seminary were left for the newcomers. Many a longing glance was cast toward the orchard by the strangers, who, left thus inhospitably alone, made shy advances toward acquaintance among themselves. On the morrow they, too, might be included in the friendly little groups exchanging confidences with their heads close together, and walking with their arms around each other under the gnarly old trees; but that they should be ignored the first day was as binding as the unwritten "laws of the jungle."

From her seat in the swing nearest the house, a new girl watched the others swarming out from chapel, laughing and talking and calling to those ahead to wait. The primary grades went racing through the warm morning sunshine, down to their playhouses by the spring. The seniors and juniors strolled off in opposite directions in dignified exclusiveness, to different parts of the orchard. Each group as it passed attracted the new girl's attention, but her interest centred in a dozen or more girls lingering on the front steps. Their ages seemed to range from twelve to fifteen years. They were evidently waiting for some one.

"Why don't they hurry?" asked an impatient voice. "What's the matter?"

"The matron stopped them," some one answered. "I heard her asking about some bedding that was to be sent from Locust."

It was nearly five minutes before some one interrupted a discussion that had begun, to call "Here they come!" Then a chorus of calls began most confusing to the girl in the swing, who did not know the names of the newcomers who seemed to be so popular.

"I bid to walk with the Little Colonel!"

"Come on, Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis, I'm waiting for you."

"Hurry up, Betty! I've got something to tell you!"

"Lloyd! Lloyd Sherman! Can't you hear? Is it really true that you are going to board here?"

With the two girls in their midst, trying to explain to a dozen different questioners in the same breath, when and why they had become resident pupils, the noisy procession moved on. Only one was left behind, a pale-faced child in spectacles, who, in spite of all their protests, stood looking after them, insisting she must wait for Sue Bell.

As the others moved away, the new girl beckoned to her with a friendly smile. "You're Janie Clung, aren't you?" she asked, as the little girl advanced a few steps, and then stood awkwardly rubbing one foot against the other.

"You see I couldn't help hearing your name. They spoke it so often. I am Ida Shane, from Clay County. Won't you sit here in the swing with me until the girl you are waiting for comes out, and tell me something about the school? It's so hard," she added, plaintively, "to be a stranger in a place where everybody else has so many friends. You seem to know every one here. From the way they all begged you to go with them, I imagine you must be very popular."

Much flattered by this last remark from one so much older than herself, Janie climbed into the seat in the swing, opposite the girl from Clay County, and scrutinized her shyly.

Ida Shane was very pretty, she decided. She must be nearly sixteen, or maybe more, for she wore her dresses long and her hair in a soft, fluffy pompadour. Then Janie's gaze wandered from her hair to a bewitching little dimple that came at the corner of Ida's mouth when she smiled, and she thought to herself that the slow, soft drawl in which Ida spoke was exceedingly musical and ladylike. She found herself talking in a lower tone than usual, and quite slowly, when she answered.

"You know, I think it is always best to be very particular in choosing friends when one goes to a new place," Ida remarked, in a confidential tone, which seemed to insinuate that Janie could be safely chosen. "I don't want to take up with everybody. That's why I want you to tell me which are the first families here in the Valley, and which are the girls whose friendship is worth while having."

Simple little Janie, who considered friendship with everybody worth having, looked puzzled.

"Well, for instance, who were those two girls in white duck dresses whom you were all waiting for so long? The one with the lovely long light hair that they called Lloyd and the Little Colonel? Now she's aristocratic-looking, and all the girls seem to regard her as a sort of leader. Tell me about her."

"Oh, that's Lloyd Sherman," answered Janie. "I reckon you might say she belongs to one of the first families. She lives in a perfectly beautiful place called Locust. The Valley is named after some of her ancestors, and old Colonel Lloyd is her grandfather. 'Little Colonel' is just one of her nicknames. She's had everything that heart could wish, and has been to Europe. When she came back she brought a magnificent St. Bernard dog with her that had been trained as a Red Cross war-dog for the ambulance service in the German army. They called him Hero, and he acted in a play they gave here last fall, called the 'Rescue of the Princess Winsome.' I was one of the flower messengers in the play. Lloyd was the Princess. She looked exactly like one that night. The dog saved her life while they were in Switzerland, and when he died the family made as much fuss over him as if he had been a person. He was buried with military honours, and there is a handsome monument over his grave. I'll show it to you sometime, when we walk past Locust."

Janie paused with a long breath. It was more of a speech than she was accustomed to making, but Ida had listened with such flattering attention that it was easier to talk to her than to any one whom she had ever known.

"I thought she was like that," remarked Ida, in an I-told-you-so tone. "I rarely make mistakes in people. Now that other one they call Betty. She has a sweet face."

"I should say she has!" cried Janie, warmly. "She's the dearest girl in school. Everybody loves Betty Lewis. She is Mrs. Sherman's goddaughter, and lives at Locust too. She writes the loveliest poetry. Why, she wrote that whole play of the Princess Winsome, and every one thought it was wonderful. Mr. Sherman had several copies of it printed and bound in carved leather. He gave one copy to the seminary library, so you can read it if you want to."

"That'll be the first thing I shall draw from the library," said Ida, nodding approvingly at the account of Betty. "Then there's some one else I want to ask about," she continued. "I was told that General Walton's family lives here, and that his daughters go to this school. I don't mind telling you, in confidence, you know, that that is what made my aunt finally decide to send me to this school instead of the one in Frankfort. Were they here this morning?"

"Yes, and they are Lloyd's best friends. Maybe you noticed two girls in pink, with great dark eyes, lovely eyes, who walked off with her, one on each side."

"Yes, I wondered who they were."

"The larger one was Allison and the other one Kitty. They live at The Beeches. We walk past there nearly every day. Once, last year, Miss Edith took some of us in there, and Mrs. Walton showed us all her curios and relics. It is a fascinating place to visit. There are things from all over the world in every room, and a story about each one."

"How interesting!" smiled Ida, showing a glimpse of her dimple and passing a slim hand, glittering with many rings, over her pompadour. "You can't imagine how entertaining you are, Janie; tell me some more."

With a slight movement of the foot she started the swing to swaying, and, leaning back in the seat with an air of attention, waited for Janie to go on. With such a listener, Janie was in a fair way to tell all she knew, when Sue Bell appeared in the doorway, beckoning to her. She even felt a decided sense of annoyance at the interruption, although Sue Bell was her dearest friend, so much was she enjoying Ida as an audience.