FIRST CALL FOR ACTION

“Oh, girls, Crullers can’t come.”

Sue Warner ran down the flight of stone steps that led from the side entrance at Calvert Hall to the garden, her face full of perplexity. Waiting for her were three of the girls, Isabel Lee, Ruth Brooks, and Edwina, or rather, “Ted” Moore.

“But why?” demanded Ted. “Is she behind on classes? I’ll help her out to-morrow, tell her. She must go. Polly said so.”

“But she can’t, Ted, don’t you understand? She would if she could. Why, her face looked as if she’d swallowed a lot of tacks when I passed her just now. Miss Murray was with her.”

“That accounts for said tacks,” Ruth put in, gravely. “Bonnie Jean has very likely hurt Crullers’ feelings.”

Sue laughed, as she gathered up a pile of books from the old Roman seat at the turn of the path, and led the way out of the garden.

“Perhaps this time it’s Crullers who has hurt Bonnie Jean’s feelings. Crullers stumbles over other people’s feelings the same as she does over stools or steps or anything. Where’s Polly? Why didn’t she wait for us?”

“The Admiral drove by, and called her to ride home with him,” Ruth explained. “Oh, girls, isn’t it getting pretty and summery? Look—the vines on the old stone wall are leafing out.”

“Polly said four sharp. No time for landscape gazing.”

“Ted, you never see what’s happening right under your nose.”

“Can’t when you carry a perpetual spy-glass on coming events,” laughed Ted, with a gay toss of her head.

“Since Ted went into psychics last fall, she hasn’t touched real ground to speak of.”

“And a good thing too,” protested Ted, shaking her head at them. “If Polly and I did not keep a level outlook on the business side of things, where would the club be? As secretary I’ve had my spy-glass leveled all winter at the coming summer. Polly and I figured and studied over the whole plan while you girls were noticing old vines on stone walls, and ‘sech like,’ as Aunty Welcome says. Now, wait till you hear what she has to say.”

Down the beautiful old street they started. It was the end of April, and never did Queen’s Ferry show to such advantage as when springtime scattered blossoms everywhere. The horse-chestnut trees were showing feathery plumes of gold and white. Over gray garden walls catalpas lifted masses of bloom, and fruit trees stood in orchards like brides in their snowy loveliness. The air was heavy with fragrance of white lilac and cherry blossoms.

It was Friday. Only Calvert Hall girls knew just what that stood for in the calendar of events. It was the one day when discipline relaxed, when books and lessons went into desks, when Miss Calvert herself partook of the general relaxation, put aside her gown of stiff gray silk, and, garbed in white lawn, with a black lace shawl draped about her slender shoulders, went out into the garden with a book of poetry.

Strangely enough, the girls could always tell just how the week had affected her nerves, by her choice of books on Friday night.

“It’s Tennyson to-day, girls,” Sue had told the rest, when she came through the garden after seeking Crullers. “Spring calls to the Lady Honoria. She’s reading ‘The Princess’ with a bunch of red and yellow tulips on her lap.”

“Just as sure a sign of summer as ripening buds,” Isabel had added, happily. “All through the winter, don’t you remember, girls, she read Whittier and Milton, and now she’s put all the old chilly poets back into the library, and has her own small, handy volumes of Browning and Burns and even Whitman. She says she likes the poetry in springtime that makes you think of freshly turned earth and upspringing buds.”

“What a good old darling she is,” Ruth said in her serious, grandmotherly way. “I found her this morning standing before the old painting in the hall, and I’m sure there were tears in her eyes, girls.”

The girls were silent. The Calvert spirit towards its principal was very peculiar. The girls loved and honored her, but mingled with both sentiments was a curiously protective feeling too. The story of Calvert had passed into the realm of romantic tradition with its students, and they held it sacred. Every new girl was taken apart by Polly and Ruth and solemnly initiated into it. They were told how Honoria and her younger sister had been left well-nigh penniless at the death of their father, old Orrin Calvert, thirty years before. They had been brought up in seclusion, and fed on all the old traditions of Queen’s Ferry as it had been from the days that followed on the Jamestown settlement. The main teaching they had received was that no Calvert should work for a living. But after the old gentleman’s passing, and a long talk with the family lawyer from Richmond, Miss Honoria had felt tradition and sentiment slip from her like a worn-out garment.

