The Youngest Girl in the School Part 17

Babs hurried off to the Fifth cla.s.sroom, and arrived just in time for the geography lesson. She was settling herself as usual at the bottom desk, when her neighbour, rather a dull girl, for whom she secretly felt a sort of contempt because she took no interest in her lessons, but only learned them from conscientious motives, began making advances to her.

'Barbara,' she whispered, nudging the new girl in a familiar way that was meant to be sociable. Babs, having sat next to her for fourteen days without extracting a single remark from her, was considerably startled.

'What do you want?' she asked impatiently. She was taking a last frantic look at the capes of Scotland, and the interruption was agonising.

'Would you like to be my partner, next time we practise running with Hurly-Burly?' proceeded Mary Wells, with an air of extreme benevolence.

She was rather glad that Jean Murray had made it up with the new girl, for it had not been amusing to sit perpetually next to some one with whom she was not allowed to a.s.sociate.

'Why, no, of course not!' answered Barbara, giving up the capes of Scotland in despair, and turning rather crossly to the tiresome neighbour who had never bothered her before. 'We're not a bit evenly matched, and it wouldn't be fair. Ask Angela Wilkins, if you want a partner; she doesn't run _much_ faster than you do.'

If there had been time, her amazed neighbour would no doubt have told her what she thought of her. It was bad enough to have her friendly suggestion thrown back in her face, but to be offered a gratuitous criticism of her running powers into the bargain was intolerable. However, Miss Tomlinson said 'Silence!' before Mary could express her feelings, so Babs remained in comfortable ignorance of them.

She was not to be left alone for long, however, and it soon became impossible even for Barbara not to see that a change of some sort had come over her school-fellows. During the two weeks she had been at school, meal-times had been delicious periods of peace, when every one had babbled round her but never to her, and n.o.body had interrupted her if she wanted to dream. But to-day, when they all met in the dining-room for lunch, in the ten minutes' 'break' that occurred in the middle of the morning, it was evident that her time for dreaming was gone by. This was the opportunity that the children of the junior playroom had been eagerly awaiting since the moment when Angela had succeeded in moving them to charitable designs. So Babs had scarcely made her appearance in the dining-room, than a crowd of eager penitents descended upon her, jostling one another in the attempt to be first. One rushed at her with the biscuits, another with a gla.s.s of milk, and a third with a plateful of bread and jam.

'I say, don't bother! Thanks awfully, don't you know,' stammered Barbara, who was a little fl.u.s.tered at finding herself the object of so much attention. She helped herself to bread and jam, accepted the milk, which the bearer insisted on holding for her till she felt inclined to drink it, and then tried to slip away as usual to a retired corner. But her way was barred by another group of girls, headed by the zealous Angela herself.

'I wonder if you'll help me with my algebra in French cla.s.s,' began the latter, beaming upon her former enemy with the air of one who was conferring a favour. 'I always get in such a bog over it.'

'You're so splendid at algebra, Babs, aren't you?' added another, with great warmth.

'She's good at lots of things! She'll get to the top of the Fifth in no time, won't she?' cried Angela, with her ordinary disregard for facts.

'Oh, no,' said Barbara, earnestly. 'There's my spelling; you're forgetting that.'

'Ye--es,' allowed Angela, unwillingly; 'but spelling isn't everything.'

'Should think not, indeed!' echoed the chorus of enthusiasts.

'And I don't know any arithmetic,' proceeded Barbara, desperately. It really hurt her regard for truth to have all these absurd remarks made about her.

'What's arithmetic?' demanded Angela, loudly.

'Only think of the piles of history you know!' chimed in some one else.

'Yes, indeed!' said the chorus.

'And Latin!' proclaimed another admirer.

'I--I wish you wouldn't,' murmured Babs, unhappily.

She could not think what had come over them all; and they made her feel foolish. Fortunately, somebody noticed just then that she had finished the bread and jam; and they all rushed off, jostling one another again as they went, to find fresh provisions. Barbara seized the opportunity to escape, dodged the placid bearer of the milk, and went in search of Jean Murray. She had an uncommonly shrewd suspicion that Jean Murray was somehow at the bottom of this new and irritating persecution.

