A Popular Schoolgirl Part 16

5. An ivory pig.

Miss Strong smiled cynically.

"At fifteen years of age," she remarked, "I should have thought a girl would have advanced a little further than playthings of this description. The Kindergarten would evidently be a more fit form for you than Va! You lose five order marks."

Five order marks! Ingred gasped with amazed indignation. One at a time was the usual forfeit, but to lose five "at one fell swoop" seemed excessive, and would make a considerable difference to her weekly record. She blazed against the injustice. No girl in the form had ever had so severe punishment.

"Oh, Miss Strong!" she protested hotly. "_Five!_ I haven't really done anything more than heaps of the others. It's not fair!"

Now if Ingred had really hoped to get her sentence remitted she could not have done a more absolutely suicidal thing. A mistress may overlook some faults, but she will not stand "cheek." The discipline of the form was at stake, and Miss Strong was not a mistress to be trifled with. Her little figure absolutely quivered with dignity, and though physically she was shorter than her pupil, morally she seemed to tower yards. She fixed her clear dark eyes in a kind of hypnotic stare on Ingred and remarked witheringly:

"That will do! I don't allow _any_ girl to speak to me in this fashion!

You'll take a cross for conduct as well as losing the five order marks.

You may go to your seat now."

Ingred walked back to her desk covered with humiliation. To be publicly rebuked before the whole form was an unpleasant experience, particularly for a warden. Beatrice, Francie, and several others were holding up self-righteous noses, though their desks contained an equal a.s.sortment of mascots. Ingred, still seething, made little attempt to listen to the rest of the lecture, and was obliged to pa.s.s the questions which came to her afterwards on the subject-matter. She was heartily thankful when eleven o'clock brought the brief ten minutes "break."

"Well, you _have_ been a lunatic this morning!" said Beatrice, pa.s.sing her, biscuits in hand, in the cloak-room. "What possessed you to go and lose the tennis-court for the form?"

"If you hadn't stared so hard at me Miss Strong would never have noticed."

"Oh, of course! Throw the blame on somebody else! You're always the 'little white hen that never lays astray.'"

"Kitty and Evie and Belle and I had arranged a set!" grumbled Cicely Denham. "It's most unfair, this rule of punishing the whole form for what one girl does!"

"Go and tell Miss Burd so then!" flared Ingred. "It hasn't been very successful so far to tell teachers they're not fair, but you may have better luck than I had. She'll probably say: 'Oh, yes, Cicely dear, I'll rearrange the rules at once!' So like her, isn't it?"

"Now you're sark! Almost as sarky as the Snark herself!" commented Cicely, as Ingred, choking over a last biscuit, stumped away.

There is much written nowadays about the unconscious power of thought waves, and certainly one grumbler can often spread dissatisfaction through an entire community. Perhaps the black looks which Ingred encountered from the disappointed tennis-players in her form turned into naughty sprites who whispered treason in the ears of the juniors, or perhaps it was a mere coincidence that mutiny suddenly broke out in the Lower School. It began with a company of ten-year-olds who, with pencil boxes and drawing books, were being escorted by Althea Riley, one of the prefects, along the corridor to the studio. Hitherto, by dint of judicious curbing, they had always walked two and two in decent line and had refrained from prohibited conversation. To-day they surged upstairs in an unseemly rabble, chattering and talking like a flock of rooks or jackdaws at sunset. It was in vain that Althea tried to restore order, her efforts at discipline were simply scouted by the unruly mob, who rushed into the studio helter-skelter, took their places anyhow, and only controlled themselves at the entrance of Miss G.o.dwin, the art mistress.

Althea, flushed, indignant, and most upset, sought her fellow-prefects.

"Shall I go and complain to Miss Burd?" she asked.

"Um--I don't think I should yet," said Lispeth a little doubtfully. "You see, Miss Burd has given us authority and she likes us to use it ourselves as much as we can, without appealing to her. Of course in any extremity she'll support us. I'll pin up a notice in the junior cloak-room and see what effect that has. It may settle them."

Lispeth stayed after four o'clock until the last coat and hat had disappeared from the hooks in the juniors' dressing-room. Then she pinned her ultimatum on their notice board:

"In consequence of the extremely bad behavior of certain girls on the stairs this afternoon, the prefects give notice that should any repet.i.tion of such conduct occur, the names of the offenders will be taken and they will be reported to Miss Burd for punishment."

"That ought to finish those kids!" she thought as she pushed in the drawing-pins.

There was more than the usual amount of buzzing conversation next morning as juvenile heads b.u.mped each other in their efforts to read the notice. The result, however, was absolutely unprecedented in the annals of the school. It was the custom of the Sixth Form, and of many of the Fifth, to take their lunch and eat it quietly in the gymnasium. There was no hard and fast rule about this, but it was generally understood to be a privilege of the upper forms only, and intermediates and juniors were not supposed to intrude. To-day most of the elder girls were sitting in clumps at the far end of the gymnasium, when through the open door marched a most amazing procession of juniors. They were headed by Phyllis Smith and Dorrie Barnes carrying between them a small blackboard upon which was chalked:

DOWN WITH PREFECTS!

