The Leader of the Lower School Part 14

Gipsy was not in the room at that moment, so Hetty was free to give her hint.

"If you mean Gipsy Latimer, I don't see why we should spoil the bazaar to spare her feelings!" returned Alice bluntly.

"I don't want to spoil the bazaar. I only thought we might do it some other way that wouldn't hurt her pride."

"What nonsense! People oughtn't to have such ridiculous pride!"

expostulated Gladys Merriman. "I think Alice's idea is a good one. I'll vote for it if she proposes it properly."

"But surely you wouldn't like it yourself--" began Hetty.

"Hus.h.!.+ Here's Gipsy!" said Dilys hastily.

Neither Alice nor Gladys bore any special love for Gipsy, and they were not particularly desirous to spare her the unpleasantness of an open confession of her inability to make her contribution. Perhaps it was with a spice of malice that Alice rose immediately and offered her suggestion.

"Each girl could surely undertake at least three articles--that ought to be the minimum--and as many more as she's capable of doing," she said in conclusion.

There was a moment's pause in the room. On the face of it, Alice's proposal was excellent. Everybody felt it ought to be carried out, but many shared Hetty's motive in objecting to it. It was Lennie Chapman who saved the situation.

"I beg to propose an amendment," she put in quickly, "that, instead of each girl promising things separately, we may be allowed to form ourselves into working trios. Three of us could promise a dozen articles between us, to be made just as we like, all st.i.tching at the same piece of embroidery if the fancy took us--just joint work, in fact. We'd spur each other on in that way, and get far more finished than if we did it singly."

"Excellent!" commented Dilys. "Who votes for the amendment?"

It was carried by half the Form, much to Lennie's relief. She and Hetty promptly proposed to form a trio with Gipsy, and were thus able to rescue her from rather a difficult position.

"But I haven't even a skein of embroidery silk!" sighed Gipsy afterwards to them in private.

"Never mind! Hetty and I can get the silks, and you shall do some extra work to make it square. We shall be exactly quits in that way. You can do all the painting part, too, on those blotters; you paint far better than either of us. My flowers are always scrawny, and yours are lovely.

There's an enormous advantage in working threesomes!"

"Yes, for me!" said Gipsy gratefully.

There are some unworthy natures who cannot resist the temptation of kicking anyone who is down. It was very quickly realized at Briarcroft that Gipsy was in ill favour at headquarters; and though most of the girls were sorry for her, with a certain number her changed fortunes undoubtedly lessened her popularity. Maude Helm never lost an opportunity of a sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the gibes hurt all the same.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GIPSY GENERALLY RESPONDED WITH SPIRIT"]

"When are you going to get some new hair ribbons, Yankee Doodle?" asked Gladys Merriman one day. "Those red flags of yours are looking rather dejected."

"The American turkey's losing its top-knot," sn.i.g.g.e.red Maude tauntingly.

"It doesn't soar up aloft like it used to do! Been a little tamed by the British lion!"

"If you imagine a turkey to be the crest of the United States, you're a trifle out," said Gipsy scornfully.

"I'd take to a pigtail if I were you," t.i.ttered Maude. "It only needs one ribbon!"

"If you were me, then I suppose I'd be you--and, yes, it might be necessary to change my style of hair-dressing," retorted Gipsy, with a glance at Maude's not too plentiful locks.

Some of the girls giggled, and Ca.s.sie Bertram murmured: "Rats' tails, not pigtails! Or even mouse tails!"

Maude scowled. She had not intended the laugh to be turned against herself.

"I wouldn't wear limp, faded red bows at any price," she commented, banging her desk to close the conversation, and stalking from the room.

"That Gipsy Latimer's too conceited altogether! I should like to take her down a peg," she confided to Gladys, as the pair walked arm-in-arm round the playground.

"Well, so you do, continually!" said Gladys.

"That's only by the way. She deserves something more for her American cheek. I'm going to play a trick on her, Gladys. It'll be ever such fun!

Listen!"

The two girls put their heads together, and laughed as Maude whispered her plan; then they both scuttled up to the empty cla.s.sroom, and abstracting Gipsy's atlas from her desk, carried it downstairs to the lost-property cupboard, and hid it carefully under a pile of books.

"She won't find that in a hurry!" chuckled Maude.

"There'll be a fine to-do when she misses it," said Gladys.

"People who suffer from 'swelled head' just deserve a little wholesome medicine, to cure them of thinking too much of themselves. Now she's editor of the Magazine, Yankee Doodle's unbearable, to my mind. There are others in the Form who can write stories as well as herself."

"Yours about the brigands was lovely!" gushed Gladys obediently.

"Well, I don't boast, but I flatter myself it wasn't the worst in the Mag. I don't call it fair that everything should be in the hands of one girl, and she a foreigner, as one might say! I'll talk to you again about this, Gladys, for I've got an idea I mean to exploit later on.

Come along now, there's the bell!"

That afternoon the Upper Fourth had a lesson with Miss Poppleton on "The Work of our Great Explorers". The cla.s.s was held in the lecture hall, and each girl was required to bring with her an atlas, a blank book for drawing charts, a notebook, a pencil, and indiarubber. Gipsy's desk was not always a miracle of neatness, but she understood its apparent confusion, and could generally lay her hand in a moment upon anything she wanted. This afternoon, however, she rummaged for her atlas in vain.

She turned books and papers over and over in her futile search, till the desk was in a chaotic muddle.

"Where's my atlas? Who's had my atlas? It was here yesterday!" she asked agitatedly.

"Really, Gipsy Latimer, I don't wonder you can't find your things in such an untidy desk!" remarked Miss White. "You must stay after four o'clock and put your books in order. Be quick, girls! Ada is waiting.

Are you ready? Then take your places and march!"

Miss White hurried off to give a botany demonstration to the Lower Fourth, and the Upper Fourth filed downstairs to the lecture hall under the superintendence of Ada Dawkins, monitress for the time in place of Doreen Tristram, who was absent with influenza.

As the Form stood waiting for a moment or two in the corridor before entering the lecture hall, Maude Helm began ostentatiously to count her belongings.

"Pencil--indiarubber--map book--notebook--and atlas. I've not forgotten anything!" she said in a particularly audible whisper.

Ada Dawkins heard, and it reminded her of her duties. She was anxious to show herself a zealous monitress.

"Have you all brought your things?" she enquired authoritatively. "Face about into line, and hold them out so that I can see."

The single file of girls wheeled round into a row, each exhibiting what she carried. Ada pa.s.sed along like a commanding officer inspecting a regiment, and immediately pounced upon Gipsy.

"Where's your atlas, Gipsy Latimer? How is it you're the only one to forget? Been taken from your desk? What nonsense! Things don't lose themselves. If you were tidy, you'd be able to find your books. No, I'm not going to accept any excuses. You all know what you want for the lesson, and it's your own fault if you come without it. Lose two order marks for leaving your atlas behind, and a third for arguing! Will you never learn that the monitresses have some authority here?"

Very much snubbed, poor Gipsy went into the lecture hall, to be further rebuked by Miss Poppleton later on for the lack of her atlas. It was only after a long hunt that she discovered her missing book in the lost-property cupboard.

"I've a very shrewd guess who put it there, too!" she remarked to Hetty Hanc.o.c.k. "Maude and Gladys were giggling something to Alice O'Connor, and they all looked at me and simply screamed."

"You don't mean to say they've played a low, stingy trick like that upon you?"