At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

I was such a stupid in Mathematics that I was afraid she might put me down as a dunce and lose all interest in me, but the fact that I read "Alice in Wonderland" seemed to be in my favor.

"Page, I will not have you look upon yourself as hopeless in Arithmetic," she said to me one day when I despaired of ever understanding what seemed to me a very intricate problem. "Lewis Carroll was a great mathematician and still he wrote the delicious classic that you and I are so fond of. Now I think minds that appreciate the same things must be similar. I believe there is a corner of your brain that is absolutely unexplored and that corner corresponds to the great fertile area in Lewis Carroll's. All it needs in you is working, digging, cultivating to produce fruit."

"Oh, Miss Cox, how splendid of you to look at it that way! I am going to try awfully hard to work my poor, little, neglected, unused plot of brain with all my might. If I can't grow anything but green persimmons, that would be better than nothing."

"Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision are the hard things. If you look at it right, one side of Mathematics is really romantic."

Father always said the way to control me was through my imagination and Miss Cox had surely hit on my weakness. The result was that Mathematics was no longer dry-as-dust to me. I found it had been a closed book because I had never been interested enough to open it. I soon outstripped the kids in my class and was put in a higher one. I had to read frequent chapters of "Alice in Wonderland" to cheer me on, and Miss Cox used to quote Lewis Carroll to me when she and I were alone. I found the other girls in the classes looked upon her as nothing but a teacher and she regarded them as mere pupils, to be taught conscientiously and then dismissed.

One day I sailed safely through a problem that was noted as a regular stumper. As soon as the class was dismissed, Miss Cox exclaimed:

"'Come to my arms, my beamish boy. You've slain the Jabberwock.' Page, I really believe you are going to end by being a pretty good mathematician."

I answered:

"'He thought he saw a Garden DoorThat opened with a key:He looked again, and found it wasA Double Rule of Three:'And all its mystery,' he said,'Is clear as day to me!'

If I ever understand it, it will be thanks to you and Lewis Carroll!"

The Tuckers had been to school pretty steadily all their lives, so they were able to go into the sophomore class in everything. I bitterly regretted that my education had been so erratic, but determined to make the best of it. Dum helped me with my French and we tried to keep to our rule of talking French at the table; but as we did what Mammy Susan called our own "retching" and my vocabulary was somewhat limited, we had to resort to English a great deal or go unfed.

I know Dum and Dee felt sorry for me for being in a kids' class in Mathematics. I didn't really mind nearly so much as they thought I did. The kids were nice to me and I made some mighty good friends among them.

There was one little bunchy girl named Mary Flannigan who turned out in the end one of the best friends I ever had in my life. She was short and stumpy, with scrambled red hair and a freckled face and the very keenest sense of humor I had ever known. She was a year younger than I was but very well up in her classes, and she had a genius for mimicry that was irresistibly funny. She had some stunts that endeared her to all the girls. She could do a dog fight or cats on the back fence; and could go so like a mosquito that you were certain you would be bitten in a moment. She was something of a ventriloquist, which made these accomplishments especially delightful.

Mary and I were put into Algebra at the same time, and to our joy Miss Cox was to teach us. Mary had found out Miss Cox, too. Tweedles and I had religiously refrained from telling any of the girls about her mad revel on the day of our arrival, but we had tried to make them understand what a very good old girl she was if you could just find her out; and our attitude toward her was having its effect on the whole school. Miss Cox, realizing that she was really liked and understood, had a change of expression as well as heart. Her sad, crooked face was now a happy, crooked face and she no longer saved her jokes for Tweedles and me, but got them off indiscriminately, and very good jokes they were, too. The classes in voice culture became more popular, and more and more girls wrote home begging to be allowed to "take singing."

I shall never forget Mary's and my first lesson in Algebra. Miss Cox looked at us with her twisted smile.

"Algebra is rather a poetical-sounding name, don't you think?" she asked us.

"Maybe it is," said Mary, "but I bet it takes it out in sounding so."

