The Youngest Girl in the School Part 9

'Anything you like; it will be all the better test if I don't give you a subject,' said Margaret; and she escaped before the child had time to say any more. She felt a little mean about it, for she was positive she could not have done it herself; but she consoled herself by the reflection that the new girl was queer enough for anything. Besides, she did not want to miss the whole of her history cla.s.s for the sake of examining a child who was ignorant of all the things that other children knew, but had picked up the most extraordinary bits of knowledge by herself. So Babs was left to face the difficulty, for the first time in her life, of writing something within a given time.

It was certainly not easy to think of anything to say, in this unfamiliar, austere little room, with a blank sheet of paper staring at her, and some one preparing to pounce upon her presently, to criticise what she had done. In the library at home such a chance as this would have filled her with joy, and the paper would have been covered in a few minutes with a medley about giants and princesses and dragons, to be told later on to Kit and Bobbin when they clamoured for a story. But here it seemed impossible to get a single word on to her sheet of paper, and she looked at the clock in despair, and wondered what would happen to her when Miss Finlayson returned and found she had written nothing. She plunged her pen desperately into the ink at last, and wrote the first thing that came into her head. It was a t.i.tle she remembered noticing on the back of a book with a smart cover--one that had lately been added to her father's library. She did not know what it meant, and she was not sure what she was going to say about it, but it sounded more like the kind of thing to choose for an examination than one of her fairy stories would have been. Then, just as she had written the heading very crookedly across the top of the page, she found that the pen she had picked up was a quill, and possessed the most entrancing capacity for making splutters. It was the first time she had happened upon a quill, and the discovery was too delightful to be neglected. So she spent the next ten minutes in adorning her paper with fantastic ink shapes, that she named bogies on the spot and wove into a fairy story about an enchanted princess, who had to write a composition in an hour and a half.

When this exciting occupation began to pall, she was seized with a sudden desire to explore, and began wandering restlessly round the room.

There was very little to examine besides books; but books were always good enough for Barbara, and she became very quiet and absorbed as her inky forefinger travelled slowly along the bottom shelves, until she had exhausted the outsides of all the volumes that came within her reach.

Then she stood back, with her hands behind her, and stared up at the ones above her head; and a familiar name, printed in dull gold letters on the back of a solid volume in russet brown, suddenly made her heart leap.

'Father's book!' she gasped. 'There's father's book! And I've been in this stupid place all this time, and never discovered it till now! Oh, I must get father's book!'

There was a sob in her throat when she found that even a footstool, placed on the highest chair in the room, did not mount her up sufficiently to reach the precious volume. Her bright little eyes travelled quickly round the study, to embrace all its resources, and she very nearly uttered one of her wild war-whoops of delight when she spied a step-ladder half hidden in a dark corner. It did not take her a minute to stagger with it across the room and to fix it, more or less securely, against the bookshelf. After that, there was no sound in the little study except the ticking of the clock and the rustling of leaves, until the door opened sharply and the owner herself walked in.

For a moment Miss Finlayson thought the room was empty. Then she saw the small figure with the big book, perched on the top of the ladder; and the quaintness of the picture made her smile irresistibly. 'What are you doing, Barbara?' she asked.

She spoke as softly as she could, but the sound of her voice was quite enough to startle the unconscious child. She dropped the heavy book with a thud, and would have lost her balance and plunged after it, had not Miss Finlayson been prepared for the contingency and put out an arm to save her. Babs caught at it wildly, and found herself lifted down and placed on the floor in safety.

Miss Finlayson had stopped smiling, but she did not look very angry. 'What were you doing up there, Barbara?' she repeated gently.

'I was reading father's book,' answered Barbara, rubbing her eyes. 'I didn't know it was there, till I looked up and saw it; and then I just climbed up and got it. I think I must have been reading a great long time, because I've got such an ache just there.' She curled her hand under her arm and thumped the middle of her back. 'Do you ever get an ache in the middle of your back when you've been reading?' she inquired earnestly.

