"One of the boys stole my garter and fastened a little bell to it. Now it's going the rounds. Every girl who could has worn it."

"What's the 'Old Bench'?"

"Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt here at school there's a bench under the stairway in the dark. The boys and girls have signals. One boy will get permission to go out at a certain time, and a girl from his room, or another room, will go out too. It's all arranged beforehand. They meet down on the Old Bench."

"What for?"

"They meet to spoon."

"I find the names Hardy Mackay, Captain Thesel, d.i.c.k Swann among these notes. What can these young society men be to my pupils?"

"Some of the jealous girls have been tattling to each other and mentioning names."

"Bessy! Do you imply these girls who talk have had the--the interest or attention of these young gentlemen named?"

"Yes."

"In what way?"

"I mean they've had dates to meet in the park--and other places. Then they go joy riding."

"Bessy, have you?"

"Yes--but only just lately."

"Thank you Bessy, for your--your frankness," replied Miss Hill, drawing a long breath. "I'll have another talk with you, after I see your mother. You may go now."

It was an indication of Miss Hill's mental perturbation that for once she broke her methodical routine. For many years she had carried a lunch-basket to and from school; for so many in fact that now on Sat.u.r.days when she went to town without it she carried her left hand forward in the same position that had grown habitual to her while holding it. But this afternoon, as she went out, she forgot the basket entirely.

"I'll go to Mrs. Bell," soliloquized the worried schoolteacher. "But how to explain what I can't understand! Some people would call this thing just natural depravity. But I love these girls. As I think back, every year, in the early summer, I've always had something of this sort of thing to puzzle over. But the last few years it's grown worse.

The war made a difference. And since the war--how strange the girls are! They seem to feel more. They're bolder. They break out oftener.

They dress so immodestly. Yet they're less deceitful. They have no shame. I can blind myself no longer to that. And this last is d.a.m.ning proof of--of wildness. Some of them have taken the fatal step!...

Yet--yet I seem to feel somehow Bessy Bell isn't _bad_. I wonder if my hope isn't responsible for that feeling. I'm old-fashioned. This modern girl is beyond me. How clearly she spoke! She's a wonderful, fearless, terrible girl. I never saw a girl so alive. I can't--can't understand her."

In the swift swinging from one consideration of the perplexing question to another Miss Hill's mind naturally reverted to her errand, and to her possible reception. Mrs. Bell was a proud woman. She had married against the wishes of her blue-blooded family, so rumor had it, and her husband was now Chief of Police in Middleville. Mrs. Bell had some money of her own and was slowly recovering her old position in society.

It was not without misgivings that Miss Hill presented herself at Mrs.

Bell's door and gave her card to a servant. The teacher had often made thankless and misunderstood calls upon the mothers of her pupils. She was admitted and shown to a living room where a woman of fair features and n.o.ble proportions greeted her.

"Bessy's teacher, I presume?" she queried, graciously, yet with just that slight touch of hauteur which made Miss Hill feel her position.

"I am Bessy's teacher," she replied, with dignity. "Can you spare me a few minutes?"

"a.s.suredly. Please be seated. I've heard Bessy speak of you. By the way, the child hasn't come home yet. How late she always is!"

Miss Hill realized, with a protest at the unfairness of the situation, that to face this elegant lady, so smiling, so suave, so worldly, so graciously superior, and to tell her some unpleasant truths about her daughter, was a task by no means easy, and one almost sure to prove futile. But Miss Hill never shirked her duty, and after all, her motive was a hope to help Bessy.

"Mrs. Bell, I've come on a matter of importance," began Miss Hill.

"But it is so delicate a one I don't know how to broach it. I believe plain speaking best."

Here Miss Hill went into detail, sparing not to call a spade a spade.

But she held back the names of the young society gentlemen mentioned in the notes. Miss Hill was not sure of her ground there and her revelation was grave enough for any intelligent mother.

"Really, Miss Hill, you amaze me!" exclaimed Mrs. Bell. "Bessie has fallen into bad company. Oh, these public schools! I never attended one, but I've heard what they are."

"The public schools are not to blame," replied Miss Hill, bluntly.

Mrs. Bell gave her visitor a rather supercilious stare.

"May I ask you to explain?"

