The Luckiest Girl in the School by Angela Brazil (top fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

difficulties, to hold out a strong helping hand to the younger brothers and sisters, and so justify her existence on this planet. It had not before occurred to her how much her home people relied on her. The thought of it brought a great lump into her throat. She must not fail them. She could not yet see her way clearly, but somehow she must be a comfort and a support to them, that she was quite resolved.

She went back to school in a very thoughtful frame of mind. Her last term would be a full one in many ways. About half of the Sixth Form were to go[Pg 225] in for their college entrance examinations, and Miss Bishop had decreed that Winona, as a County Scholarship holder, must certainly be among the number. She had little hope of passing, for most of her subjects were weak, but she meant to make an effort to try to pick up some of her lost ground. Her old enemies, Latin and Chemistry, still often baffled her, and her memory was only moderately retentive. She could not honestly believe that so far as her work was concerned she was any credit to the school. Games were another matter, however, and so long as they did not seriously interfere with her preparation for the matriculation, she meant to do her duty as captain. She arranged cricket fixtures and tennis tournaments, and though she could not devote as much of her own time as she would have liked to practice, she spurred on others who had more leisure than herself. She certainly possessed a gift for organization. There are some captains, splendid players themselves, who can never train their deputies. As Napoleon's genius was supposed to lie largely in his capacity for picking out able generals, so Winona proved her ability by choosing helpers who were of real service to her. With Audrey Redfern, Emily Cooper, and Bertha March to the fore, she hoped that both cricket and tennis would prosper, and that the school would score as successfully during the summer as it had done in the hockey season.

On the first Saturday after the beginning of the term, Miss Beach announced that she was going to spend the day with a friend who lived five miles out of Seaton, and that if Winona had leisure to ac[Pg 226]company her she would be pleased to take her. No practices had been arranged for that afternoon, so Winona felt free to accept the invitation. She had been for several short runs in the car, but for no long expedition since the memorable outing to Wickborough, so the prospect of a day in the country was alluring.

They started at about eleven o'clock, and took a road that was new to Winona, consequently all the more interesting. Their way led through lovely woods, at present a sheet of blue hyacinths, the hedges were a filmy dream of blackthorn blossom, while the swallows wheeling and flashing in the sunshine testified to the return of summer.

Miss Carson, the lady whom they were going to visit, like most of Aunt Harriet's friends was engaged in very interesting work. She had taken a small holding, and with the help of a few women pupils was running it as a fruit, flower and poultry farm. The house, an old cottage, to which she had added a wing, was charmingly pretty. It was long and low, with a thick thatched roof, and a porch overgrown with starry white clematis. A budding vine covered the front and in the border below great clumps of stately yellow lilies drooped their queenly heads. The front door led straight into the house place, a square room with a big fire-place and cozy ingle nooks. It was very simply furnished, but looked most artistic with its rush-bottomed chairs, its few good pictures, and its stained green table with the big bowl of wallflowers.

Miss Carson, a delightfully energetic lady whose[Pg 227] age may have been somewhere between thirty and forty, welcomed them cordially.

"I don't apologize for the plainness of my establishment," she remarked. "It's all part of a purpose. We have no servants here, and as we have to do our own house-work in addition to our farm-work, we want to reduce our labor to a minimum. You see, there's hardly anything to dust in this room: the books and the china are in those two cupboards with glass doors, and we have no fripperies at all lying about. The only ornament we allow ourselves is the bowl of flowers. Our bedrooms are equally simple, and our kitchen is fitted with the latest and most up-to-date labor-saving appliances. One of my students is preparing the dinner there now. She's a nice girl, and Winona will perhaps like to go and talk to her, unless she prefers to stay here with us."

Winona promptly decided in favor of the kitchen, so Miss Carson escorted her there, and introduced her to Miss Heald, a jolly-looking girl of about twenty, who, enveloped in a blue overall pinafore, was putting plates to heat, and inspecting the contents of certain boilerettes and casseroles. Like the sitting-room the kitchen contained no unnecessary articles. It was spotlessly clean, and looked very business-like.

"We go on kitchen duty for a week at a time," explained Miss Heald to Winona. "It's a part of the course, you know. We have dairy, gardening and poultry as well. Which do I like best? It's hard to say. Poultry, I think, because the chickens[Pg 228] are such darlings. I'll show you all round the place this afternoon, when I've finished washing up. I'm going to lay the table now. You can help if you like."

