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

greet Miss Heald, pressing eager damp noses into her hand, and exhibiting much apparent disappointment that she did not offer them a pailful of milk and oatmeal. Winona inspected the cool, scrupulously clean dairy, with its patent churn, and slate slabs for making up the butter. She saw the bowls where the cream was kept, and the wooden print with which the pats were marked.

"Butter-making is the side of the business I don't care for," admitted Miss Heald. "I like the gardening fairly well, and I just love the poultry, but I don't take to dairy work. Of course it's a part of my training, so I'm obliged to do it, but when my time here is over, I mean to make hens my specialty, and go in for poultry farming. An open-air life suits me. It's a thousand times nicer than being a nurse at a hospital, or a secretary at an[Pg 233] office. You're in the fresh air all day, and the chicks are so interesting."

A pen of young turkey poults, a flock of goslings, and a sty full of infant pigs were next on exhibition. Miss Heald showed off the latter with pride.

"They're rather darlings, and I own to a weakness for them," she admitted. "We put them in a bath and scrub them, and they're really so intelligent. Wasn't it the poet Herrick who had a pet pig? This little chap's as sharp as a needle. I believe I could teach him tricks directly, if I tried! Miss Carson says I mustn't let myself grow too fond of all the creatures, because their ultimate end is bacon or the boilerette, and it doesn't do to be sentimental over farming; but I can't help it! I just love some of the chickens; they come flying up on to my shoulder like pigeons."

A rough-coated pony formed part of the establishment. Twice a week he was harnessed to the trap, and Miss Carson and one of the students drove to Seaton to dispose of the farm produce. Miss Carson had undertaken to supply several hotels and restaurants with eggs, fowls and vegetables, and so far had found the demand for her goods exceeded the supply. Labor was at present her greatest difficulty. Her students accomplished the light work, but could not do heavy digging. She managed to secure the occasional services of a farm hand, but with most able-bodied men at the war the problem of trenching or of making an asparagus bed was almost impossible to solve.

At the end of the orchard, against a south hedge[Pg 234] of thick holly, stood the hives. Bee-keeping was one of the most successful ventures of the holding. Last autumn had shown a splendid yield of honey, and this year, judging by the activity of the bees, an equal harvest might be expected. There was continuous humming among the apple blossoms, and every minute pollen-laden workers were hurrying home with their spoils. Miss Heald lifted the lid of one of the hives, to show Winona the comb within. She observed caution, however.

"They don't know me very well," she explained. "They have their likes and dislikes. Miss Hunter can let them crawl all over her hands and arms, and they never sting her. She must have a natural attraction for them. They recognize a stranger directly. No, I'm not particularly fond of them. I prefer pigs and chickens."

Miss Carson and Aunt Harriet had also been going the round of the farm, and came up to inspect the hives. Miss Beach was greatly interested in her friend's work, and full of congratulations.

"Such women as you are the backbone of the country!" she declared. "The next best thing to fighting is to provide food for the nation. England is capable of producing twice her annual yield if there is proper organization. I'm a great advocate of small holdings, and I think women can't show their patriotism better than by going 'back to the land.' You and your students are indeed 'doing your bit'! You make me want to come and help you!"

It was such a delicious warm afternoon that chairs were carried outside, and they had tea in the garden[Pg 235] under a gorgeous pink-blossomed almond tree, with the perfume of wallflowers and sweet scented stocks wafted from the rockery above. Two cats and a dog joined the party, also an impudent bantam cock, who, being considered the mascot of the establishment, was much petted, and allowed certain privileges. He would sit on Miss Carson's wrist like a little tame hawk, and she sometimes brought him into the garden at tea-time to give him tit-bits.

At 4.30 all the fowls and chickens were fed, a tremendous business, at which Winona looked on with enthusiasm. She admired the systematic way in which the food was measured and distributed so that each individual member of the flock received its due share, and was not robbed by a greedier and stronger neighbor. She was very reluctant to leave when Miss Beach at last brought round the car.

"How I'd love to go and learn farming when I leave school!" she ventured to remark as they drove home.

"It needs brains!" returned Aunt Harriet, rather snappily. "You mustn't imagine it's all tea in the garden and playing with fluffy chickens. To run such a holding intelligently requires a clever capable head. Your examination's quite enough for you to think about at present. If you're to have any chance at all of passing, it will take your whole energies, I assure you!"

Winona, duly snubbed, held her peace.[Pg 236]

CHAPTER XVIII A Friend in Need

Under the coaching of Miss Goodson the Sixth Form had settled down to grim work. Twelve girls were to present themselves for examination for entering Dunningham University, and though the teacher naturally concentrated her greatest energies on this elect dozen, the rest by no means slipped through her intellectual net. There were stars among the candidates of whom she might feel moderately certain, and there were also laggers whose success was doubtful. In this latter category she classed Winona. Poor Winona still floundered rather hopelessly in some of her subjects. A poetic imagination may be a delightful inheritance and a source of infinite enjoyment to its owner, but it does not supply the place of a good memory. Examiners are prosaic beings who require solid facts, and even the style of a Macaulay or a Carlyle would not satisfy them unless accompanied by definite answers to their set questions. By a piece of unparalleled luck, Winona had secured and retained her County Scholarship, but her powers of essay writing were not likely to serve her in such good stead again. She often groaned when she thought of the examinations. Miss Bishop, Aunt Harriet, and her mother would all be so disappointed if she failed, and alas! her failure seemed only too probable.[Pg 237]

"Miss Goodson doesn't tell me plump out that I'll be plucked, but I can see she thinks so!" confided Winona to Garnet one day.

