Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall Part 3

"You are going to Briarwood Hall, then, my young ladies?" said Miss Picolet.

"Yes, Ma'am," said Ruth, shyly.

"I shall be your teacher in the French language--perhaps in deportment and the graces of life," the little lady said, pleasantly. "You will both enter into advanced cla.s.ses, I hope?"

Helen, after all, was more shy than Ruth with strangers. When she became acquainted she gained confidence rapidly. But now Ruth answered again for both:

"I was ready to enter the Cheslow High School; Helen is as far advanced as I am in all studies, Miss Picolet."

"Good!" returned the teacher. "We shall get on famously with such bright girls," and she nodded several times.

But she was not really companionable. She never raised her veil. And she only talked with the girls by fits and starts. There were long s.p.a.ces of time when she sat huddled in the corner of her seat, with her face turned from them, and never said a word.

But the nearer the rumbling old stagecoach approached the promised land of Briarwood Hall the more excited Ruth and Helen became. They gazed out of the open windows of the coach doors and thought the country through which they traveled ever so pretty. Occasionally old Dolliver would lean out from his seat, twist himself around in a most impossible att.i.tude so as to see into the coach, and bawl out to the two girls some announcement of the historical or other interest of the localities they pa.s.sed.

Suddenly, as they surmounted a long ridge and came out upon the more open summit, they espied a bridle path making down the slope, through an open grove and across uncultivated fields beyond--a vast blueberry pasture. Up this path a girl was coming. She swung her hat by its strings in her hand and commenced to run up the hill when she spied the coach.

She was a thin, wiry, long-limbed girl. She swung her hat excitedly and although the girls in the coach could not hear her, they knew that she shouted to Old Dolliver. He pulled up, braking the lumbering wheels grumblingly. The newcomer's sharp, freckled face grew plainer to the interested gaze of Ruth and Helen as she came out of the shadow of the trees into the sunlight of the dusty highway.

"Got any Infants, Dolliver?" the girl asked, breathlessly.

"Two on 'em, Miss c.o.x," replied the stage driver.

"Then I'm in time. Of course, n.o.body's met 'em?"

"Hist! Ma'mzell's in there," whispered Dolliver, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh! She!" exclaimed Miss c.o.x, with plain scorn of the French teacher.

"That's all right, Dolliver. I'll get in. Ten cents, mind you, from here to Briarwood. That's enough."

"All right, Miss c.o.x. Ye allus was a sharp one," chuckled Dolliver, as the sharp-faced girl jerked open the nearest door of the coach and stared in, blinking, out of the sunlight.

CHAPTER IV

THE RIVALRY OF THE UPEDES AND THE FUSSY CURLS

The pa.s.sengers in the Seven Oaks and Lumberton stage sat facing one another on the two broad seats. Mademoiselle Picolet had established herself in one corner of the forward seat, riding with her back to the driver. Ruth and Helen were side by side upon the other seat, and this newcomer slid quickly in beside them and smiled a very broad and friendly smile at the two chums.

"When you've been a little while at Briarwood Hall," she said, in her quick, pert way, "you'll learn that that's the only way to do with Old Dolliver. Make your bargain before you get into the Ark--that's what we call this stage--or he surely will overcharge you. Oh! how-do, Miss Picolet!"

She spoke to the French teacher so carelessly--indeed, in so scornful a tone--that Ruth was startled. Miss Picolet bowed gravely and said something in return in her own language which made Miss c.o.x flush, and her eyes sparkle. It was doubtless of an admonishing nature, but Ruth and Helen did not understand it.

"Of course, you are the two girls whom we ex--that is, who were expected to-day?" the girl asked the chums, quickly.

"We are going to Briarwood Hall," said Ruth, timidly.

"Well, I'm glad I happened to be out walking and overtook the stage,"

their new acquaintance said, with apparent frankness and cordiality.

"I'm Mary c.o.x. I'm a Junior. The school is divided into Primary, Junior and Senior. Of course, there are many younger girls than either of you at Briarwood, but all newcomers are called Infants. Probably, however, you two will soon be in the Junior grade, if you do not at once enter it."

