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

Teddington' in anybody's birthday-book. M might stand for Mary or Martha or Margaret or Millicent or anything. Doesn't even Miss Bowes know?"

"If she does she won't tell. It's a state-secret."

"Well, never mind; we call her Teddie, and that will do."

Many were the ingenious devices which the girls had adopted for trying to find out both Miss Teddington's Christian name and her age. They spoke of historic events that had happened before their parents had been born, fondly hoping she might betray some memory of them and commit herself. But she was not to be caught; she treated all events, however recent or old, from a purely impersonal standpoint, and left them still in the dark as to whether she was an infant in arms at the time or an adult able to enjoy the newspapers. On the subject of names she was indifferent, and would express no opinion on the relative merits of Mary, Martha, Margaret, Millicent, Marion, Muriel, Mona, or Maud.

"It's either plain Mary, or something so fearfully fancy she won't own up to it," decided the girls.

In whatever decade Miss Teddington's birthday placed her, this year she was certainly in the prime of life and energy as concerned the school. Her keen eyes noticed everything, and woe betide the slacker who thought to escape her, and dared bring an unprepared lesson to class. Her sarcasms on such occasions made her victims writhe, though they were apt to be witty enough to amuse the rest of the form. Though, like John Gilpin's wife, she was on pleasure bent to-day, she never for a moment forgot she was in charge, and kept turning to see that everybody was following, and nobody straggling far off in the rear.

It was a three-mile walk from The Woodlands to the snowdrop meadows--first along the high road, with an occasional short cut across a field or through a spinney, then down a deep, narrow lane past a farm, where the sight of a new-born lamb (the first of the season) caused great excitement. Some of the girls, who loved old superstitions, pretended to divine their luck by whether it was standing facing them or otherwise when they first caught a glimpse of it; but, the general verdict deciding that it was exactly sideways, they found it impossible to give any accurate predictions for the future.

"You'd better keep to something vague that can be construed two ways, like the Delphic Oracle or Old Moore's Almanac," laughed Ulyth.

Once past the farm the walk began to grow specially interesting. The deep lane, only intended for use in summer, when carts brought loads of hay from the marsh, was turned by winter rains into the bed of a stream. The girls picked their way at first along the bank, then by jumping from stone to stone, but finally the water grew so deep it was impossible to proceed farther without wading. They had been in the same emergency before, so it did not daunt their enthusiasm. One and all they scaled the high, wide, loosely built wall to their left. Here they could walk as on a terrace, with the flooded lane on one side and on the other the rushing Porth Powys stream, making its hurrying way to join the Craigwen River. It was not at all an easy progress, for the wall was overgrown with hazel bushes and a tangle of brambles, and its unmortared surface had deep holes, into which the unwary might put a foot. For several hundred yards they struggled on, decidedly to the detriment of their clothing, and rather encumbered by their baskets; then at last they reached the particular corner they were seeking, and scrambled down into the meadow.

This field was such a favourite with the girls that they had come to regard it almost as their own property. Miss Teddington had found it out many years ago, and its discovery was always considered a point in her roll of merit. It was an expanse of grassy land, bounded on one side by the Porth Powys stream and on the other by a deep dyke, and leading down over a rushy tract to the reed-grown banks of the river. The view over the many miles of marshland, with the blue mountains rising up behind and the silvery gleam of the river, was superb. The brown, quivering, feathery reeds made a glorious foreground for the amber and vivid green of the banks farther on; and the gorgeous sky effects of rolling clouds, glinting sun, and patches of bluest heaven were like the beginning of one of St. John's visions.

Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a wider flower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass, so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. The girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to work to pick in hot haste.

"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there if one hunts about, and I brought my stick."

Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty scrambled down to the water's edge. For those who preferred quality to quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was undoubtedly the place to come. In pockets of fine river-sand, their roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of the snowdrops. Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles; but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?

"Look at these. The stalks must be nine inches long, and the flower's nearly as big as a Lent lily," exulted Ulyth. "I shall send them to Mother, with some hazel catkins and some lovely moss."

"Everybody will be sending away boxes to-night," said Addie. "The postman will have a load."

"What's that?" cried Lizzie, for a