CHAPTER XVI
Concerning Juniors
Though all the Camellia Buds had keenly enjoyed Peachy's birthdayfestivities they were none of them satisfied to allow the mystery of thehiding of their cakes to remain unsolved. They questioned Elsie, who wasoften an envoy between themselves and the rest of the Transition, butElsie professed utter ignorance, and assured them that the particulargirls whom they suspected had been playing tennis during the whole oftheir recreation, and could not possibly have had time or opportunity toenter dormitory 13 unnoticed by some of their companions.
"We'd have seen them," declared Elsie. "Besides, they'd have boastedabout it. Whoever's the trick was, it wasn't ours. If you want myopinion I should say ask some of those juniors. They're absolute impsand ready for anything."
This was quite a new view of the case. The Camellia Buds had fixed themischief so certainly on the rival sorority that they had never thoughtof the younger girls. Peachy, catching Olive, Doris, and Natalie, thetrio whom she had named her "triplets," taxed them solemnly with thecrime. They burst out laughing.
"We 'did' you neatly!"
"Were you all this time guessing it was us?"
"I expect you had a hunt for those cakes!"
Peachy focussed a stern eye upon their giggling faces, and hypnotizedthem into attention.
"Now, what d'you mean by such impudence? How dare you go into ourdormitory? Juniors aren't to play tricks on their seniors! That wasbumped into my head when I was a kid, and I'll bump it jolly well intoyours!"
The trio pouted.
"We thought you called yourself our Fairy Godmother," said Olivesulkily.
"Well! So I do!"
"Not much fairy about it, or godmother either. You do nothing for usnow."
"You ungrateful little wretches! Haven't we settled Bertha and Mabel foryou? Don't you get your biscuits all right at lunch now?"
"Oh, yes. But----"
"But what?"
"You haven't given us a candy party for ages," broke out Natalie. "Youkeep all your cakes and fun to yourselves."
"You promised us all sorts of things. We don't think Fairy Godmothersare any use," snorted Olive. "Ta--ta! We're off to a basket-ball."
"Some people make a mighty palaver over next to nothing," sneeredDoris, as the trio linked arms and tore away.
Peachy stood looking after them with wrinkled brows. She was a pepperylittle person, and her temper was up for the moment. All the same,Doris's parting shot struck home. Unfortunately it was true. TheCamellia Buds had proclaimed themselves as "Fairy Godmothers, Limited,"had adopted juniors with much flourish of trumpets, had certainly foughta crusade and defended them against injustice and infringement of theirrights, and then--and then--alack!--in the excitement of other mattershad almost forgotten all about them.
Peachy remembered clearly that for the first week of her championshipshe had made a point of speaking daily to Olive, Doris, and Natalie.Now, for a full fortnight she had scarcely nodded to them at thebreakfast table. They had certainly had no opportunity of pouring theirchildish woes into the sympathetic and motherly ear which she had quiteintended should be always open to them.
"I've a wretched memory," she ruminated remorsefully. "Poor kiddies.They've really got rather a grievance, though they needn't have been socheeky--the young imps! I guess I'd better call a meeting of theCamellia Buds and see what's to be done. I don't believe any of us havetaken any notice of them just lately."
Nine would-have-been philanthropists, reminded of past schemes ofbenevolence, blushed uneasily, and tried to revive interest in theirprotegees.
"They always seemed very busy with basket-ball and other things, andnot exactly hankering after us," urged Agnes in excuse.
"They could have come to us if they'd wanted, of course," added Mary.
"That wasn't entirely the pact," said Peachy, driving in her tacks withfirm hammer. "We offered to 'mother' them, and then forgot all aboutthem. No wonder they think us frauds. What's to be done about it?"
"Get some more cakes somehow and ask them all to a party," suggestedIrene enthusiastically. "We have been pigs! I promised Desiree to paintsomething in her album, and the book's been in my drawer for weeks, andI've never touched it."
"How are we going to get the cakes?"
"Wheedle Antonio again, I suppose. We needn't have any ourselves. Ifthere are two slices apiece for the kids, it will do. We must keep someof our biscuits from lunch so that we can seem to be eating somethingourselves. Peachy, you can coax him."
"You always leave it to me. Antonio isn't so easy to manage. Sometimeshe's an absolute Pharisee, and won't buy me so much as a single bit ofcandy. I'll do what I can. Those poor kids shall have a treat if itcosts me my last dollar. We owe them something decent."
Antonio, whose lapses from duty were only occasional, and who had beenreprimanded lately by Miss Rodgers, who suspected his delinquencies,proved deaf on this occasion to Peachy's blandishments. He protested,with quite aggravating virtue, that it was as much as his place wasworth to smuggle even a solitary cream-cake, and that for the future hemust no more be the conveyor of contraband sweet stuff.