Precisely at one o'clock the seven other students came in from their work. Each was dressed in her farm uniform, short serge skirt, woolen jersey, blue overall and thick boots. To judge from their looks, their occupation was both healthy and congenial, in physique they were Hebes, and their spirits seemed at bubbling point. Apparently they all adored Miss Carson. The latter made a few inquiries as to the morning's progress, and the capable answers testified to the knowledge of the learners. The dinner did credit to Miss Heald's skill; it was well cooked and daintily served. Winona was full of admiration; her culinary experience was limited so far to cakes and scones; she felt that she would have been very proud if she had compounded that stew, and baked those custards. When the meal was finished the students tramped forth again to their outdoor labor, while Miss Heald cleared away. Winona begged to be allowed to help her, and was initiated into the mysteries of the very latest and most sanitary method of washing up, with the aid of mop, dish-rack, and some patent appliances. It was so interesting that she quite enjoyed it. She swept the kitchen, filled kettles at the pump, and did several other odd jobs; then, everything being left in an absolutely immaculate condition, Miss Heald declared that she was ready, and offered to take her companion for a tour of inspection round the farm.[Pg 229]

The little holding had been well planned, and was skillfully arranged. In front was the garden, a large piece of ground stretching down to the hedge that bordered the road. Miss Carson's original idea had been the culture of flowers, partly for the sale of their blossoms, and partly for the preservation of their seeds, but the national need of producing food crops during the war had induced her to plant almost the whole of it with fruit and vegetables. At present it somewhat resembled a village allotment. Patches of peas and broad beans were coming up well. Groups of gooseberry bushes were thriving. Strawberry beds were being carefully weeded, and two of the students were erecting posts round them, over which nets would be hung later on to protect the fruit from the birds.

"Birds are our greatest pest here," explained Miss Heald. "One may like them from a natural history point of view, but you get to hate the little wretches when you see them devouring everything wholesale. They've no conscience. Those small coletits can creep through quite fine meshes, and simply strip the peas, and the blackbirds would guzzle all day if they had the chance. I want to borrow an air gun and pot at them, but Miss Carson won't let me. She's afraid I might shoot some of the other students."

A row of cucumber frames and some greenhouses stood at the bottom of the garden. The latter were mostly devoted to young tomato plants, though one was specially reserved for vegetable marrows. The students had to learn how to manage and regulate[Pg 230] the heating apparatus of the houses, as well as to understand the culture of the plants.

"I left a window open once," confessed Miss Heald. "I remembered it when I had been about an hour in bed, and I jumped up and dressed in a hurry, and went out with a lantern to shut it. Fortunately there was no frost that night, or all the seedlings might have been killed. It was a most dreadful thing to forget! I thought Miss Carson would have jumped on me, but she was ever so nice about it."

Despite the predominance of foodstuffs there were a few flowers in the garden, clumps of forget-me-not and narcissus, purple iris, golden saxifrages and scarlet anemones. There were fragrant bushes of lavender and rosemary, and beds of sweet herbs, thyme, and basil and fennel and salsafy, for Miss Carson believed in some of the old-fashioned remedies, and made salves and ointments and hair washes from the products of her garden. The orchard, full of pink-blossomed apple trees, was a refreshing sight. They opened a little gate, and walked under a wealth of drooping flowers to the poultry yard that lay at the further side. Everything here was on the most up-to-date system. Pens of beautiful white Leghorns, Black Minorcas and Buff Orpingtons were kept in wired inclosures, each with its own henhouse and scratching-shed full of straw. Miss Heald took Winona inside to inspect the patent nesting-boxes, and the grit-cutting machine. She also showed her the incubators.

"They're empty now, but you should have seen[Pg 231] them in the early spring, when they were full of eggs," she explained. "It was a tremendous anxiety to keep the lamps properly regulated. Miss Nelson and I sat up all night once when some prize ducklings were hatching. It was cold weather, and they weren't very strong, so they needed a little help. It's the most frightfully delicate work to help a chick out of its shell! It makes a little chip with its beak, and then sometimes it can't get any further, and you have gently to crack the hole bigger. Unless you're very careful you may kill it, but on the other hand, if it can't burst its shell when it's ready to hatch, it may suffocate, so it's a choice of evils. We put them in the drying pen first, and then in the 'foster mother.' They're like babies, and have to be fed every two hours. It's a tremendous business when you have hundreds of them, at different stages and on different diets. We seemed to be preparing food all day long. It's ever so fascinating, though!"

"I love them when they're like fluffy canaries," said Winona.

"Yes, so do I. I had a special sitting of little ducklings under my charge, and they got very tame. I put them into a basket one day, and carried them into the garden to pick up worms. I put them down on a bed, and while my back was turned for a few minutes they cleared a whole row of young cabbages that Miss Morrison had just planted. I got into fearful trouble, and had to pack up my protégés and take them back to their coop in disgrace. I'd never dreamed they would devour green stuff! We have to learn to keep strict accounts of the poultry; we[Pg 232] put down the number of eggs daily, and the weekly food bill, and the chickens sold, and make a kind of register, with profit and loss. Miss Carson runs everything on a most business-like basis."

Miss Heald showed Winona the store-room, where meal and grain were kept, the big pans in which food was mixed, the boxes for packing eggs, and the little medicine cupboard containing remedies for sick fowls. All was beautifully orderly and well arranged, and a card of rules for the help of the students hung on the walls.

From the poultry department they passed to the Dairy Section. The four sleek cows were out in the field, but in a loose box there were some delightful calves that ran to