"I'm afraid I can't explain," replied Miss Hill, conscious of a little heat. "I've proofs of the condition. But as I can't understand it, how can I explain? I have my own peculiar ideas, only, lately, I've begun to doubt them. A year or so ago I would have said girls had their own way too much--too much time to themselves--too much freedom. But now I seem to feel life isn't like what it was a few years ago. Girls are bound to learn. And they never learn at home, that's sure. The last thing a mother will do is to tell her daughter what she _ought_ to know. There's always been a shadow between most mothers and daughters.

And in these days of jazz it has become a wall. Perhaps that's why girls don't confide in their mothers.... Mrs. Bell, I considered it my duty to acquaint you with the truth about these verses and notes, and what they imply. Would you care to read some of them?"

"Thank you, but they wouldn't interest me in the least," replied Mrs.

Bell, coldly. "I wouldn't insult Bessy or her girl friends. I imagine it's all some risque suggestion overheard and made much of or a few verses mischievously plagiarized. I'm no prude, Miss Hill. I know enough not to be strict, which is apparently the fault of the school system. As for my own daughter I understand her perfectly and trust her implicitly. I know the blood in her. And I shall remove her from public school and place her in a private inst.i.tution under a tutor, where she'll no longer be exposed to contaminating influences.... I thank you for your intention, which I'm sure is kind--and, will you please excuse me? I must dress for my bridge party. Good afternoon, Miss Hill."

The schoolteacher plodded homeward, her eyes downcast and sad. The snub given her by the mother had not hurt her as had the failure to help the daughter.

"I knew it--I knew it. I'll never try again. That woman's mind is a wilderness where her girl is concerned. How brainless these mothers are!... Yet if I'd ever had a girl--I wonder--would I have been blind?

One's own blood--that must be the reason. Pride. Could I have believed of _my_ girl what I admitted of hers? Perhaps not till too late. That would be so human. But, oh! the mystery--the sadness of it--the fatality!"

Rose Clymer left the High School with the settled, indifferent bitterness of one used to trouble. Every desire she followed, turn what way she would, every impulse reaching to grasp some girlish gleam of happiness, resulted in the inevitable rebuke. And this time it had been disgrace. But Rose felt she did not care if she could only deceive her father. No cheerful task was it to face him. Shivering at the thought she resolved to elude the punishment he was sure to inflict if he learned why she had been expelled.

She had no twinge of conscience. She was used to slights and unkindness, and did not now reflect upon the justice of her dismissal.

What little pleasure she got came from friendships with boys, and these her father had forbidden her to have. In the bitter web of her thought ran the threads that if she had pretty clothes like Helen, and a rich mother like Bessy, and a father who was not a drunkard, her lot in life would have been happy.

Rose lived with her stepfather in three dingy rooms in the mill section of Middleville. She never left the wide avenues and lawns and stately residences, which she had to pa.s.s on her way to and from school, without contrasting them with the dirty alleys and grimy walls and squalid quarters of the working-cla.s.s. She had grown up in that cla.s.s, but in her mind there was always a faint vague recollection of a time when her surroundings had been bright and cheerful, where there had been a mother who had taught her to love beautiful things. To-day she climbed the rickety stairs to her home and pushed open the latchless door with a revolt brooding in her mind.

A man in his shirt sleeves sat by the little window.

"Why father--home so early?" she asked.

"Yes la.s.s, home early," he replied wearily. "I'm losing my place again."

He had straggling gray hair, bleared eyes with an opaque, glazy look and a bluish cast of countenance. His chin was buried in the collar of his open shirt; his shoulders sagged, and he breathed heavily.

One glance a.s.sured Rose her father was not very much under the influence of drink. And fear left her. When even half-sober he was kind.

"So you've lost your place?" she asked.

"Yes. Old Swann is layin' off."

This was an untruth, Rose knew, because the mills had never been so full, and men never so in demand. Besides her father was an expert at his trade and could always have work.

"I'm sorry," she said, slowly. "I've been thinking lately that I'll give up school and go to work. In an office uptown or a department store."

"Rose, that'd be good of you," he replied. "You could help along a lot. I don't do my work so well no more. But your poor mother won't rest in her grave. She was so proud of you, always dreamin'."