Polly’s First Year at Boarding School

Dorothy Whitehill

CONTENTS

Singing and cheering wildly they carried her to the other end of the gym.

POLLY’S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL

BY

DOROTHY WHITEHILL

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES L. WRENN

PUBLISHERS

BARSE & CO.

NEW YORK, N. Y., NEWARK, N. J.

Copyright, 1916 By Barse & Co.

Polly’s First Year at Boarding School

Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER I—THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Seddon Hall, situated on top of one of the many hills that lined either side of the Hudson River, was a scene of hubbub and confusion. It was the 27th of September and the opening day of school. The girls who had already arrived were walking arm in arm about the grounds, in the broad assembly hall, and in the corridors, talking, laughing and discussing the summer vacation, plans for the winter, the new girls, and a variety of subjects with fine impartiality.

In the Senior reception room Mrs. Baird, principal of the school, and a number of the faculty were receiving and assuring the mothers and guardians of the girls.

Outside the carriages from the 5:04 train were winding up the steep hill from the station. The girls were waving and calling hellos as they passed one another, and on the broad piazza there was a quantity of suit cases, and a good deal of kissing.

Polly Pendleton, seated beside her uncle in one of the last carriages, was just the least little bit frightened. She had never seen quite so many girls nor heard quite so much laughing and talking in all her rather uneventful life.

Polly’s real name was Marianna, but her heavy dark hair framed a face so bright and full of fun, and her big brown eyes had so much impishness in their depth, that to have called her by anything so long and dignified seemed absurd, and so she had been Polly all her life.

Until two months before this story opens she had lived her thirteen years in an old fashioned New England town with her aunt, Hannah Pendleton, her father’s eldest sister, and quite as severe as her name. It had been a very unexciting existence—school every morning with the village minister, and a patchwork “stint” every afternoon under the direction of Aunt Hannah.

Polly was beginning to think every day was going to be just like every other, when suddenly Aunt Hannah died and she came to New York to live with Uncle Roddy. It had been a great change to leave the old house and the village, but under Uncle Roddy’s jolly companionship she soon ceased to miss any part of her old life.

After what seemed an age, the carriage finally reached the top of the hill, and Polly, holding tight to her uncle’s arm, was shown into the reception-room. She was finding it harder every minute to keep down the unaccountable lump that had risen in her throat, when Mrs. Baird, catching sight of them, held out a welcoming hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Pendleton?” she asked. “And is this Marianna? My dear,” she added, putting her hand on Polly’s shoulder, “I hope you are going to be very happy and contented with us.”

It was perhaps the fiftieth time Mrs. Baird had made that same remark that day, but Polly, looking into her kindly blue eyes, felt, as had every other new girl at Seddon Hall, the complete understanding and sympathy of the older woman, and felt, too, without knowing why, that Mrs. Baird had had her first day at boarding-school.

Louise Preston, one of the Seniors, a slender girl of seventeen, with heaps of taffy-colored hair, big blue eyes, and the sweetest and jolliest smile, caught her principal’s beckoning nod, and coming forward, was presented. Mrs. Baird suggested that she take Polly and show her to her room.

As the two girls mounted the broad staircase, Louise linked her arm in Polly’s in a big sisterly fashion, and began the conversation.

“This floor that we’re coming to,” she explained, “is Study Hall floor; all those doors are classrooms. This is the Bridge of Sighs,” she continued, stopping before a covered passage which led from one building to another.

“Why the Bridge of Sighs?” inquired Polly.

They were crossing it as she asked. When they reached the other side, Louise solemnly pointed to a door on the left.

“That,” she explained, “is Miss Hale’s room. Miss Hale is the Latin teacher, and when you know her, you’ll understand why this is the Bridge of Sighs.”

“Goodness! let’s hurry past if she’s as dreadful as all that,” laughed Polly. “What’s this long corridor?”

“This is the Hall of Fame or, in other words, the abode of the Senior class,” Louise told her. “Junior and Sophomore corridors are in the other wing, and Freshman Lane, where you’ll be, is just above this on the next floor. You see the classes are named as they are in college.”

“Then who are the little girls I saw downstairs?”

“Those were the younger children; we don’t see much of them until they’re Intermediates—that’s the class just before the Freshmen,” Louise explained.

“Now we’ll find your room.”

