CHAPTER VI. THE WRECK OF THE GREYCLIFF.

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Betty and Cathalina strolled away together from the senior-freshman party, and Betty asked if Cathalina thought it possible to have a short meeting after dinner to consider whether they wanted to be a “Psyche Club” or not.

“I have to study like everything tonight,” said Cathalina. “Just think,—I didn’t do a thing last night on account of the Shakespeare Society, and I spent lots of time that I couldn’t spare on the invitations. I’m not ahead on anything, not even French, and I have to keep ahead to get along!”

“‘Keep ahead’ to ‘get along’? Our little Chinese girl would wonder what that meant, I guess.”

“Very likely. Isn’t she a dear? We must take her into the literary society. It will help her to get the English. Well, as I was saying,—O, yes I did get out a Latin lesson with one of the girls in Patty’s Caesar class, right after class Friday afternoon. So much has happened that I had forgotten it. It wasn’t very long and we had part of the first book in the back of the beginning Latin book last year. I looked up the words we didn’t know, in the vocabulary, and she kept the place in the notes, and we finished it in a little while, read it through twice. I love to work for Patty!”

“What do you think, then? Can you spare a little time before study hours? You oughtn’t to go right to work after dinner. It’s bad for your digestion anyhow, and so lovely out of doors!” So Betty enticed her chum. “Let’s go ’way up in the grove, all by our ’lonies.”

“All right. You tell the other girls, and I’ll get my French book after dinner and read over the lesson in between times out in the grove.”

“I’ll bet you don’t look at it,” said Betty, as she scampered off to speak to a few of the girls before dinner and tell them to pass the word around. No time was lost, and soon after the girls came pouring out of the dining room, the ten girls who were forming the little society or circle were back among the whispering pines, birches, oaks and elms of Greycliff’s woods.

They all liked Betty’s idea of the “soul, love, faith, effort” foundation, and the “nothing less than Olympus” or “nothing below Olympus” or something of the sort for a motto. “Cathalina, since you are to see to the pins, suppose you consult Patty or Dr. Norris and get something short either in English or Latin that could be engraved on our pins.”

Cathalina came back with a start, having wandered away into her French story while Betty was telling the girls the details which she had explained to Cathalina when the idea first struck her. Eloise repeated her suggestion and Cathalina consented to be a committee on pin, name, and motto. “‘Psyche Club’ is all right,” continued Eloise, “but we might think of some other way to put it.”

“The girls will be sure,” said Lilian, “to make remarks about our ‘beauty club,’ because Psyche was so beautiful, you know, that even Venus was jealous of her.”

“We needn’t care,” said Isabel, “what I’m so crazy about is the butterfly pin!”

“The motto can go on the back of it, can’t it?” asked Avalon.

“O, yes,” said Cathalina, “with the name and date. I think we ought to have ‘Greycliff,’ too.”

“You can’t have all that on a pin unless you get a big one.”

“Maybe not. Which would you rather leave off?”

“The motto. We ought to have our names and ‘Greycliff,’ whatever else we leave off.”

“All right. I’ll get designs from New York, and if they don’t suit us we’ll make our own design. Lilian, you call the meeting to order. We have a reason, Eloise.” This was to explain why Eloise was not called upon as before. Lilian took the chair, figuratively speaking, for she sat on her bright sweater which was spread over a carpet of pine needles, Eloise was made president, “by acclamation”; Juliet, vice-president; Pauline, secretary. Cathalina, because of the pin proposition, was elected treasurer.

“Besides,” said Isabel, who nominated Cathalina, “it wouldn’t do to have all the officers in the same suite. They might abscond with the whole society.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Helen. “Of course, it is a blow to have all my suite-mates officers, but I’ll try to stand it.”

As all the girls were in the same predicament as regards lessons, the meeting was a short one, and long before the study bell rang they started back to the Hall. Isabel and Avalon had hurried away first. Eloise and Helen had just disappeared within the big doors at the side entrance. Juliet and Pauline were strolling in advance of the other girls when suddenly Juliet turned and waved. “Bright idea!” she exclaimed.

The other girls hurried up. “Pauline and I were just thinking that all this lovely September weather ought not to be wasted in little tramps or beach parties. Why not have a regular Greycliff picnic to the Island?”

“Sure enough!” assented Hilary. “Why not, indeed? When would you have it?”

“Next Saturday. School began earlier than usual this year. It goes that way sometimes, you know, and it isn’t likely to get cold, not until next month anyhow.”

“O, we’ll have picnic days in October,” said Cathalina.

“I’m not so sure about the lake, though,” suggested Betty.

“Let’s hurry up a picnic, then,—a class picnic?” queried Hilary.

“Yes, that would be best, I think,” said Juliet. “If you go outside the class it gets mixed up. We might have a literary society picnic, though,—what do you think?”

“O, let’s have a senior academy picnic,” said Pauline. “We are used to working up class picnics together. Let’s ask right away for the Greycliff for next Saturday, and get Patty and Dr. Norris to chaperone us.”

“How painful that would be for them,” laughed Betty. “Miss Randolph might think they needed chaperoning themselves, though.”

“Our crowd would be chaperones enough for them. He scarcely looks at Patty before the girls, and she has the most polite manner you ever saw.”

