The Little Colonel at Boarding-School.

by Annie Fellows Johnston.

CHAPTER I.

OFF TO BOARDING-SCHOOL

SOMETHING unusual was happening at Locust. Although it was early in September, and the heat and dust of a Kentucky summer still lingered in every corner of Lloydsboro Valley, the great house with its vine-covered pillars was being hastily put in order for winter closing.

Rob Moore, swinging his tennis racket as he sauntered down the avenue under the arching locust-trees, stopped short with a whistle of surprise. The tennis net was down. He had come at the Little Colonel's invitation for a farewell game, as they were both to start to school on the morrow, she in the Valley, and he in town. He could not understand the sudden removal of the net.

Then he noticed that every hammock and garden-chair had disappeared from the lawn. Not even the usual trail of magazines and palm-leaf fans was left on the gra.s.s, to show that somebody had been spending a comfortable hour in the shade. Usually at this time in the afternoon there was a flutter of ribbons and white dresses somewhere back among the trees; but the place was deserted now. The wicker tea-table was gone from its corner on the piazza. The rugs and cushions which had filled the cosy corners behind the vines were packed away. The lace curtains were down in the long drawing-room, and, peering through the windows which opened to the floor, he saw a coloured man, busily shrouding the handsome old furniture in linen covers.

"What's the matter, Alec?" asked Rob. "What has become of everybody?"

"Done had bad news from Ole Colonel las' night," answered the man.

"Walkah telegraphed from Hot Springs that ole Ma.r.s.e's rheumatiz is wuss, and Mis' Sherman she's gwine down to stay with him awhile, an' the young ladies is gwine to bo'din'-school. We all's fixin' to shet up the place till Chris'mus."

Rob gave another long whistle, shrill and loud. "Boarding-school!" he exclaimed. "Well, this is the biggest surprise out!"

His whistle was answered from the upper hall by a clear high trill, which had been the Little Colonel's signal for him since the first summer they had played together. Giving the answering call he stepped inside the hall, and standing at the foot of the stairs peered up anxiously at the laughing face leaning over the banister-rail above him.

"Come down, Lloyd, and tell me all about it," he demanded.

"I can't now," she replied, in an important tone, smiling tantalizingly at the tall, broad-shouldered boy who shook his racket at her with a threatening gesture. "Mothah has gone to town, and Mom Beck is packing my trunk. I have to show her what things to put into it. Betty is down there somewhere. She'll take the edge off yoah curiosity. Betty," she called, catching sight of a pink dress whisking through the lower hall, "don't tell Rob what school we are going to. Make him guess."

"All right," answered Betty, with a mischievous light in her brown eyes, as she tossed back her curls and led the way out to the stone steps.

"We'll have to sit out here. All the hammocks and porch-chairs are packed away in the attic," she explained, as she spread out the pink skirt and leaned comfortably back against one of the white pillars.

"Seems to me you've been in a howling hurry with your planning and your packing," said Rob, in an aggrieved tone. "I didn't hear a whisper of all this when I was here yesterday evening."

"The telegram didn't come until after you had gone," answered Betty.

"But I think G.o.dmother must have been expecting it, for in half an hour her plans were all made, and the packing began early this morning. As Papa Jack's business will keep him away nearly all fall, there was nothing to do but close the house and send Lloyd and me to boarding-school. You can't imagine how busy we've been. We are to leave to-morrow morning."

"So are we," answered Rob. "Oaklea looks nearly as deserted as Locust. I always hate this breaking-up time at the end of every summer."

As he spoke, a delicious odour of hot gingerbread was wafted around the corner of the house from the distant kitchen, and he stopped to look at Betty and smile.

"What does that make you think of?" he asked.

"Of a lovely September afternoon just like this," answered Betty, dreamily, half-closing her eyes and drawing in the fragrance with a slow, deep breath. "Of long shadows on the lawn and the sunshine flickering down through the locust leaves like gold, just as it is doing now. Of Malcolm MacIntyre sitting over where you are, thrumming on his banjo, and of Keith and you and Lloyd and me all singing 'My Old Kentucky Home.' Is that what it makes you think of?"

"Yes, that and the chase we gave old Aunt Cindy. Wasn't she mad when I made off with that gingerbread! I can hear her old slipper soles yet, flopping down the path after me."

"How long ago that seems," mused Betty, "and yet it's only two years."

"It surely must be longer than that," exclaimed Rob.

"No, don't you remember, it was just after Lloyd's house party, when she was eleven and I was twelve. I went abroad that fall with Cousin Carl and Eugenia, and stayed with them a year. And I've only been living at Locust a year. Now I'm a little over fourteen and Lloyd's thirteen; so that just makes it."

"Thirteen yeahs and foah months exactly, if you're talking about me,"

said the Little Colonel, coming out on the porch with a plate in her hands. "I smelled the gingahbread, so I told Mom Beck I'd have to stop for refreshments, and she could finish packing by herself. I've piled everything on the bed that I thought I could possibly need at bo'ding-school, and that's neahly everything I own. One needs so many things going off from home this way. Have some?"

She pa.s.sed the plate to each one, and then, sitting down on the top step beside it, helped herself to a slice of the hot, spicy cake.