"Oh, I don't know about that," and Miss Cox opened the book at the first page and read as follows: "'In Algebra, the operations of Arithmetic are abridged and generalized by means of Symbols.' That appeals to the imagination somewhat, I think. 'Symbols which represent numbers.' Just that word 'Symbol' sets me to dreaming. Arithmetic is the prose of Mathematics where everything is stated and nothing left to the imagination, but Algebra is very different. 'Known Numbers are usually represented by the first letters of the alphabet, as a, b, c. Unknown Numbers, or those whose values are to be determined, are usually represented by the last letters of the alphabet, as x, y, z.' The unknown numbers, – the mysterious numbers, – for what is unknown is in a measure mysterious and what is mysterious is romantic or poetic. That is the way I think of it. In working your Algebra, don't just look at it as hard, dry facts to be mastered, but let x, y, z be the Great Unknown that you are to find. Let the problem be a plot that you are to unravel as Poe did 'The Gold Bug.'"

You may well imagine that Mary and I set to with a will to get all we could out of such a thrilling subject. There were times when we felt that Miss Cox was drawing a little on her imagination to find poetry in such an example as this, for instance:

4x-2/3-3x-1/3-27=0

On the whole, though, Algebra was much more interesting than Arithmetic, and sometimes I had the realization that it did mean a lot to me; and Mary said she felt the same way. Anyhow, in the early spring we were able to take the sophomore tests and go on in that class. Miss Peyton said she considered it really wonderful that I should have progressed so rapidly, but I told her it was all due to Miss Cox's being so certain that Lewis Carroll and I had similar brains.

CHAPTER IX.

FOOTBALL

None of our crowd had reached what the grown-ups call "the boy age." We had our heroes of romance that it was difficult for any of the male persuasion in real life to live up to. Tweedles declared that Zebedee was boy enough for them; although Dum thought if she ever met a Prosper le Gai she might consider him; while Dee had an idea a boy like Laurie, in "Little Women," would be some sport and she might be willing to knock around with him a bit. Jane Eyre's "Mr. Rochester" was my beau ideal.

"I want a dark, masterful lover who could tie the poker up in a bowknot if he had a mind to; a rude man who could bring tears to my eyes by his gruffness, and then, with the gentleness of a woman, soothe my aching head."

"Oh, Page," chimed in Annie Pore, "how could you want such a ruffian? I like Henry Esmond, so kind and courteous and dignified – "

"Yes, and as stiff as a poker. My 'Mr. Rochester' could tie him up in a bowknot in no time – "

"And soothe your aching head with him, too, I fancy. I think a man who is rude enough to make a woman cry and strong enough to tie up pokers would be more than likely to beat his wife with said poker." This from Mary Flannigan, who was in our room during the discussion of our favorite heroes. "I want 'Charles O'Malley' or nothing. Give me a man who is gay and rollicking, at the same time good-tempered and kindly if quick to fight withal."

We had to laugh at Mary. She was such a little Mother Bunch, with her crinkly red hair bushing out around her fat freckled face, – hardly a likely person to attract a hero of romance. Mary wore as many petticoats as Mammy Susan and all of them were tied around her waist with draw strings. I verily believe that she and Mammy Susan were the only persons left in the world who wore red flannel petticoats. In that day and generation when slimiky skirts were the rage, you can fancy how Mary looked with her gathered skirts. She also had a leaning toward deep ruffles around her neck, which more than ever gave her the look of a clown dog.

She had a way of breaking into the conversation very much as the clown dog breaks into the ring, and no matter how serious she was, we simply had to laugh at her. She was very good-natured and not the least bit touchy. We laughed at her general bunchiness just because we couldn't help it, but one and all liked her for her good temper and ready wit and respected her for her excellent standing in her classes, where she was the youngest pupil. We also envied her the delightful stunts that I believe I have mentioned before.

"I'd rather be able to go like a dog, the way Mary can, than make the finest statue of one that ever was done," sighed Dum.

"Nonsense, Dum. Anybody can go like a dog with a little practice, but to make one in clay is going some. But to return to our lovers: what do you girls say to taking in the football game over at Hill-Top? The seniors are going, one and all, and Miss Peyton says any of us can go who wish. Miss Cox will chaperon the sophomores."

Hill-Top was a boys' school on the other side of the village from Gresham Academy, and young ladies from our school were always invited to the match games there; and our school in turn sent a formal invitation to the pupils of Hill-Top when an interesting basketball game was to be played at Gresham.