She found her hidden away in a corner of the big dining-room, occupying very much the position that Barbara herself had enjoyed until now. Her appearance was dejected, and she looked as though the encouragement of n.o.ble sentiments did not agree with her nearly so well as the strife and wrangling in which she usually indulged. The truth was that her new pose of friendliness was making her feel unpleasantly self-conscious; and she was afraid of being laughed at by the big girls for having so meekly accepted her late enemy for a friend. The big girls, of course, worried themselves so little about the petty quarrels of the junior playroom, that they had no more intention of laughing at her than Barbara had; but it was impossible for so important a person as Jean Murray to realise that. So she gave a guilty start when Barbara, heated, aggrieved, and bubbling over with resentment, suddenly pounced upon her in her corner.

'I say, look here,' began Babs, impetuously; 'I thought you'd made it up, and it's a shame!'

'What are you talking about?' demanded Jean Murray. 'I have made it up, long ago.'

'Then whose fault is it that all those girls keep bothering me?' exclaimed Barbara, growing more indignant as she went on. 'I haven't had a moment's peace all the morning, and it makes me feel silly. I don't like being made to feel silly. Why don't you tell them to leave me alone?'

'But I don't know what you're talking about,' said Jean. 'How are they making you feel silly?'

'They keep on telling me how clever I am,' grumbled Barbara, in a tone of the deepest contempt. 'Me clever! Just think of it! And they say I'm going to get to the top of the cla.s.s, and all that rot. What do they mean by it? That's what I want to know. I was just beginning to get used to girls, and I told Kit only yesterday that they were not so bad after all, because they left you pretty much to yourself; and now--look at them!

It's enough to make any one feel silly. Well, what's the joke?'

Jean was laughing heartily. It was the first time that morning she had been able to forget her own feelings of 'silliness'; and it cheered her considerably to find that some one else was in the same plight as herself.

'You _are_ queer!' she declared. 'Why, they are doing all that to show that they want to be nice to you, of course.'

Barbara stared at her aghast. 'Oh!' was all she said at first. After a pause for reflection, she added suddenly, 'Then what were they trying to be all the time they left me alone?'

Jean stopped laughing, and began kicking at the window-seat by which they stood.

'Was that their way of being nasty?' proceeded Babs, in a puzzled tone.

'I--I suppose so,' muttered Jean, looking away from her.

'Oh!' said Barbara again.

There was another pause, and then Jean made an immense effort. 'I made them leave you alone,' she jerked out. 'I hated you. It--it was because of Margaret Hulme.'

Barbara's puzzled look vanished. When she did begin to understand a thing, she was generally pretty quick about it. 'I'm beastly sorry,' she said softly. 'A little while ago, I thought Jill was going to make the boys like her better than me; and I felt just like that. What a pity you didn't tell me sooner!'

That, after all, was their real reconciliation; and this time there was no doubt about it. If there had been, it would have been ended finally by Margaret Hulme herself, that same afternoon, in the cloakroom. The head girl had been taking off her own muddy boots for more than a fortnight now; and that in itself was enough to quicken her observation of events in the junior playroom.

'Isn't there anybody over there who would like to unlace my boots for me?' she said in a loud voice, as the younger ones came trooping into the cloakroom after the hockey practice.

There was silence in the ranks of the juniors. The big girls were smiling, the little ones looked at one another doubtfully, and the head girl waited with her foot put forward. The etiquette of the junior playroom was tremendous, and although forty-five sets of fingers were itching to be at the knot in the head girl's bootlace, n.o.body could move until Jean Murray did.

'You can do it, if you like,' she said to Barbara indifferently.

'Oh, no,' said Barbara, quickly. 'I shouldn't think of it.' This time, her sacrifice was genuine, for Margaret had kissed her just before dinner and told her she was a 'good little soul,' and the feeling of the youngest girl in the school had considerably changed in consequence with regard to the head girl's boots.

'Of course,' said Margaret Hulme, drawing back her foot, 'if n.o.body _wants_----'

A murmur ran along the ranks of the juniors, and Babs suddenly whispered something in Jean's ear. Then the two children joined hands and presented themselves solemnly before the head girl.

'Please,' said Barbara, quickly, 'we've settled it.'

'It's about time,' observed Margaret.

'We're going to halve it,' added Jean, in a great hurry.

'What? My foot?' asked the head girl.

The wit of the head girl produced a storm of laughter in the cloakroom.

When it subsided, Barbara was ready with her explanation.

'Jean's going to do them four days, and I'm going to do them the other three,' she said. 'And Jean's going to begin,' she added, and walked away heroically.