“She is always polite to everybody.”

“Well, distant or formal, then.”

“It’s a fine idea, Pauline,” said Lilian, “will you see Miss Randolph about the boat and the chaperones? We’ll call a class meeting for Monday and appoint a committee for the eats, pardon me, the food, banquet, viands and victuals!”

After a Sabbath of much needed rest from lessons and parties, the week fairly flew. It seemed no time till Saturday and the picnic were at hand. There were clouds, but it was warm and the sun peeped through occasionally as the girls brought various articles for the lunch and Mickey packed in the usual equipment for picnics. “Feels like rain to me,” said he, “everybody got a raincoat?” Everybody had, and the Greycliff started with its happy, singing load of senior girls.

Helen, whom the girls sometimes called “Dixie,” had arranged a Greycliff song to that famous Southern tune and the girls started that as a beginning:

“O, Greycliff seniors strong are we,
A giddy, happy company,
Come away,
Come away,
Come away, Greycliff Girls!
Where the surf beats high we swim and dive,
We keep the other schools alive,
Come away,
Come away,
Come away, Greycliff Girls!
O, we love to be at Greycliff,
Hooray!
Hooray!
At Greycliff School
The seniors rule
And work and root for Greycliff!
Away!
Away!
Away to school at Greycliff!”

Next came a song that they used at the competitive games. “Come on, girls,” cried Dorothy Appleton, waving an imaginary baton, “let’s have ‘Greycliff has captured the score’!” In this the words named the tune.

“O, dear, what can the matter be?
Dear, dear, what can the matter be?
O, dear, what can the matter be?
Greycliff has captured the score!
It’s no use to try, for you know you can’t beat us,
No matter how hard you may work to defeat us,
Come on when you will, we invite you to meet us,
And Greycliff will capture the score!”

In the midst of so much fun and singing the girls had scarcely noticed how dark it was getting, nor had they seen the worried looks of Dr. Norris, Mickey and his new assistant, a wiry young fellow known as Jack. Patricia West was very quiet, not joining in the songs. “I don’t like the looks of that sky, Mr. Norris,” said Jack. “It looks squally to me.”

The wind began to come up and the lake grew rough at once. Spray began to sprinkle the girls who sat in the prow.

“We’re not far from the Island, girls,” called Dr. Norris, smiling to encourage the girls, and talking through the little megaphone till he had the attention of all. “And we may make it before the storm, but if it gets pretty rough, keep your heads, and I am going to hand around the life preservers now. Then we shall feel safe.”

Mickey and Jack were beginning to have their hands full in steering and watching the engine. Some of the girls looked a little frightened, but accepted their life preservers and put them on, throwing off their sweaters first, then tying them on outside and drawing their raincoats around them to protect them from the rain which by his time was pouring and beating down. Up and down tossed the boat. The waves were growing bigger and bigger. A few girls in front were thoroughly drenched by two or three curving waves which came over them when Mickey tacked to get on the leeward side of the Island, where they might land more easily, he hoped. There the approach was more shallow, the sand extended farther out, though the dock was not so large as the one at which they more often landed.

The rain was coming in such sheets that the girls could scarcely see each other. Occasionally some wave pounded upon the Greycliff with such force that it threatened to engulf her at once. A few girls would shriek a little, but Dr. Norris continued to talk encouragingly, telling them to keep their seats, to take off their shoes, ready to swim and to try to reach the rope if Jack were successful in getting it to the dock. Jack was standing with the rope in his hands ready to jump to the dock as soon as they reached it. They had already felt a slight diminution in the force of the wind as they drew near the hoped for side of the Island, yet the waves were a dangerous foe.

Then it happened, all in a moment it seemed. The engine, which had worked so hard for them against the wind and waves that beat upon the Greycliff till it quivered, broke. At the same time the steering wheel turned, useless, with connections torn apart. Mickey jumped up in despair. Jack lost the rope as the little Greycliff was whirled around, but as it fell and Jack was tossed out of the boat, Juliet, who had risen, with her arm around one of the supports, caught it and with her practiced hand, threw it through wind and rain to the dock where providentially it caught around a tall post, the one at which Juliet, half blinded by the spray, had aimed it. Not for nothing had Juliet been Polly’s shadow and learned to throw a lariat. But little did the rope avail to hold the Greycliff. The girls found themselves in the water, held up by the life preservers, it is true, but tossed and beaten upon by the heavy waves, scarcely able to get a breath, and only dimly sensing in which direction lay the shore.

As Dr. Norris felt the boat whirl, he had called to the girls to jump, and a few heard him. Now, as he held firmly to Patty, whom he had caught up as he jumped, he groaned as he thought some of the girls might have been caught in the boat as she went over. The Greycliff, however, at first went over on her side, straining at the rope, to which immediately a number of the girls were clinging. Dr. Norris in a few moments felt the sand under his feet, struggled with Patty to the land, and while she was still choking and clearing her throat and lungs of the lake water, he told her to get up out of the reach of the waves and count the girls as he and Mickey brought them in. “And pray, Patty, that we may find every one!”

Jack was nowhere to be seen, but Mickey was already helping some of the girls who were trying to reach the rope, as Dr. Norris threw himself into the water where he saw some bobbing heads drifting out instead of in.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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