"Oh, do come, all of you. I've never seen a game of football in my life and I'm just wild to," I begged.

"I guess I won't go," said Annie.

"Well, I think you've got another guess coming, unless you have a powerful good reason," I exclaimed.

"My only reason is that I am so embarrassed with boys," and poor Annie gave her usual painful blush.

"Oh, you won't have to speak to the boys. They never notice the Sophs, anyhow, but give all their twaddle to the Juniors and Seniors. If a boy, old enough to walk 'loney, breaks through Mabel Binks' guard, he is a hero for fair," laughed Dee.

So, Annie's objections overcome, we hurried her and Mary off to put on their hats and wraps, and quickly donning our own, got downstairs just in time to form in line with the Sophomores, who were starting under the leadership of Miss Cox for the game at Hill-Top.

"I'm glad to see you are going, Page," said Margaret Sayre, as she hooked her arm in mine. "I am to help Miss Cox keep order, although I don't really think I am needed. Sophomores are never boy crazy. The Juniors are the ones, as a rule, that need quieting. Sometimes I wonder where all the bad Juniors go to and where all the good Seniors come from."

"Well, I reckon the bad Juniors were once good Sophomores and they can just as easily turn into good Seniors," I responded.

The Juniors at Gresham were a rather wild lot and they had as a leader Mabel Binks, who, although she was a Senior, chose her friends entirely among the Juniors. The truth of the matter was, as Mammy Susan used to say, Mabel would rather be a "king among buzzards than a buzzard among kings." The Seniors would have none of her leadership and among them she had to take a back seat; while the Juniors welcomed her to their ranks with joy, not realizing why she had chosen them, and flattered by her notice.

The long line of girls, two abreast, wound its way through the streets of the little town and out into the country again to the boys' school. It was really a very pretty sight, this row of blooming, happy girls, all ages and sizes, dressed in the universally becoming dark blue, with their jaunty velvet sailor hats perched at every conceivable angle on heads of hair of every conceivable color.

"Doesn't Annie Pore look pretty in her new hat?" whispered Miss Sayre.

These velvet sailors were ordered by the school and every pupil was obliged to have one. All of us were glad that Annie was forced to discard her forlorn-looking crêpe hat that looked for all the world like a last year's bird's nest. The black velvet sailor was exactly right for her, throwing into pleasing contrast her milk-white skin, and bringing out the wonderful tints in her ripe-wheat hair. Jo Barr with wonderful tact had managed to change the hang of her dragging skirt and it was now even around the bottom.

"I think she is beautiful and she is really very fine in many ways. I have grown so fond of her. All of us have. And I think Dum and Dee are having a splendid effect on her spirits, for she is not nearly so lugubrious."

"Dum and Dee may be having a fine effect, too," laughed Miss Sayre, "but a girl named Page Allison is doing her part. All the faculty notice it. I wish someone like you could be in every class, someone to leaven the whole lump with a certain quality of camaraderie. Annie Pore was as forlorn a specimen of humanity as ever stepped out of a 'bus that first day here, and now look at her!"

Annie was laughing heartily as Mary Flannigan made a noise like a sick kitten, throwing her voice, with her powers as a ventriloquist, so it seemed to come from a clump of sumac by the roadside. Dee was peering eagerly into the bushes before she caught on to the joke. Annie Pore certainly did not look like the same girl. No one would think of nicknaming her "Orphan Annie" now. The name clung to her, however, among a certain class, thanks to Mabel Binks, who had not been able to forgive or forget the laugh raised against her by Annie on the first day of school.

Hill-Top was built much in the same style as Gresham, and it, too, had the Parthenon effect with its big white pillars. The view was not quite so fine as ours, but from the little experience I had had of boys, I imagined they did not go in for views to any great extent.

"A primrose by the river's brink,

A common primrose was to him and nothing more."

For that matter, I noticed that mighty few of the girls at Gresham appreciated the view, and as Miss Sayre said, thought more of dessert for dinner than of the view of the mountains.

The game was just starting as we arrived, so we seated ourselves on the benches provided for the visitors with as little stir as possible. Dum got on the other side of me to put me on to the points of the great game of football.