When they reached the floor above, they were met with a shout of joy as the girls, who were dashing in and out of one another’s rooms, caught sight of Louise.

“Hello, Louise, how are you? Awfully glad you’re back,” called some one. “Why didn’t you answer my letter?”

“Don’t you realize this is Miss Preston, that we’re a dignified Senior this year, and we mustn’t be called Louise?” corrected another laughing voice.

Then, as they caught sight of Polly, they stopped short. It was Louise who broke the embarrassed silence by asking:

“Does any one know where Marianna Pendleton’s room is?”

At the unfamiliar sound of her real name, Polly looked so puzzled that she added:

“Your name is Marianna, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” assented Polly, “but I’ll never get used to it. No one has ever called me anything but Polly.”

“Then Polly you shall be; it suits you, and Marianna doesn’t.”

“How do you do? I’m Betty Thompson. Louise doesn’t seem to have the manners to introduce me.”

It was golden-haired, snub-nosed, freckled, little Betty, one of the most popular of the younger girls, who was speaking. Her timely impudence made every one laugh, and the ice was broken.

“I stand corrected,” murmured Louise, in what was meant to be an abject voice. “I’ll begin introducing you at once. This is Roberta Andrews; she’s in your class. This is Constance Wentworth; we’re very proud of Connie; she plays the piano wonderfully.”

“But she talks in her sleep,” interrupted Betty.

Everybody laughed at this. It was an old joke that Constance, when in the Intermediate class the year before, had frightened one of the poor new teachers almost to death by reciting Lady Macbeth’s sleep walking scene, at twelve o’clock one night.

Polly liked her at once. There was something very beautiful about her firm mouth, straight nose, high cheek bones, and big, dreamy brown eyes.

“This is Angela Hollywood,” Louise continued. “Don’t take any stock in her name, it’s deceiving.”

Angela, who looked like an old-fashioned painting with her eyes as blue as the sky, her pink and white cheeks, and her soft ringlets of golden-brown hair, scowled threateningly.

“Your being a Senior,” she drawled, “is all that saves you from my wrath.” Then, turning to Polly, she continued: “Don’t let her give you a wrong impression; you see, she’s jealous. I really am quite angelic—”

“Do tell me when that is,” demanded a voice from the other end of the corridor. The girls turned to look and there, standing with suit case and tennis racket in hand, dressed in a blue Peter Thompson sailor suit, her tawny-colored hair tied half way down her back with a black ribbon, her dark eyes dancing with fun, stood Lois Farwell.

Polly, standing to one side as the girls crowded around the newcomer, realized that in some way she was different from the other girls. The welcome she was receiving showed her to be a general favorite and much thought of. When in a few minutes she was shaking hands with her, she understood. Lois was evidently born to be liked.

The girls rattled on, asking a million questions at once. Louise left for the society of her own class, and Polly went to her room to unpack her case.

In a few minutes there was a knock at her door; one of the maids had come to tell her she was wanted in the reception-room to say good-by to her uncle. As she started down the corridor she met Lois.

“Where are you going?” questioned the latter. “Anything I can do for you?”

Polly tried hard to keep back the lump in her throat as she answered:

“I am going to the reception-room; my uncle is leaving.”

“Better take me with you,” Lois advised. “You’d never find your way alone.”

When Polly reached the reception-room she found Uncle Roddy decidedly unhappy. He was feeling a responsibility for, perhaps, the first time in his bachelor life, and he didn’t like it.

She said good-by to him, promised to write, and received his hug and kiss with a choked sensation. Something snapped as the carriage disappeared down the hill. She realized she was all alone. She would have given anything to have been able to run after the carriage and beg him to take her home with him.

The lump in her throat was asserting itself in tears as Lois came back to find her.

“Come on up to Assembly Hall and meet some of the girls,” she suggested, putting her arm around her shoulder and pretending not to notice the tears. At this touch of comradeship the lump in Polly’s throat, as if by magic, disappeared.

The rest of the day was a blur to Polly, as it was to all the new girls. As she lay wide awake in bed until late that night, she tried to form a clear idea of what had happened.

“I’m quite sure I’m going to like Angela and Connie,” she said to herself. “And I adore Betty; she’s such fun. But Lois is the nicest of all. It was awfully sweet of her to ask me to sit beside her for Mrs. Baird’s welcome talk, and she’s promised to take me over the grounds tomorrow.