"Oh, Rob, we're going to have _such_ larks!" she began. "I've always wanted to go away to school, and have midnight suppahs and do the things you read about in stories. I've heard mothah talk about the funny things that happened at the seminary when she was a girl, till I was simply wild to go there, too. And now it seems too good to be true, that we are really going, and are to have the very same room that she had one term when grandfathah was away from home, and she boahded there in little old Lloydsboro Seminary just as we are going to do. There!" she added, ruefully, clapping her hand over her mouth. "I've gone and told you, and I intended to keep you guessing for an hou'ah. I knew you'd nevah think that we were going to stay right here in the Valley."

"Of course not," answered Rob. "You've been a day pupil at that old seminary for the last five years, ever since you started to school. I'd naturally suppose that when you packed up all you owned and started off to school you'd at least go out of the sight of your own chimney smoke.

I don't see where the fun is coming in. I can't think of anything more stupid. Instead of tearing around the country on horseback after lessons, as you've always done, riding where you please, you'll have to take walks with a gang of other girls with a teacher at the head of the procession. It's great exercise, that, taking steps about an inch long and saying nothing but prunes and prisms."

"Don't you believe that's all!" cried Lloyd. "We'll have to take the walks, of co'se, but think of the time we'll have for basket-ball. We'll be able to play the Anchorage girls by Thanksgiving, and I couldn't have been on the team if I'd been only a day pupil."

"Of course we'll miss the ponies," Betty added. "G.o.dmother tried to make some arrangement with President Wells to let us ride every day; but he said he couldn't make an exception in our case without being accused of partiality. If we came as regular pupils we must conform to the regular rules, and could not have even the liberties we always had as day pupils."

"Except in one thing," corrected Lloyd. "We can still go to the post-office for our mail, instead of having all our lettahs pa.s.s through the princ.i.p.al's hands. Mothah thought it wouldn't be worth while to change the address for just one term, especially as she wants me to forward the mail that comes to our box for Papa Jack. He changes his address so often on these business trips that he couldn't keep notifying the postmistress all the time, so I am to do it."

"Well, I pity _you_!" exclaimed Rob, teasingly, tapping his racket against the toes of his tennis shoes. "Boarding-schools are a bad lot, all that I've ever heard of. Scorched oatmeal and dried apples, with old cats watching at every keyhole! Ugh!"

Both girls laughed at his scowl of disgust, and Betty hastened to say, "But we'll have Aunt Cindy to fall back on if the fare gets too bad.

That's the beauty of staying so near home. Mom Beck is to come every Monday to get our clothes to launder, and every Sat.u.r.day to bring them back and see that we are all right, and you know she'll not let us starve. And there aren't any old cats in this school, Rob. Miss Edith is a dear. The girls fairly love the ground she walks on, and I'm sure that n.o.body could be nicer and more motherly than Mrs. Gelling."

"How about Miss Bina McCannister?" asked Rob, with a wry face. "She is cross enough to stop a clock, sober and prim and crabbed, with eyes like a fish. I went up there one day with a note from grandfather to Professor Fowler, and she gave me such a stony glare because I happened to let a door bang, that I had cold shivers down my spine for a week."

"Oh, Rob," laughed Lloyd. "Aren't you ashamed to talk so? Anyhow, Miss McCannister will not bother us, because we are not in any of her cla.s.ses."

"But she'll take her turn in trotting you out to walk, just the same.

Then think what a glad procession that will be. You'll feel like prisoners in a chain-gang."

"Talk all you want to, if it amuses you any," said Lloyd, pa.s.sing the gingerbread around once more. "It won't keep us from having a good time at bo'ding-school."

"Well, I'm coming out again at Thanksgiving. There's to be a big family reunion at Oaklea this year, and if you've stood the storm and still think that boarding-school life is funny, I'll stand treat to a five-pound box of Huyler's best. You can let that thought buoy you up through all the hungry hours between that time and this."

"Mercy, Rob, don't throw cold water on all our bright hopes like that,"

cried Betty, springing up as she heard her name spoken in the hall. "Mom Beck wants me. She is ready to begin packing my trunk."

"I must go in a few minutes," said Rob, "so if you're disappearing now, I'll say good-bye till Thanksgiving."

Betty held out her warm little hand. "Good-bye. 'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever,'" she quoted, as Rob gave it an awkward shake.

"Practise what you preach, Grandma Betty," he said, in a severe tone, but his blue eyes were smiling into her brown ones with a softened light in them. She had been a merry little comrade in the summer just gone, and then there was something in the brown eyes that made everybody smile on Betty.

As she turned to go she saw that the last crumb of gingerbread had disappeared, and stooping, picked up the plate. She recognized it as her G.o.dmother's pet piece of Delft ware. "I'll take this in before anybody steps in it," she said.

"Thanks," said Lloyd, lazily, without looking around, but she turned to Rob as soon as they were alone. "Betty is always so thoughtful about such things. I wouldn't know how to get along without her now, and to think, when she first came heah to live, I wasn't suah that I wanted her! I had nevah had to divide with anybody befoah, and I was afraid I should be jealous. But n.o.body could be jealous of Betty. She seems like a real suah enough sistah now, and bo'ding-school will be twice the fun because she can go with me."

"Betty's a brick," agreed Rob emphatically, "the nicest girl I know, except you, but I can't imagine her planning sc.r.a.pes. She's too much afraid of hurting somebody's feelings for that."