"It seems too foolish and backwoodsy for me never to have seen a game," I said, "but at Milton everyone is too old to do more than walk through a set of croquet or too young to do more than bounce a rubber ball. Father occasionally threatens to go up to Richmond for the Virginia-Carolina game at Thanksgiving, but somebody is always coming or going (I mean getting born or dying), and we have never made it yet."

"Never mind, honey," and Dum gave me a hug, "you'll learn all the points of the game to-day, and some time when we are back in Richmond, Zebedee will give us a great football party. We always go to the Thanksgiving game. I don't see what Zebedee will do without us this year."

"Who, that good-looking pa of yours?" said Mabel Binks, who was seated right in front of us, with the Juniors, as usual. "Why, I'll wager he can find someone to take your place. I bet he's having a pretty good time with you kids off his hands."

Dum's hands clinched and unclinched. Her eyes were closed and her lips moving. I had not lived with the Tucker Twins for several weeks without finding out what that meant. When Dum did that way, it meant she was trying to control her temper. Her lips formed these words: "Oh, God, make me good! Don't let me biff Mabel Binks! Don't let me biff Mabel Binks!"

For a moment the wicked wish came into my heart that she would "biff Mabel Binks"; but when I thought of the consternation it would arouse in Gresham and the disgrace to our class, to say nothing of poor hot-headed Dum, I felt ashamed of myself for harboring such a militant desire. I slipped my hand over Dum's clenched fist and in a moment I felt it relax.

"Thank you, Page. God answered my prayer quicker than usual, thanks to you," and Dum gave a great sigh of relief. "It seemed to me almost like it would be wrong if I didn't hit her. Zebedee would fight for us any day and I don't see why I can't fight for him."

"Well, when you come down to facts, Dum, Mabel Binks did not say anything derogatory of your father. She said he was good-looking and intimated that he was naturally popular. I fancy she would like to go to the Thanksgiving game herself with him. There is nothing for you to fight about. I have an idea that Mr. Tucker can take care of himself enough not to take her to the game at least," I whispered; and Dum laughed aloud so that Mabel turned around and asked, "What's the joke?" And Dum had the satisfaction of saying in honeyed tones: "One of the kid jokes that I fancy you would not appreciate."

The game of football at first impressed me as little more than a tangle of legs, and a dog fight at Bracken had more sense to it; but as Dum explained the points, I began to see some method in the seeming madness of twenty-two boys lying down on one poor ball and yelling. Needless to add, I very soon became as enthusiastic about that game as all other games I ever had any knowledge of, and before the football season was over I was as rabid a rooter as the Tuckers themselves.

"I believe you are a born lover of games, Page," said Miss Sayre, smiling as my enthusiasm got the better of me and I let out a piercing shriek in honor of a short, bow-legged boy who had seized the ball at a crucial moment and literally dodged his way through the Seniors and made a goal. The game was between the Seniors and Sophomores, and of course the Sophomores of Gresham were in honor bound to root for the Sophomores of Hill-Top.

"Who's all right? Who's all right?Shorty! – Shorty! Out of sight!"

yelled the class for their bow-legged hero, and then the Seniors gave him fifteen 'rahs. Seniors always have a special feeling for Sophomores and a game between them is usually a very friendly bout. Of course the Seniors do not exactly want to be beaten, but they take a great delight in the prowess of their pet class. In spite of Shorty's good playing and a great deal of good playing from the other ten Sophomores, the Seniors won, which was quite meet and proper. The younger boys had put up a good fight and were much applauded by their elders.

CHAPTER X.

BOYS

After the football game, some of the more self-assured boys came over to the visitors from Gresham and singled out their friends to conduct them to the tables on the lawn where the matron was serving ice cream.

All the boys spoke to Miss Cox and seemed on the most friendly terms with her. I remembered then that she went over to Hill-Top twice a week for the purpose of training a chorus. She knew them all by name and chatted with them very freely, much more freely than she did with any of the girls, except Dum and Dee and me.

"Evidently, Miss Cox understands boys better than she does girls and they understand her," thought I. Her manner with them was frank and natural, exactly as it had been with Mr. Tucker.

A tall, good-looking boy was holding a laughing conversation with her about the game. He it was who had saved the day for the Seniors when it had looked as though the younger class would certainly win, owing to the strategic movements of the popular Shorty.

