Nell Speed - At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

The girls in the bus with me were very kind and friendly. There were several mothers along and they looked at me cordially, and in a few minutes I knew the names of all the passengers and they knew mine. By the time the straining horses had pulled the heavy bus through the crooked streets of the quaint little town, up and down the many hills and finally up the last long hill to Gresham School, the whole load of girls and mothers had been jolted into an enforced intimacy.

Bracken, my home, was situated in what persons from the mountains call a flat country but which we call rolling, as it is when compared to the tidewater counties. So the hills of Gresham seemed wonderfully steep to me, and as we pulled to the top and stopped in front of the school, and I realized we could actually see the mountains, I gave voice to a long-drawn "O – h!" of delight.

We piled out of the bus, and for a moment I stood looking at the wonderful view before I even noticed the school building.

"I am so glad you like it," said a soft voice at my side. It belonged to a quiet-looking girl who had come up with us. She looked a little older than the rest of the girls and certainly was much more dignified. "I find if a new pupil notices the mountains first, she is pretty apt not to kick because they have dessert only twice a week. One can't have everything in this world, and a mountain view is more filling in the big end than dessert."

"It is splendid! You have been here a long time?" I asked.

"Yes, many years; and now I am a pupil teacher. This place seems more like home than any other in the world to me," and she took me by the arm. "Come on with me, Page. I am going to call you Page and I do wish you could call me Margaret, but now that I am a near teacher I have to be called Miss Sayre. I am going to introduce you to Miss Peyton, the principal."

"Oh, you are kind to me and I am so much obliged!"

"Give the bus driver your trunk check and in his good time he will deliver your trunk. Come on, so you can get into the office before the rush of Seniors."

Just then the vehicle with Annie Pore in it, looking too forlorn for words, came rattling up. Her hat was knocked over one eye and she had lost all of the cheerfulness that she had gained on the train with the delightful Tuckers. No one had paid any attention to her on the ride, except to look her up and down and make whispered jokes at her expense. I have found out that girls can be the most cruel creatures in the world, just from pure thoughtlessness and lack of imagination. They don't know how to "Put yourself in his place." They don't mean to hurt, but they do hurt all the same. I found during the ensuing year that that same busload of Seniors included many a fine character, but not one of them seemed to have imagination enough to know what Annie Pore was suffering.

"Miss Sayre," I said impulsively, "please take this girl with you. I met her on the train and she seems so forlorn."

"We'll miss our chance to reach Miss Peyton ahead of the others, unless we hurry," she said, looking a little impatient at my request.

"I'm sorry. I think I ought to wait for her, but don't let me detain you," and I went forward to meet poor Annie.

Of course, Miss Sayre came, too. "I might have known that a girl who noticed the mountains first thing would have character enough to do what she thought was right," she whispered as she followed me.

"This is Annie Pore, Miss Sayre," I said, as I helped the cramped girl out of her uncomfortably small quarters. Miss Sayre shook her hand cordially and I hoped Annie did not hear the titter as one of the Seniors nudged another and said in an audible whisper: "Annie Pore, poor Orphan Annie." I hated myself for having had the same thought.

"Where is your trunk check, Annie? Give it to the bus driver," said Miss Sayre, kindly.

"I haven't a trunk," said Annie faintly, "just a telescope."

"By their luggage ye shall know them," said a stylish girl who was clambering out of the vehicle. She spoke in a rasping tone with a nasal touch.

Annie Pore made a ten strike right then and there with me and with all of the girls who heard what she said, and those girls who did not hear it soon heard about it. She drew herself up, no longer timid but with what Dum Tucker afterwards called "Annie's stage presence," and in her singularly clear, full voice, that voice that we were all to be so proud of, said:

"Not by their luggage ye shall know them, but by their voices." And with a dignity that a sagging skirt and crooked-seamed jacket could not lessen, Annie Pore walked to the front of the carry-all and demanded from the grinning driver her bursting telescope.

A shout went up from the Seniors. "Annie, Annie, 'rah, 'rah, 'rah!"

"So, Mabel Binks, she got your goat that time," laughed a bright-looking, auburn-haired Senior.

"I don't know what you mean, Sally Coles. Orphan Annie's remark seemed to me to be without point," and Mabel Binks haughtily demanded a very swell new alligator bag from the front seat.

"Well, if you don't know that your voice needs greasing, it is not for me to break it to you, Mabel." Mabel flounced off, and all her stylish clothes, beautifully-hanging skirt, well-cut jacket, and jaunty velvet sailor hat, did not give dignity to her.

Pandemonium reigned as we entered the spacious hall of the main building. Girls, girls, girls! Little and big; fat and thin; pretty and plain; laughing and crying; alone and attended, they swarmed over everything.

"We have lost our chance to get first at the principal, but I wouldn't have missed seeing Annie Pore take down that common, purse-proud Mabel Binks for a million, as poor as I am," whispered Miss Sayre. "You girls sit here and wait for me, and as soon as there is an opening we'll slip in."

"Oh, how could I ever have made up my mind to leave my Father and come here?" wailed Annie, crumpling up into an ignominious heap, all her dignity gone.

"Now look here, Annie Pore," I scolded, "anyone who could jaw back at a Senior as you did just a moment ago has got backbone, and you have just got to get a brace on you and cheer up."

"Oh, but you are different. You make friends so readily. I am so easily embarrassed," and the poor thing wept anew.

"I don't make friends a bit more easily than you do. I just want to make them, that's the difference. Haven't you made friends with me?"

"Oh, have I really?"

"Of course you have. Would I be ragging you this way if I didn't consider myself your friend? Haven't you made friends with all three of the Tuckers, and now with Miss Sayre?"

Annie was somewhat consoled and tried to take a more cheerful view of life. We had completely lost sight of our traveling companions. They had evidently been admitted among the first to the principal's office. All of the girls who were accompanied by their parents or guardians were given preference in having their rooms assigned them, so that their loved ones could see where the daughters were to be placed and then take their departure on the outgoing trains.

We were so hidden by the swarming girls, we despaired of ever being found again by Miss Sayre; but I persuaded Annie that we would certainly be placed by bedtime as both of us had been registered during the summer; and in the meantime, it was rather fun to watch the girls and try to guess where they came from and if any of them were to be in our classes.

Mabel Binks backed up against us, talking to an overdressed girl of about nineteen. Both were dressed in the latest style. I knew what those styles were from the fashion books that Cousin Sue Lee had bought when we were planning my modest wardrobe.

"I am thankful to say this is my last year at Gresham," said Mabel. "The place has lost tone so. We came up in the bus with a most remarkable-looking person. I am sure Mamma would not permit me to remain if she knew Miss Peyton was allowing such ordinary girls to come here."