All that was left of the old estate, when her father’s obligations were canceled, was Calvert Hall; and the excellent education both young women possessed was their sole capital. Yet the two had faced the issue contentedly and courageously, like other Dixie girls of the newer generation, and had turned the old Hall into a home school for young girls.

Later Miss Diantha, the younger sister, had married. She lived in the West, but the Hall remained the same, a landmark at Queen’s Ferry.

Sometimes it seemed to the girls in the great, somber stone house, as though the tender spirit and influence of Diantha still lived there, and made her stately sister more tolerant in dealing with the merry, youthful natures over which she ruled.

At the foot of the broad oaken staircase, was a full-length oil painting of the sisters, when they were girls. Quaint, old-fashioned portraits they were, too, with Honoria in white mulle with pink rosebuds, and Diantha in white mulle with forget-me-nots scattered over its flounces. Honoria’s chin was up, and she looked right ahead, just as calmly and as serenely as she did to-day in the classroom. But Diantha’s head was half averted, and she was smiling shyly, and the little rows of short up-and-down curls around her head seemed ready to bob and tremble at any moment with a laugh.

“Do you know, girls,” Polly would say, after a fresh inspection of the painting, “I think the old darling hung it there so that all her girls would try to pattern themselves after it. I only wish we could.”

Polly’s own home, “Glenwood,” was about half an hour’s walk from the Hall, down along the river bank. As they drew near, they caught sight of Polly herself, watching for them from the veranda railing, with old Tan, the Gordon setter, beside her.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” she exclaimed, running to meet them; “I was afraid something had happened, and you know we’re going to have a feast.”

“That’s the very first thing Polly thinks of—something good to eat,” laughed Ruth, dropping down into the nearest garden chair.

“So do all good generals,” retorted Polly, calmly. “It makes people friendly to eat and enjoy the same kind of food at the same time.”

“Bread and salt in the Arab’s tent, Polly?” queried Ted.

“Yes, only this time——um-m-m. I promised not to tell. The bread and salt gave out, so we have other supplies.” She laughed, and counted heads. “Where’s Crullers?”

“Unavoidably detained,” Sue replied. “Now, it’s no use asking why, Polly. None of us can even guess. Crullers never would miss a good chance at a feast, you know, unless there was a vital reason for her absence. And she wouldn’t tell. I hunted everywhere for her, and finally caught her just coming out of the upper recitation room with Miss Murray.”

“Bonnie Jean?” Polly’s forehead puckered doubtfully. “What has Crullers been doing?”

“I think she’s broken her parole,” Isabel said.

“What parole? We didn’t know she was on parole.”

“I did,” Polly added, quickly. “Wait till we get settled down in the arbor, and I’ll tell you about it. That’s just about what has happened if she has Miss Murray on her trail.”

She led the way around the broad veranda, down the short flight of steps that led to the garden, and out to the arbor that stood on the terrace. Every one who loved Polly knew her garden, and the old arbor. It overlooked the river, and faced the sunset, and was thickly covered with rose vines. They were just leafing out now. The seats that encircled it were Polly’s private invention. Beneath them were lockers, in boat fashion, for cushions, books, hammocks, and all kinds of things which Polly found necessary to comfort or happiness when she took possession of the arbor.

“Let’s put up a couple of hammocks, girls,” she said. “Sue, you and Ted might do that, and Ruth and Isabel can set the table. I’m going to pick over strawberries while we talk. Aren’t they beauties? Stoney just got them for me out of the garden.”

The girls gathered around the rustic table for a peep at the generous-sized basket filled with red fruit, piled high in a nest of green leaves.

“Oh, let’s eat them that way, Polly,” Isabel cried. “They look so tempting and pretty.”

“Can’t,” said Polly, briefly. “Against orders. These are to be hulled, mashed, and sweetened.”

“Now, we know,” exclaimed Ted. “Short—”

“No fair telling.”

“But only think how poor Crullers would have loved a piece of it!”

“We’ll send her some. Yes, and girls,”—here Polly’s brown eyes twinkled with the merry glint of mischief,—“we’ll send Miss Murray a nice share too. To-night. I’ll take it to the Hall and find out what’s the matter with Crullers. Did we ever desert a comrade in distress?”

“Never,” came back the swift and hearty chorus, just as Stoney came down the walk from the kitchen garden.