“No one talked about anything I didn’t understand, either, except basket-ball, and Betty’s promised to teach me how to play that the first chance she gets.”

Then she continued sleepily:

“Every one home used to say I was different from most girls, and Aunt Hannah said I was a tomboy. But I’m just like all the rest—just an ordinary girl.”

And with a sigh of contentment she snuggled down in her pillows and dropped off to sleep to dream of the happy year to come.

CHAPTER II—THE PAPER CHASE

It was two o’clock in the afternoon and the end of the first school day. There had been no lessons to speak of. The new girls had been piloted to the various classrooms, introduced to the teachers, received their books and the general plan for the year had been laid out.

At the close of the last period Lois Farwell and Betty Thompson met in the Study Hall corridor, and locking arms, sauntered off in the direction of Freshman Lane.

“My, but it’s good to be back again,” began Betty, playing a tattoo with her pencil on the steam pipes, that ran along under the windows on one side of the corridor; “bully to be back,” she repeated.

“Bet, do stop that fiendish noise,” begged Lois. “You’re as bad as ever. Yes, it is good to be back; what shall we do to celebrate?”

“Let’s talk about the new girls,” suggested Betty; “how do you like them so far?”

“I haven’t talked to many of them, the ones in our corridor seem to be all right. I think I’m going to like Polly Pendleton a lot.”

“Oh! she’s a duck,” Betty agreed. “I like her already. The others are nice, too, but there’s something different about Polly, she’s—”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Lois answered slowly. “She’s more Seddon Hallish than the rest; she sort of fits,” she continued, wrinkling up her forehead in an attempt to explain a state of being not exactly describable in words.

At this point, they stopped to survey the bulletin board, and as they stood reading the notices posted, they were joined by Louise Preston and Florence Guile, both in Peter Thompsons, the accepted dress of the school, but with their hair fixed on top of their heads, as befitted the two most important members of the senior class.

“We want you two,” greeted Louise; “been looking for you everywhere; we’re trying to get up a paper chase for this afternoon, some of the new girls are ‘weepy,’ and Mrs. Baird thinks their thoughts had better be diverted from home.”

Betty assumed an attitude of deep dejection.

“I’d sort of hoped to spend the afternoon studying,” she sighed, regretfully, “but of course I’ll be a martyr for such a worthy cause.”

“Thanks, dear, we do appreciate your sacrifice,” laughed Florence, “and you, Lo, we can count on you I suppose, as it is a favor to Louise?”

Lois blushed and looked self-conscious. She had been rather extravagantly fond of Louise the year before, and it embarrassed her to be reminded of it.

“Yes, I’ll come,” she replied with a great show of indifference. “That is, if I can be one of the hounds.”

“Of course you may, that’s one of the privileges of an old girl,” Louise assured her. “But we must hurry; will you two go up and get the Freshmen together! We start at three from the gym.”

“What about the paper?” Betty inquired. “I’ll get it for you if you like and find a laundry bag with a hole in it.”

“Do, and we’ll love you forever,” promised Florence, adding over her shoulder as the two girls dashed off down the corridor:

“Be sure there’s plenty of it, we want a long chase.”

Three minutes later, breathless from their race upstairs, Betty and Lois reached Freshman Lane.

“Everybody ready for a paper chase at three o’clock,” Lois called out; “no excuses need be offered for none will be accepted.”

“Angela and Connie, you lazy ones, that means you, too, come along,” Betty commanded, bursting into Connie’s room and discovering her curled up comfortably on the bed, while Angela, sitting Turk fashion on the window seat, was devouring crackers and peanut butter sandwiches.

Pausing now with one half way to her mouth, she drawled:

“Oh, Betty, you’re so energetic, I don’t want to go, I’m much too tired.”

She received no sympathy, however; instead, she was dragged ruthlessly to her feet and admonished:

“Too lazy you mean, and too full of peanut butter; no, Angela, it is my painful duty to save you from growing hideously fat.” And Betty, as though the subject was settled, turned her attention to Connie. But Connie offered no opposition.

“I’ll come with pleasure,” she assured her. “Anything would be better than watching Ange stuff.”

Lois had proceeded to some of the other rooms and found their occupants only too eager for something to do.