"I am afraid we shall both feel very green and new," Ruth said. "You see, neither Helen nor I have ever been to a school like this before.

My friend is Helen Cameron and my name is Ruth Fielding."

"Ah! you're going to room together. You have a nice room a.s.signed to you, too. It's on my corridor--one of the small rooms. Most of us are in quartettes; but yours is a duet room. That's nice, too, when you are already friends."

She seemed to have informed herself regarding these particular newcomers, even if she _had_ met them quite by accident.

Helen, who evidently quite admired Mary c.o.x, now ventured to say that she presumed most of the girls were already gathered for the Autumn term.

"There are a good many on hand. Some have been here a week and more.

But cla.s.ses won't begin until Sat.u.r.day, and then the work will only be planned for the real opening of the term on Monday. But we're all supposed to arrive in time to attend service Sunday morning. Mrs.

Tellingham is very strict about that. Those who arrive after that have a demerit to work off at the start."

Mary c.o.x explained the system under which Briarwood was carried on, too, with much good nature; but all the time she never addressed the French teacher, nor did she pay the least attention to her. The cool way in which she conducted the conversation, commenting upon the school system, the teachers, and all other matters discussed, without the least reference to Miss Picolet, made Ruth, at least, feel unhappy. It was so plain that Mary c.o.x ignored and slighted the little foreign lady by intention.

"I tell you what we will do," said Mary c.o.x, finally. "We'll slip out of the stage at the end of Cedar Walk. It's farther to the dormitories that way, but I fancy there'll be few of the girls there. The stage, you see, goes much nearer to Briarwood; but I fancy you girls would just as lief escape the warm greeting we usually give to the arriving Infants," and she laughed.

Ruth and Helen, with a vivid remembrance of what they had seen at Seven Oaks, coincided with this suggestion. It seemed very kind of a Junior to put herself out for them, and the chums told her so.

"Don't bother," said Mary c.o.x. "Lots of the girls--especially girls of our age, coming to Briarwood for the first time--get in with the wrong crowd. You don't want to do that, you know."

Now, the chums could not help being a little flattered by this statement. Mary c.o.x was older than Ruth and Helen, and the latter were at an age when a year seemed to be a long time indeed. Besides, Miss c.o.x was an a.s.sured Junior, and knew all about what was still a closed book to Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron.

"I should suppose in a school like Briarwood," Ruth said, hesitatingly, "that all the girls are pretty nice."

"Oh! they are, to a degree. Oh, yes!" cried Mary c.o.x. "Briarwood is very select and Mrs. Tellingham is very careful. You must know _that_, Miss Cameron," she added, point-blank to Helen, "or your father would not have sent _you_ here."

Helen flushed at this boldly implied compliment. Ruth thought to herself again that Mary c.o.x must have taken pains to learn all about them before they arrived, and she wondered why the Junior had done so.

"You see, a duo-room costs some money at Briarwood," explained Miss c.o.x. "Most of us are glad, when we get to be Juniors, to get into a quarto--a quartette, you understand. The primary girls are in big dormitories, anyway. Of course, we all know who your father is, Miss Cameron, and there will be plenty of the girls fishing for your friendship. And there's a good deal of rivalry--at the beginning of each year, especially."

"Rivalry over what?" queried Ruth.

"Why, the clubs," said Mary c.o.x.

Helen became wonderfully interested at once. Everything pertaining to the life before her at Briarwood was bound to interest Helen. And the suggestion of society in the way of clubs and a.s.sociations appealed to her.

"What clubs are there?" she demanded of the Junior.

"Why, there are several a.s.sociations in the school. The Basket Ball a.s.sociation is popular; but that's athletic, not social. Anybody can belong to that who wishes to play. And we have a good school team which often plays teams from other schools. It's made up mostly of Seniors, however."

"But the other clubs?" urged Helen.

"Why, the princ.i.p.al clubs of Briarwood are the Upedes and the Fussy Curls," said their new friend.

"What ridiculous names!" cried Helen. "I suppose they _mean_ something, though?"