RIGHTS FOR JUNIORS!

THE WHOLE SCHOOL IS EQUAL!

After these ringleaders marched a determined crowd waving flags made of handkerchiefs fastened to the end of rulers. A band, equipped with combs covered with tissue-paper torn from their drawing-books, played the strains of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise." They advanced towards the seniors in a very truculent fashion.

"Well, really!" exclaimed Lispeth, recovering from her momentary amazement. "What's the meaning of all this, I'd like to know?"

"It's a strike!" said Dorrie proudly, as she and Phyllis paused so as to display the blackboard before the eyes of the Sixth. "We don't see why you big girls should lord it over us any longer. We'll obey the mistresses, but we'll not obey prefects."

"You'll just jolly well do as you're told, you impudent young monkeys!"

declared Lispeth, losing her temper. "Here, clear out of this gymnasium at once!"

"We shan't! We've as good a right here as you!"

"We ought to send wardens to the School Parliament."

"We haven't any voice in school affairs!"

"It's not fair!"

"We shan't stand it any longer!"

The shrill voices of the insurgents reached crescendo as they hurled forth their defiance. They were evidently bent on red-hot revolution.

Lispeth rose to read the Riot Act.

"If you don't take yourselves off I shall go for Miss Burd, and a nice row you'd get into then. I give you while I count ten.

One--two--three--four----"

Whether the strikers would have stood their ground or not is still an unsolved problem, but at that opportune moment the big school bell began to clang, and Miss Willough, the drill mistress, in her blue tunic, entered the gymnasium ready to take her next cla.s.s. At sight of her, Dorrie hastily wiped the blackboard, and the juniors fled to their own form-rooms, suppressing flags and musical instruments on the way. Miss Willough gazed at them meditatively, but made no comment, and the Sixth, hurrying to a literature lesson, had no time to offer explanations.

Lispeth, more upset than she cared to own, talked the matter over with her mother when she went to dinner at one o'clock. She was a very conscientious girl and anxious to do her duty as "Head." As a result of the home conference she went to Miss Burd, explained the situation, and asked to be allowed to have the whole school together for ten minutes before four o'clock.

"It's only lately there's been this trouble," she said. "I believe if I talk nicely to the girls I can get back my influence. That's what Mother advised. She said 'try persuasion first.'"

"She's right, too," agreed Miss Burd. "If you can get them to obey you willingly it's far better than if I have to step in and put my foot down. What we want is to change the general current of thought."

Speculation was rife in the various forms as the closing bell rang at 3:45 instead of at 4 o'clock, and the girls were told to a.s.semble in the Lecture Hall, and were put on their honor to behave themselves. To their surprise, the mistresses, after seeing them seated, left the room. Miss Burd mounted the platform and announced:

"Lispeth Scott wishes to speak to you all, and I should like you to know that anything she has to say is said with my entire approval and sanction. I hope you will listen to her in perfect silence."

Then she followed the other mistresses.

All eyes were fixed on Lispeth as she ascended the platform. With her tall ample figure, earnest blue eyes, light hair, and fair face flushed with the excitement of her task she looked a typical English girl, and made what she hoped was a typical English speech.

"I asked you to come," she began rather shyly, "because I think lately there have been some misunderstandings in the school, and I want, if possible, to put them straight. There has been a good deal of talk about 'equality,' and some of you say there oughtn't to be prefects. I wonder exactly what you mean by 'equality?' Certainly all girls aren't born with equal talents, yet each separate soul is of value to the community and must not go to waste. The test of a school is not how many show pupils it has turned out, but how _all_ its pupils are prepared to face the world. I think we can only do this by sticking together and trying to help each other. In every community, however, there must be leaders.

An army would soon go to pieces without its officers! The prefects and wardens have been chosen as leaders, and it ought to be a point of honor with you to uphold their authority. I a.s.sure you they don't work for their own good, but for the good of the school. I hear it is a grievance with the juniors that they mayn't elect wardens for the Council.

Well--they shall do that when they're older; it will be something for them to look forward to! There's a privilege, though, that we can and will give them. We're going to start a Junior branch of the Rainbow League, and I think when they're doing their level best to help others, they'll forget about themselves. Carlyle says that the very dullest drudge has the elements of a hero in him if he once sees the chance of aiming at something higher than happiness. Please don't say I'm preaching, for I hate to be a prig! Only we'd all made up our minds to do our 'bit' in 'after the war work,' and it seems such a pity if we forget, and let the tone of the school drop--as it certainly _has_ dropped lately. I'm sure if we all think about it we can keep it up, and Seniors and Juniors can work together without any horrid squabbles. We big girls were juniors ourselves once, and you little ones will be seniors some day, so that's one way of looking at it. Now that's all I've got to say, except that any Juniors who like can stay behind now and join the Junior Branch of the Rainbow League. We want to get up a special Sc.r.a.p-book Union, and Miss Burd says she'll give a prize for the best sc.r.a.p-book, and also for the best home-made doll. She's going to have an exhibition on breaking-up day."

CHAPTER XII