Miss Finlayson did not answer immediately. She stooped and picked up the fallen book first, and replaced it on the shelf. Barbara began to wonder if she was angry, and if that was why she had such an odd, serious look on her face.

'And do you like your father's book, Barbara?' she asked presently.

'I think it's the most beautiful book in all the world,' answered Barbara, without hesitation.

Miss Finlayson was a little startled, but she did not show it. 'Then I wonder if you can explain it to me,' she went on; 'for, do you know, I find some of it rather difficult to understand?'

Barbara threw back her head and laughed merrily. 'But I don't understand _any_ of it,' she cried. 'You have to be grown up to understand it, father says. And I'm not grown up yet, you see.'

'No,' agreed Miss Finlayson. She was looking distinctly relieved, and the twinkle had come back again into the depths of her eyes. 'I shouldn't worry about that, though, if I were you,' she continued, sitting down and taking the child on her lap. 'Some day, when you are quite grown up, you will be able to understand it; and then we can read it together and help each other over the difficult parts. What do you say to that?'

'I think it will be beautiful; but it's a very long time to wait,' sighed Barbara. 'When do you think I shall be quite grown up? Jill is grown up, and she is eighteen. Shall I be grown up when I am eighteen?'

'We will wait and see,' said Miss Finlayson, but somehow her tone was not encouraging. 'Meanwhile,' she went on, patting the hand that was fearlessly lying in hers, 'supposing we make a bargain that neither of us will read your father's book until we can read it together? You see, if you were to go on reading it now, you might understand it in quite a wrong way, and then you would never be able to help me over the difficult parts.'

Barbara thought about it for a moment or two. 'But _you_ will have to do without father's book all those years!' she exclaimed suddenly.

'I have read it once, you see,' said Miss Finlayson, gravely; 'I think I can manage to wait, if you will wait too.'

Barbara still looked doubtful. 'Do you really think I shall be able to help you over the difficult parts?' she asked.

Miss Finlayson smiled mysteriously. 'Perhaps,' she said. 'One never knows.'

'Then I'll wait till I'm grown up before I read it again,' decided Barbara. 'It would certainly be a pity to spoil father's book by understanding it all wrong.'

'Or by dropping it from the top of other people's ladders,' observed Miss Finlayson. That was all the reproof she gave her; and then she turned briskly to the writing-table. 'Isn't there something you have written for me?' she asked.

Barbara jumped away from her in dismay. 'I quite forgot!' she said penitently. 'I did begin to write something, and then--and then----' She struggled in vain to remember what had happened, and gave it up with a sigh. 'I don't know what I did, but I know I never wrote any more than this,' she added, and produced the sheet of paper in a shamefaced manner.

Miss Finlayson took it, and glanced at the t.i.tle that was written crookedly across the top of the page. 'A Comparrisson of the Possition of Women, now and in the eighteenth century,' was what she read. Below that came quant.i.ties of smudges and blots, and at the bottom of all was inscribed: 'These are the ink bogies that came and wrote the Princess's compossition for her, and saved her from the awfull anger of the cruel old witch called Finny.'

Miss Finlayson read this over more than once, then she folded up the sheet of paper very carefully, keeping her face averted all the while. Babs was sure she had been very naughty, and she was seized with a panic lest the head-mistress should be too angry this time even to speak to her.

'I--I know it was very naughty of me,' she confessed anxiously; 'I couldn't think of anything to say about it, and the pen made such beautiful bogies, and--and--are you _awfully_ furious?'

Miss Finlayson had to look at her, then; and she made a last effort to keep grave. The next moment the little room was filled with her laughter.

'My dear little girl,' she exclaimed, 'I am afraid I am not a bit furious.

The fact is--the ink bogies _have_ saved the Princess!'

CHAPTER VI

THE BOOTS OF THE HEAD GIRL

'I'm going to be in your cla.s.s for everything except Latin and mathematics,' shouted Barbara, flying into the juniors' room just before dinner. It seemed to her of the first importance that everybody should know which cla.s.s she was to be in, and she was distinctly surprised when Jean Murray, whom she had addressed, turned her back on her and began talking loudly to some one else. 'Don't you hear?'

persisted Babs, coming round in front of her again. 'I'm going to be in your cla.s.s for everything except----'

'Sneak!' burst out Jean Murray, unable to control herself any longer.