"Stumped in that quarter," mourned Peachy. "But I'm not going to letthis beat me. I've been cultivating a friendship with the cook! Don'tlaugh! I thought it might come in useful some day. I gave her my bluebutterfly brooch (I had two of them!), and I took a snap-shot of her inher Sunday clothes, and she was immensely pleased and flattered. Ihaven't developed it yet, by the by, but I will, and print her twocopies and mount them. If that doesn't melt her heart into sparing me alittle butter and sugar it ought to. We can square it this way: none ofus ten must eat any butter or sugar at breakfast or tea to-morrow, thenwe'll have a real right to have it given us afterwards. Don't pullfaces! You can have marmalade or jam. What sybarites you are!"
"Right-o," agreed the Camellia Buds, sorrowfully accepting thesacrifice.
"But couldn't the juniors contribute some butter, too?" added Sheila.
"It might be noticed if too many went without. Besides, it's thehostesses who ought to provide the party, not the guests."
Benedicta, the cook, was vulnerable, especially in view of theself-restraint exercised by the heroic ten. She made a hasty calculationof the amount of butter they would normally have consumed, added apackage of sugar, and lent them a pan and a spoon. Peachy carried awaythese spoils chuckling, and hid them carefully behind the summer-house.Then she racked her brains and composed what she considered a suitableand telling invitation:
"To all who'd love a Fairy Fete I beg you come, and don't be late, We offer fun that will not wait.
"The time is fixed for half-past four, You'll have to squat upon the floor, We ask you all--but can't do more.
"Our summer-house is small but handy, Indeed we think the place most dandy, We're going to try and make you candy.
"So leave your game of basket-ball, And come and make a friendly call, You'll find a welcome for you all.
"From
"Your Fairy Godmothers."
Peachy wrote her effusion upon a sheet torn from her best pad, foldedit, sought out Olive and handed it to her, telling her to pass it roundthe form. The juniors grinned at its contents. They had felt themselvesneglected, but were quite ready to forgive past omissions on thestrength of a present invitation.
"Better late than never," decreed Doris. "I suppose we'll go?"
"It sounds as if it might be rather nice," agreed the others.
So once more the Camellia Buds were placed in the position of hostesses.Owing to the difficulty of the catering they judged it best to make thecandy before the very eyes of their guests, so that they might see forthemselves how little there was of it and not grouse if the supply onlyran to one bit apiece.
"Otherwise they might think we'd had first go and only given them theleavings," remarked Peachy, who
was a born diplomat.
They had counted on borrowing the spirit-lamp which the seniors used forbrewing their after-dinner coffee, but at the last moment they found thebottle of methylated spirit was empty.
"What a nuisance! There's no time to send for more. Never mind! We won'tbe 'done.' Let's light a camp-fire and cook on that. We must managesomehow."
"We certainly can't disappoint them!"
"Not after all this fuss."
The back of the summer-house, as being a particularly retired andsecluded spot, was chosen as the rendezvous, and when the nineteenjuniors, interested and appreciative, came fluttering up the garden,they were met by scouts, conducted round, commanded to squat in a circleon the ground, and requested to make less noise.
"D'you want the whole of the school to butt in?" warned Jess. "Then keepquiet, can't you? Much taffy you'll get if Rachel catches us. Your onlychance is to lie low, you little sillies."
"Rachel's playing tennis!" giggled Evelyn Carr.
"There are other prefects as well as Rachel. Pull yourselves togetherand don't get so excited."
The juniors, who had been talking at the top of their voices, squealing,and otherwise raising the echoes, restrained their transports andcontented themselves with whispers and giggles. The Camellia Buds werefetching fuel, which they had purloined from the gardener's wood-shed.They commenced to build a camp-fire.
Before very long the flames were dancing up. Now, the hostesses in theirenthusiasm to be hospitable had foolishly forgotten that it is one thingto stir a pan over a methylated spirit lamp, and quite another to holdit over a camp-fire. Peachy, Agnes, and Mary tried in turns and scorchedtheir hands, egged on by the interested circle watching theirperformance.
"Make a big bonfire, and let it die down, and put the pan in the hotashes, just as we cook chestnuts," proposed Irene.
It was, at least, a feasible suggestion. Anything seemed better thanopen failure before those nineteen pairs of expectant eyes. Volunteerswent off for fresh supplies of wood, which was soon crackling merrily.But alas! the Camellia Buds, being rather overwrought and flustered withtheir experiments, did not calculate on the fact that the smoke of theirbonfire would give away their secret. Rachel had handed her tennisracket to Phyllis, and was taking a turn among the orange trees to tryto memorize her recitation for the elocution class.
"'All the world's a stage And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,'"
she repeated; then, catching sight of the gray cloud rising from theback of the summer-house, "Hello! What's Giovanni burning? He'll setthose orange trees on fire if he doesn't mind."
Abandoning Shakespeare Rachel stalked away to investigate, and surprisedthe candy party by a sudden appearance in their midst.
"Good gracious, girls! Whatever are you doing here?" she demanded inidiomatic, if hardly strictly classical English.
At the unwelcome sight of the head prefect the juniors one and allsimply stampeded, and I regret to say that the more timid of theCamellia Buds followed their example. Peachy, Irene, Lorna, Delia, andJess stood their ground, however.
"We--we were only giving those kids a little fun," answered Peachy.
In dead silence Rachel reviewed the pan, its contents, and the blushingfaces before her. Then she said:
"Rather dangerous fun. If that tree catches it will set the summer-housein a blaze next. You know your fire drill? Well, each fetch a bucket ofwater and put this out! Right turn! Quick march!"
At the words of command the luckless five fled to the house and into theback hall where the fire buckets were kept. They returned with whatspeed they could, and thoroughly soused their bonfire. Rachel assuredherself that it was safely out, then commenced further inquiries.
"We didn't mean any harm," explained Peachy, much on the defensive. "Wewere only trying to amuse those juniors. They never have a chance to gethold of the tennis courts, and they're tired of eternal basket-ball, andthey've rather a thin time of it. We started taking them up because theywere so bullied. Bertha and Mabel used to snatch their biscuits awayfrom them at lunch."
Rachel's face was a study.
"Bertha and Mabel snatched their biscuits?" she repeated.
"Yes; we stopped that though."
"_I_ never saw it!"
"They took jolly good care you shouldn't."
"Why didn't you come and tell _me_?"
Peachy looked embarrassed.
"Well, if you really want to know," she blurted out, "you're so aloofand superior nobody cares to come and tell you anything. We managed itby ourselves."
Rachel winced as if Peachy had struck her a blow.
"I'm sorry if--if that's how I seem to you," she faltered. "I must havefailed utterly as head girl if you can't confide in me. The prefectswant to be the friends of all the school."
Peachy shrugged her shoulders eloquently.
"I don't quite see where the friendship comes in," she murmured. "Youbag the best tennis courts and have the best dormitories, and give yourown stunts there. You never ask any of us to them. Do you, now?"
"No, I'm afraid we don't," admitted Rachel, still in the sameconstrained, almost bewildered, manner. "We really never thought of it."
The four Camellia Buds, listening to their friend's outspoken comments,expected an explosion of wrath from the head prefect, but Rachel onlytold them to take the buckets back to the house.
"And that too," she added, pointing to the pan. Peachy stooped andpicked it up, turned to go, then delivered herself of a last manifesto:
"It's our own butter and sugar that we saved from breakfast and tea, soplease don't blame anybody else."
"I blame myself most," whispered Rachel, as she was left alone.
The immediate result of the incident was a prefects' meeting, at whichthe head girl, full of compunction, stated the facts of the case to herfellow officers.
"We thought we were doing our duty, but it isn't enough just to act aspolice," she urged. "Those girls in the Transition were on the righttrack in getting hold of the juniors, though perhaps they did it in thewrong way. This school isn't really united. We're all divided up intoour own sororities, and we're not doing enough for one another. We'vegot to alter it somehow or confess ourselves failures. Do any of usseniors really _know_ the little ones? I'm sure I don't! Yet we ought tobe elder sisters to them! That's the real function of prefects--we'renot just assistant-mistresses to help to keep order. Don't you agree?"
Sybil, Erica, Phyllis, and Stella were conscientious girls, and whenthe matter was thus stated they saw it from Rachel's new point of view.They were ready and willing to talk over plans. They decided, amongstother developments, that with Miss Morley's permission, they wouldinvite the juniors in relays to dormitory teas, in order to win theirconfidence and establish more friendly relations with them. TheTransition were also to be cultivated, and their opinion asked on thesubject of term-end festivities and other school affairs about which theprefects had never before deigned to consult them. The altered attitudepromised a far more healthy and satisfactory state, and Miss Morley, towhom Rachel hinted some of their reasons for offering hospitality,readily agreed, and allowed the juniors to be entertained with cakes andtea upon the veranda.
"The seniors gave us a simply top-hole time," confided Desiree to Ireneafterwards. "We'd cream puffs and almond biscuits and preserved ginger,and we played games for prizes. But don't think we liked it any betterthan your candy parties. The prefects are awfully kind to us now, but itwas you who took us up _first_! We can't forget _that_!"