"Then show her she is wrong!"

"Not much chance of that, I'm afraid, but I'm doing my level best. I get up at six every morning, and slave before breakfast."

"So do I, but I get such frightful headaches," sighed Garnet. "I've been nearly mad with them. My cousin took me to the doctor yesterday. He says it's my eyes. I shan't be at school to-morrow. I have to go to Dunningham to see a specialist."

"Poor old girl! You never told me about your headaches."

"You never asked me! I've seen so little of you lately;"

Winona's conscience smote her. She had rather neglected Garnet since they had entered the Sixth Form. During their year in V.a. they had been fast friends. As new girls together and scholarship holders, a close tie had existed between them, and they had shared in many small excitements and adventures. When Winona was chosen Games Captain, however, their interests seemed to separate. Garnet was not athletic, she cared little for hockey or cricket, and preferred to devote her surplus energies to the Literary Society or the Debating Club. Almost inevitably they had drifted apart. Winona, wrapped up in the supreme fascinations of hockey matches and gymnasium practice, had chummed with Marjorie Kemp, Bessie Kirk, and Joyce Newton, who shared her enthusiasm for games. She remem[Pg 238]bered with a pang of self-reproach that she had not walked round the playground with Garnet once this term. Winona admired fidelity, but she certainly could not pride herself upon having practiced that virtue of late.

Garnet was absent from her desk next day, but when she returned to the school on Thursday, Winona sought an opportunity, and bore her off for a private talk. Garnet was looking very pale.

"I'm dreadfully upset," she confessed. "I told you I had to see a specialist about my eyes? Well, yesterday we went to Dunningham, to consult Sir Alfred Pollard. He says there's very serious trouble, and that if I'm not careful, I may ruin my sight altogether. He absolutely forbids any home work in the evenings."

"Forbids home work!" gasped Winona.

"Yes, utterly! Just think of it! With the examinations only six weeks off! I begged and implored, but he said I might choose between my sight and my exam. I suppose I shall have to fail!"

"Oh, Garnet!"

"Yes," continued her friend bitterly, "to fail at the very end, after all my work! And I have worked! When other girls have been getting all sorts of fun, I've sat in my bedroom with my books. Oh, it's too cruel!... Don't think me conceited, but I thought I might have a chance for the Seaton Scholarship. It was worth trying for! If you knew how I long to go to College! It would be so glorious to write B.A. after one's name! Besides, I must do something in life. All my sisters have chosen[Pg 239] careers, and I had, quite decided to take up teaching as a profession. I talked it over with Miss Goodson one day. She was so nice about it, and strongly advised me to go to College if I could possibly get the opportunity. Well, I suppose that dream's over now! Not much chance of a scholarship with one's prep knocked off!"

"Oh, Garnet, I'm so sorry! Will the doctor let you take the exams, at all?"

"Yes, I may attend school as usual, and go in for the exam., but I'm not to look at a book after 4 p.m. or before 9 a.m., so it's a very empty permission. How I shall rage all the evenings! I wish I had a gramophone to howl out my work into my ears, as I mayn't use my eyes!"

"Would that help you?" asked Winona eagerly.

"Of course it would! It isn't my brain that's wrong, only my eyes. I asked my cousin to read my prep. to me one evening, but it was beyond her, and we only got into a muddle. Oh dear, I could cry! To have worked to within six weeks of the exam., and then to have to slack like this! I'm the unluckiest girl in the world!"

Winona comforted her poor friend as best she could. She had an idea at the back of her mind, but she did not venture to confide it to Garnet until she had first consulted Aunt Harriet about it. It was no less a proposal than that they should do their preparation together, and that by reading the work aloud she could act eyes for her chum. It. would be difficult, no doubt, but not an utter impossibility, and it was absolutely the only way in which Garnet could[Pg 240] receive help. It would necessitate their spending many hours daily in each other's company, and to arrange this seemed to be the difficulty. She explained the situation to Miss Beach, with some diffidence and hesitation. She was terribly afraid of receiving a snubbing, and being told that her own work was more than sufficient for her, without taking up her friend's burdens. To her surprise, however, Aunt Harriet proved sympathetic, and heartily acquiesced in the scheme. She indeed made the very kind proposal that for the six weeks until the exam. Garnet should sleep with Winona at Abbey Close, so that they might have both the evening and early morning preparation together.

Winona carried her friend to a quiet corner of the gymnasium to communicate her thrilling news.

"Win! You don't really mean it? Oh, you're big! I didn't think any one in the world would have done that for me. Do you realize what you're undertaking? It's the one thing that can save me! And only a girl who's in my own Form, and going in for the exams. herself, could do it. Nobody else understands exactly what one wants. Win!