'Tell-tale! You oughtn't to be in anybody's cla.s.s, you oughtn't!'

Barbara stood stockstill, and looked at her. All the courage she had regained from her peaceful morning in Miss Finlayson's study dwindled away again, and left her hopeless of propitiating these strange schoolgirls, who seemed determined on being cross with her whatever she did. Angela knocked roughly against her at the same instant, and surprised her at last into a remonstrance.

'What have I done?' she demanded. 'Won't anybody tell me what I have done?'

No one answered her. The alliance of Jean and Angela, though Jean was the youngest and Angela the most empty-headed of all the children there, meant the existence of a strong party in the junior playroom; and the poor little new girl stood a very small chance of a.s.serting herself against it. They were much like sheep, both in the upper and the lower playrooms at Wootton Beeches; and the party that followed Margaret Hulme in one room was like the party that followed Jean in the other. In both cases it only needed some one a little stronger than the rest to be the leader; and Jean, in spite of her inferiority in age, supplied the strength, or what her school-fellows mistook for it, in a certain doggedness of temper that pulled them along in her wake. Most of them found it so unpleasant to be in her bad books, that she had very little difficulty in managing them.

Barbara turned appealingly to Angela. 'Why is Jean so cross with me?' she asked. 'I haven't done anything to her, have I?'

'Not done anything?' echoed Angela, looking over her shoulder for Jean's support. 'Why, you went and told Margaret Hulme that Jean hadn't given you Finny's message, and----'

'Sneak! Tell-tale!' sneered Jean again.

Barbara suddenly looked immensely relieved, and smiled in a friendly manner at the enemy. At least this was a misunderstanding that she could clear up. 'Is that all?' she cried. 'No wonder you were cross, if you thought that. Of course I never said a word about it to Margaret Hulme, or any one else; I suppose she guessed, or something. But why didn't you give me the message? It would have saved such a lot of bother, wouldn't it?'

'Well,' gasped Jean, as though words almost failed her, 'I never heard such wicked story-telling!'

'Nor I either,' chimed in Angela, putting her arm round Jean's waist.

'She's done nothing but tell crams ever since she's been here. Come away, Jean, dear; she isn't fit to be argued with.'

The pair of them marched off, consumed with righteous wrath, to the other end of the playroom. Babs, overwhelmed with the incredible idea that any one should suppose her capable of telling an untruth about anything, waited speechlessly for some one to interfere and take her part. But those of her school-fellows who had been listening to the dispute hastily followed the example of their leader, and ignored her entirely. They did not stop to think whether they were being just; if the new girl told stories--and Jean Murray said she did--it was certainly their duty to teach her a lesson. When they looked for her presently, to see how she was bearing their displeasure, they found she was no longer there.

Upstairs, in the small, bare bedroom, the one spot where she felt safe from the intrusion of horrible wicked people with horrible wicked thoughts in them, the forlorn little new girl was covering page after page of the ruled note-paper Auntie Anna had given her, with an ill-written, ill-spelt account of her woes.

'Dear, dear boys,' she wrote; 'I am very misserable. Everything is horible. At least, that is not quite true. Finny is nice she is like Auntie Anna and Nurse, and I've got a bedroom of my very own we all have but mine is one of the nicest becourse it comes at the corner of the house and looks over a wall into the orchard and there's a plant with bunches of red beries that climes round my window and n.o.body else has red berrys round their window but only me. Finny has lots of ripping books in her study and she has father's book and she is very nice but the girls are beests I hate girls! Girls tell stories and they say you do things when you don't and they are awfull beests. They laugh at you every time you open your mouth but I don't mind their siliness so much it's their untruthfull hatefullness that I hate. I have never been so miserable I wish father had never gone to that beestly America and I wish Auntie Anna would come and fetch me back again. Do do ask her to come and take me away from all those hatefull girls, tell her how miserabble I am you don't know any of you what it is to be really misserable, etc. etc.'