Polly's First Year at Boarding School Part 20

"You couldn't choose a better woman to portray, dear child," Miss Porter spoke up. "You'll find the Seniors know all about her. They are studying about the Crimean War this winter."

"Please tell me who she was, I never even heard of her," said Lois apologetically.

Miss King began: "She was an Englishwoman, the first one to go out as a nurse for the soldiers. She thought that if they fought for their country, the least their country could do for them was to give them proper care when they were wounded. At first the generals resented her interfering and thought she was fussy because she wanted clean hospitals and clean food-"

"But the soldiers adored her," Polly interrupted, and then carried away by the theme, she continued. "She always walked through the long hospital wards every night and they used to turn and kiss her shadow on the wall as she pa.s.sed, and they named her the Angel of the Crimea. Oh, she was so brave. All the hards.h.i.+ps she went through, cold and hunger."

Polly stopped speaking, but her thoughts went back to the stirring scenes she had read about and thrilled over so often in a certain little window seat off the broad stairway in her old home.

Miss King's voice recalled her, "I can give you a costume, one of my 'kerchiefs will do, and I know how to make a Nightingale cap. We'll part your hair in the middle and fix it low on your neck and-"

They took the rest of the afternoon to discuss the plans. It was not until the dressing hour that Polly and Lois saw Betty again. She had apparently found her costume without any trouble, for she had been skating all afternoon.

"The ice was bully," she greeted them. "Where have you been all this time?"

"With Miss Porter; did you find your costume?" Polly answered.

"Yes, first thing. Have you decided what you're going as?"

"Yes, but we're not telling," Lois teased. "We thought out peachy ones."

"Ah, please."

"No, never."

"Do you know what any of the others are going as?"

The conversation was being shouted from room to room.

"No, do you?"

"Connie is going as Lady Macbeth."

"What, why she's not historical, she's Shakespearean," Polly protested.

"Connie insists she was a real woman, and that Shakespeare knew all about her. Anyway, she says she's going to walk in her sleep and say: 'Out, d.a.m.ned spot.'"

"Are you really, Con?" Lois raised her voice so that it could be heard at the other end of the corridor.

"Am I really what?" came Connie's reply.

"Going as Lady Macbeth at the party?"

"Of course I am. She was a real person."

"Well, she wasn't very well known," Angela added her voice to the others.

"Maybe not, to the uneducated," Connie said loftily, "but she will be after the party."

There was a minute of hilarious laughter, that ended as the study hour bell rang for silence.

After dinner, Lois and Polly, their weighty problem of costumes off their minds, were talking of valentines.

"If we could only think of something different, there are no really good ones at the store," Lois said, rummaging in the closet for the peanut b.u.t.ter jar.

"I know it. I bought some but they are no good. How do you send them, through the mails?" Polly asked.

"No, the Seniors make a big red box and put it in the a.s.sembly Room valentine morning, and everybody puts their letters in it. The box is opened at the party and the valentines are given out."

"How would it be to make some red cardboard hearts and write verses on them?"

"Make them up, do you mean?"

"Yes, about the girls."

"Fine, let's try-but first let's get comfy."

Lois' definition of comfy was to sit tailor fas.h.i.+on on a bed surrounded by pillows, with jam, crackers and other eatables near at hand.

Polly preferred the window seat, it was broad and cozy, and you could always look out of the window when you wanted inspiration.

"All ready," Lois said, sitting down. "Give me a pencil. Now, who first?"

"You take Bet, and I'll take Connie," Polly said.

They both wrote for a minute, and then Lois read:

"Oh, Betty Thompson, Betty B., When you get this please think of me

No, that's no good."

"It is good," Polly protested feebly, "but it's not especially original."

"That's awful," Lois insisted, drawing a heavy line through the words.

"What's yours to Connie?"

"To Connie, our musician, a valentine we send, We hope that when she gets this she will her manners mend."

"That rimes," Lois said reluctantly. "But there's nothing the matter with Con's manners, so it doesn't make sense."

"That's just it," Polly agreed hopelessly. "We can't write sense that rimes, because we're not poets."

"Betty can, let's get her to help. You go, I'm so comfy."

"All right, lazy one, don't eat all the jam before I get back," and Polly left, to return in a few minutes with Betty.

"Original valentines, that's a bully idea," she said when the plan had been explained to her. "Let's start with Connie."