"Didn't the kid make a fine play, though, Miss Cox? It seemed a pity to take the game from them; but I tell you, if the Sophomores won from the Seniors there would be no living with them. They're rather a cocky lot as it is, bless 'em."

"Yes, they are fine boys and I wish they might have won just this once. They worked so hard and you Seniors were playing so lazily you almost let the game slip through your fingers. It would have been a good lesson for your team if they had lost."

"That's just what I tell them, Miss Cox. I hate lazy playing, even if you are up against something easy. I believe in playing the game to the best of your ability, if it's nothing but push-pins."

I certainly liked the way that boy talked and agreed with him. I unconsciously drew nearer to where he and Miss Cox were standing, not with any idea of being introduced but because I was interested in what they were saying.

"No, you don't, Miss Buttinsky," was whispered in my ear, "Seniors first when there is a good thing in sight," and Mabel Binks crowded in front of me and deliberately joined the group around Miss Cox. An introduction to the handsome football player naturally followed. I drew back abashed. One of the most hateful things about Mabel Binks was that she usually attributed her motives to other persons. She was determined to meet this boy and she took for granted it was what I was after, too.

I felt like employing Dum's method and praying not to "biff Mabel Binks," but I was anxious to see what the outcome would be and if the handsome youth, whose name I had learned was Harvie Price, would be attracted by the charms of the stylish Mabel. Mabel was not a bad-looking girl, rather handsome, in fact, but a trifle too vivid for my taste. Her eyes were as black and shiny as new patent-leather shoes; her abundant hair, coarse and curly; her lips too full and red; her figure handsome but rather too well developed for a girl of seventeen. She was always richly dressed and in the latest style.

The idea of the directors of Gresham in having the pupils dress in blue suits and black hats was to do away with the custom of overdressing common to many boarding schools. They seemed to think that a blue suit was a blue suit. They were vastly mistaken, however, as anyone with half an eye could see by comparing Mabel Binks with Annie Pore. Annie Pore's appearance I have described. Mabel's suit was a costly affair of handsome cloth combined with velvet and trimmed with fur. The skirt was slit, showing a cerise petticoat; a cerise crêpe de Chine tie gave color to her very V-necked blouse; and around her velvet sailor she had pinned several large, fine ostrich plumes. The latest style of high-heeled pumps with cut steel buckles were on her feet, making them a little too prominent, considering their size and shape. Spotless white gloves finished her costume; unless one might consider the strong odor of musk perfume the finishing touch. She did look handsome and her clothes were pretty and fine, but a little too fine for a football match.

"Oh, Mr. Price," she gushed, "your playing was just grand. All of us were just wild about it. I said 'it,' not 'you,' you understand," and she giggled affectedly. "I think it was real noble of you to let the kids get any points at all."

"Yes, mighty noble," said Harvie Price, looking at his dashing admirer rather quizzically, "so noble they came mighty near winning the whole shooting match."

"Isn't that ice cream they are serving over there?" she hinted. "I think ice cream is simply grand."

"Ah, Miss Binks, you praise my feeble game and ice cream with the same words. Fortunately, ice cream is more easily taken in than I am. Hey, you Shorty, come here," he called to the jolly-looking little Sophomore who was trotting by. "I want to introduce you to Miss Binks. Mr. Thomas Hawkins, Miss Binks. Shorty, she's dying for some ice cream."

"Your humble servitor, madam," and Thomas Hawkins made a low bow. "Shall I bring it to you or take you to it?"

"Bring it here," said Mabel shortly. Just then Harvie Price saw Annie Pore talking to Mary Flannigan and Dee.

"Tell me who that girl is over there, the one with the thick yellow plait," he asked Mabel.

"Oh, that's 'Orphan Annie.' Isn't she a mess?"

"Is her name Annie Pore?"

"I believe it is or poor Annie, if you prefer."

"Well, by Jove! Who would have thought it!" and Harvie Price without any apology left the dashing Mabel and going up to Annie took her by both hands. He shook them warmly and exclaimed: "Little Annie Pore, where on earth did you come from? I am glad to see you." And Annie, without the least embarrassment, was equally delighted to see him.

"Oh, Harvie, I did not dream you were here. You've grown so I didn't know you."