“I can’t find Polly Pendleton,” she called as Betty joined her, still holding tightly to the reluctant Angela. “Have you seen her?”

Some one called out that she had not returned to her room after school, so Lois went down to the Study Hall, in search of her.

She met her half way up the stairs.

“Were you looking for me?” she asked. “Louise Preston told me that there was to be a paper chase and that you’d tell me what to do.”

“Oh good, then you know,” answered Lois. “Come on back to the corridor,” she suggested; and slipping her arm around Polly’s shoulder, asked:

“You’re not homesick, are you!”

Polly smiled curiously, and half closed her eyes.

“Not now,” she answered truthfully.

A few minutes before three about thirty girls in sweaters and caps were waiting on the steps of the gym.

Louise Preston and Florence Guile, eagerly assisted by Lois and Betty, and helpfully, though a little less eagerly by Connie and Angela, were dividing the party into hares and hounds.

“All old girls to the right of the steps, all new girls to the left,” ordered Florence. “New girls are hares, old girls, hounds.”

“But doesn’t some one go with us?” questioned Flora Illington, timidly. She was one of the new girls for whom Mrs. Baird considered a paper chase necessary.

Florence turned to consult Louise, but it was Betty who answered:

“Certainly not,” she said decidedly. “You are entirely on your ‘own’; choose a leader, and run in any direction.”

“But we might get lost,” Flora persisted, almost tearfully looking for support to the rest of the hares.

“You can’t,” Betty assured her; “don’t cross any stone walls and you’ll be all right. The stone walls are the school boundaries, you can’t miss them. Besides, we’re sure to find you.”

Flora subsided doubtfully, and Louise called:

“Choose your leader.”

After a good deal of hesitancy, for the new girls were a little uncertain of one another, Polly Pendleton was selected because she was already generally liked, and partly because she seemed to be thoroughly acquainted with the rules of paper chases.

As Betty gave her the bag of paper she whispered:

“Good luck, and be sure not to go out of bounds.”

Polly slung the bag over her shoulder as she answered:

“We won’t; how much start do we get?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Lois replied, hearing the question and adding, regretfully, “I wish you could go with the hounds.”

Just then Louise blew the whistle, and Polly, calling the hares to attention, started off at a dog trot in the direction of the woods.

The hounds, left alone, grouped themselves on the steps to wait until the fifteen minutes were up.

“The trouble with these first races,” Connie remarked with a yawn, “is that they are so easy. The hares never know where to go, and we find them a few feet from the pond, and then it’s all over. Flora’s idea of having an old girl lead them wasn’t so bad.”

“What! and change a memorable Seddon Hall custom!” exclaimed Angela, jumping to her feet. “Con, I always said you’d no heart, and now I know it. Besides, it’s the best thing in the world for the new girls.”

“Something tells me, that with Polly Pendleton as a leader they may not be so easy to find this year,” Lois mused, gazing along the thin white streak that marked the trail of the hares and disappeared into the depths of the wood beyond.

“Time to start,” announced Louise after consulting the gym clock—and the chase began.

An hour later in the heart of the woods, the hounds stopped to consult. Without doubt Lois’ prophecy had been fulfilled. The tracking of the hounds had not been easy.

“Where under the sun do you suppose they are?” demanded Betty. “We’ve been going ’round and ’round in a circle and there’s not a sign of them.”

“I’ll admit I’m completely stumped,” said Florence. “This track leads from here to the apple orchard, over the bridge, around to the farm, through the pasture and back to here. Where do we go next?”

“What did I tell you?” asked Lois. “I knew Polly would give us a chase.”

“H’m, so did I,” Betty agreed, “but I didn’t think she’d do it as well as this.”

The shadows of the trees lengthening out over the rich black ground gave warning of the approaching sunset.

The hounds looked puzzled.

“Perhaps they have been doubling on the trail, and we’ve been chasing them around the circle—I say let’s go back the way we came, perhaps we’ll meet them,” suggested Connie.

They all thought this a likely solution, and in a minute they were again in marching order, ready to retrace their steps.

Connie’s conjecture was quite true, as far as it went—that was, however, not quite far enough to reach the hares.

Polly, to whom all woods were an open book, once out of sight of the gym, had found her way by various paths to the orchard and, by keeping to the right she discovered the bridge.

“What a piece of luck,” she exclaimed to the girls who were running beside her, adding, in explanation: