Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School Part 1

Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School.

by Jessie Graham Flower.

CHAPTER I

A NEW ARRIVAL

"Next to home, there is really nothing quite so satisfying as our dear old High School!" exclaimed Grace Harlowe, as she entered the locker-room and beamed on her three friends who stood near by.

"It does seem good to be back, even though we have had such a perfectly glorious summer," said Jessica Bright. "We are a notch higher, too.

We're actually juniors. This locker-room is now our property, although I don't like it as well as the one we had last year."

"We'll get accustomed to it, and it will seem like home inside of two weeks," said Anne Pierson philosophically. "Everything is bound to change in this world, you know. 'We must put ourselves in harmony with the things among which our lot is cast.'"

"Well, Marcus Aurelius, we'll try to accept your teaching," laughed Grace, who immediately recognized the quotation as coming from a tiny "Marcus Aurelius Year Book" that Anne kept in her desk and frequently perused.

"I wonder what school will bring us this year?" mused Nora O'Malley, as she retied her bow for the fifth time before the mirror and critically surveyed the final effect. "We had a stormy enough time last year, goodness knows. Really, girls, it is hard to believe that Miriam Nesbit and Julia Crosby were at one time the banes of our existence. They come next to you three girls with me, now."

"I think that we all feel the same about them," replied Grace. "Miriam is a perfect dear now, and is just as enthusiastic over cla.s.s matters as we are."

"It looks as though everything were going to be plain sailing this year," said Jessica. "There isn't a disturbing element in the cla.s.s that I know of. Still, one can never tell."

"Oh, here come Eva Allen and Marian Barber," called Grace delightedly, and rushed over to the newcomers with outstretched hands.

By this time girls began to arrive rapidly, and soon the locker-room hummed with the sound of fresh, young voices. Coats of tan were compared and newly acquired freckles deplored, as the girls stood about in groups, talking of the delights of the summer vacation just ended.

To the readers of "GRACE HARLOWE'S PLEBE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL," and "GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPh.o.m.oRE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL," the girl chums have become familiar figures. It will be remembered how Grace Harlowe and her friends, Nora O'Malley and Jessica Bright, during their freshman year, became the firm friends of Anne Pierson, the brilliant young girl who won the freshman prize offered each year to the freshmen by Mrs. Gray. The reader will recall the repeated efforts of Miriam Nesbit, aided by Miss Leece, the algebra teacher, to disgrace Anne in the eyes of the faculty, and the way each attempt was frustrated by Grace Harlowe and her friends. Mrs. Gray's house party, the winter picnic in Upton Wood, and Anne Pierson's struggles to escape her unworthy father all contributed toward making the story stand out in the reader's mind.

In "GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPh.o.m.oRE YEAR," the girl chums were found leading their cla.s.s in athletics. Here, Miriam Nesbit, still unsubdued, endeavored once more to humiliate Anne Pierson, and to oust Grace from her position as captain of the basketball team, being aided in her plan by Julia Crosby, captain of the junior team, against whom the soph.o.m.ores had engaged to play a series of three games. Grace's brave rescue of Julia Crosby during a skating party and the latter's subsequent repentance restored good feeling between the two cla.s.ses, and the book ended with the final conversion of Miriam after her long and stubbornly nursed enmity.

David Nesbit's trial flight in his aeroplane, Grace's encounter with the escaped lunatic, who imagined himself to be Napoleon Bonaparte, were among the features which made the book absorbing from start to finish.

The clang of the first bell broke in upon the chattering groups, and obedient to its summons, the girls moved slowly out of the locker-room and down the corridor, talking in subdued tones as they strolled toward the study hall.

Miss Thompson stood at her desk, serene and smiling, as the girls filed in.

"How well Miss Thompson looks," whispered Grace to Anne as they neared their seats. "Let's go up and see her when this session is over. It's sure to be short this morning."

It was customary on the opening of school for the members of the various cla.s.ses to take their seats of the previous year. Then the sections were rearranged, the seniors taking the seats left by the graduates, and the other cla.s.ses moving up accordingly. The first day of school amounted to really nothing further than being a.s.signed to one's seat and getting used to the idea of school again. Miss Thompson usually addressed the girls on the duty of High School students, and the girls went forth full of new resolutions that last for at least a week.

Grace looked curiously about her. She wondered if there were to be many new girls that year. The present freshmen, direct from the Grammar Schools, sat on the front seats looking a trifle awed at the idea of being academic pupils, and feeling very strange and uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many pairs of eyes.

Her glance wandered toward the new soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s, as though in search of some one, her eyes brightening as she caught sight of the brown-eyed girl who had won the freshman prize the previous June. The latter looked as helpless and friendless as when Grace first saw her step up on the platform to receive her money. "I shall certainly find out more about that child," she decided. "What is her name? I heard it at commencement, but I have forgotten it."

Taking a leaf from a little note-book that she always carried, Grace wrote: "Do you see the freshman-prize girl over among the soph.o.m.ores?

What is her name? I can't remember." Then, folding the paper, she tossed it to Anne, who nodded; then wrote, "Mabel Allison," and handed it to the girl sitting opposite her, who obligingly pa.s.sed it over to Grace.

With a nod of thanks to Anne, Grace glanced at the paper and then at the owner of the name, who sat with her hands meekly folded on her desk, listening to Miss Thompson as though her life depended upon hearing every word that the princ.i.p.al uttered.

"I want all my girls to try particularly this year to reach a higher standard than ever before," Miss Thompson concluded, "not only in your studies, but in your att.i.tude toward one another. Be straightforward and honorable in all your dealings, girls; so that when the day comes for you to receive your diplomas and bid Oakdale High School farewell, you can do so with the proud consciousness that you have been to your schoolmates just what you would have wished them to be to you. I know of no better preparation for a happy life than constant observation of the golden rule.

"And now I hope I shall have no occasion to deliver another lecture during the school year," said the princ.i.p.al, smiling. "There can be no formation of cla.s.ses to-day, as the bulletins of the various subjects have just been posted, and will undoubtedly undergo some changes. It would be advisable, however, to arrange as speedily as possible about the subjects you intend to take, as we wish to begin recitations by Friday at the latest, and I dare say the changes made in the schedule will be slight."

Then the work of a.s.signing each cla.s.s to its particular section of the study hall began. The seniors moved with evident pride into the places reserved for the first cla.s.s, while the freshmen looked visibly relieved at having any place at all to call their own. Immediately after this the cla.s.ses were dismissed, and a general rush was made to the end of the great room, where the bulletins were posted.

Grace, Nora, Anne and Jessica wished to recite in the same cla.s.ses as far as could be arranged, and a lively confab ensued as to what would be best to take. They all decided on solid geometry and English reading, as they could be together for these cla.s.ses, but the rest was not so easy, for Nora, who loathed history, was obliged to take ancient history to complete her history group, the other girls having wisely completed theirs the previous year. Jessica wanted to take physical geography, Anne rhetoric, and Grace boldly announced a hankering for zoology.

"How horrible," shuddered Jessica. "How can you bear to think of cutting up live cats and dogs and angleworms and things."

"Oh, you silly," laughed Grace. "You're thinking of vivisection. I wouldn't cut up anything alive for all the world. The girls did dissect crabs and lobsters, and even rabbits, last year, but they were dead long before they ever reached the zoology cla.s.s."

"Oh," said Jessica, somewhat rea.s.sured, "I'm glad to hear that, at any rate."

"That makes three subjects," said Nora. "Now we want one more. Are any of you going to be over ambitious and take five?"

"Not I," responded Grace and Jessica in chorus.

"I shall," said Anne quietly. "I'm going to learn just as much as I can while I have the chance."

"Well," said Jessica, "you're different. Five studies aren't any harder for you than four for us."

"Thank the lady prettily for her high opinion of your ability, Anne,"

said Grace, laughing. "She really seems to be sincere."

"She's too sincere for comfort," murmured Anne, who hated compliments.

"We haven't settled on that fourth subject yet," interposed Nora.

"Why don't you all take French, it is such a beautiful language," said a soft voice behind them. "I'm sure you'd like it."

The four girls turned simultaneously at the sound of the strange, soft voice, to face a girl whose beauty was almost startling. She was a trifle taller than Grace and beautifully straight and slender. Her hair was jet black and lay on her forehead in little silky rings, while she had the bluest eyes the girls had ever seen. Her features were small and regular, and her skin as creamy as the petal of a magnolia. She stood regarding the astonished girls with a fascinating little smile that was irresistible.

"Please excuse me for breaking in upon you, but I saw you from afar, and you looked awfully good to me." Her clear enunciation made the slang phrase sound like the purest English. "I have just been with your princ.i.p.al in her office. She told me to come here and look over the list of subjects. Do you think me unpardonably rude?" She looked appealingly at the four chums.

"Why, of course not," said Grace promptly, recovering in a measure from her first surprise. "I suppose you are going to enter our school, are you not? Let me introduce you to my friends." She named her three chums in turn, who bowed cordially to the attractive stranger.

"My name is Grace Harlowe. Will you tell me yours?"

"My name is Eleanor Savell," replied the new-comer, "and I have just come to Oakdale with my aunt. We have leased a quaint old house in the suburbs called 'Heartsease.' My aunt fell quite in love with it, so perhaps we shall stay awhile. We travel most of the time, and I get very tired of it," she concluded with a little pout.

"'Heartsease'?" cried the girls in chorus. "Do you live at 'Heartsease'?"

"Yes," said the stranger curiously. "Is there anything peculiar about it?"

"Oh, no," Grace hastened to reply. "The reason we are interested is because we know the owner of the property, Mrs. Gray, very well."

"Oh, do you know her?" replied Eleanor lightly. "Isn't she a dainty, little, old creature? She looks like a Dresden shepherdess grown old.