For the Sake of the School by Angela Brazil (adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

was obliged to be sawn away before she could obtain sufficient room to help to free herself, and it was only after an hour's hard work that she stood at last in safety on the ground.

"How do you feel?" asked Miss Moseley anxiously, fearing broken bones or a sprain from the final effort of extraction.

"Well, I guess it's taken the bounce out of me. I'm as stiff as a rheumatic cat! Oh, I'll get back to school somehow, don't alarm yourself! I'm absolutely starving for tea. Good-bye, you wood-demon; you nearly finished me!" and Rona shook her fist at the offending oak-tree as a parting salute.

"She called it demon to rhyme with lemon!" gurgled Addie, almost sobbing with mirth as she followed, holding Merle's arm. "The Cuckoo will cause me to break a blood-vessel some day. It hurts me most dreadfully to laugh. I've got a stitch in my side. Oh dear! I wonder whatever she'll go and do next?"

CHAPTER V

On Sufferance

"Scratch, scratch, scratch, Scratch went the old black hen! Every fowl that scrapes in the barn Can scratch as well as your pen!"

So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, and popping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter sat writing at a table near the window.

"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work at prep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mighty studious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"

Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscap hastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.

"You're not to touch my papers, Rona! I've told you that before."

"Well, I wasn't touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What are you doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here half your spare time."

"What I was doing is my own concern, and no business of yours."

"Now you're riled," said the Cuckoo, sitting down easily on her bed. "I didn't mean any harm. I always seem sticking my foot into it somehow."

Ulyth sighed. Nobody in the school realized how much she had to put up with from her irrepressible room-mate, whose hearty voice, extraordinary expressions, and broad notions of fun grated upon her sensitive nature. Rona did not appreciate in the least the heroic sacrifice that Ulyth was making. It had never occurred to her that she might be placed in another dormitory, and that she only remained on sufferance in No. 3. She admired Ulyth immensely, and was quite prepared to take her as a model, but at present the copy was very far indeed from the original. The mistresses had instituted a vigorous crusade against Rona's loud voice and unconventional English, and she was really making an effort to improve; but the habits of years are not effaced in a few weeks, and she still scandalized the authorities considerably. Ulyth could tolerate her when she kept to her own side of the bedroom, but to have meddlesome fingers interfering with her private possessions was the last straw to her burden of endurance.

"Do you understand?" she repeated emphatically. "You're not to touch my papers at all!"

"All serene! I won't lay a finger on them--honest--sure!" returned the Cuckoo, chanting her words to the air of "Swanee River", and drumming an accompaniment on the bedpost. "What d'you think Stephanie called me just now? She said I was an unlicked cub."

"Oh, surely she didn't! Are you certain?"

"Heard her myself. She said it to my face and tittered. You bet I'll pay her out somehow. Miss Stephanie Radford needs taking down a peg. Oh, don't alarm yourself, I'll do it neatly! There'll be no clumsy bungling about it. Well, if you won't go down and play basket-ball I shall. It's more fun than sitting up here."

As the door banged behind Rona, Ulyth heaved an ecstatic "Thank goodness!" She sat for a few moments trying to regain her composure before she recommenced the writing at which she had been interrupted. The manuscript on which she was engaged was very precious. She had set herself no less a task than to write a book. The subject had come to her suddenly one morning as she lay awake in bed, and she regarded it as an inspiration. She would make a story about The Woodlands, and bring in all the girls she knew. It was no use struggling with a historical plot or a romance of the war--she had tried these, and stuck fast in the first chapters; it was better to employ the material close at hand, and weave her tale from the every-day incidents which happened in the school. So she had begun, and though she floundered a little at the difficulty of transferring her impressions to paper, she was making distinct progress.

"I'd never dare to have it published, of course," she ruminated. "Still, it's a beginning, and I shall like to read it over to myself. I think there are some rather neat bits in it, especially that shot at Addie and Stephie. How wild they'd be if they knew! But there's no fear of that. I'll take good care nobody finds out."

When to make time to go on with her literary composition was the difficulty. It was hard to snatch even an occasional half-hour during the day. Where there is a will, however, there is generally also a way, and Ulyth hit upon the plan of getting up very early in the morning and writing while Rona was still asleep. The Cuckoo never stirred until the seven o'clock bell rang, when she would awake noisily, with many yawns and stretchings of arms, so Ulyth flattered herself that her secret was absolutely safe.

Where to hide the precious papers was another problem. She did not dare to put them in any of her drawers, her desk would not lock, and her little jewel-box was too small to contain them.

The fireplace in the bedroom had an old-fashioned chimney-piece that was fitted with a loose wooden mantel-board, from which