That evening at seven, as Gertrude had suggested, the dwellers of Apple-Blossom Alley gathered in Adele’s room and Matilda Perkins was with them. Her skirt and sleeves were still skimpy and short but the frightened expression had vanished from her beautiful brown eyes which seemed to mirror her every thought.

“Let’s sit in a circle on the floor,” Adele said as she threw fresh wood on the fire. “It’s heaps cosier, and Bettykins, turn the light low, for the blaze is bright enough.”

“Matilda, you sit in the middle,” Doris Drexel suggested, “because you are to be the story-teller to-night. That is if you will be,” she added, smiling at the new pupil. “You see, we are very eager to hear about your Dakota home.”

For a moment a soft, dreamy expression appeared in the eyes that held such a fascination for Adele. “I love my prairie home,” Matilda said almost wistfully, “but I did want to leave it, for it was my mother’s wish that I should come East and have a good education.”

“What is a prairie like?” Peggy asked as Matilda paused.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” the strange girl replied, turning toward the speaker eyes that fairly glowed. “There’s a wide stretch as far as you can see of waving wheat and corn, golden in the sunlight, with here and there clumps of bright-colored flowers. Blackbirds, with shining, purple-black coats, spring up in a flock when you walk in the corn, and, too, there are meadow-larks and orioles, but that is only in the summer. In the winter there are blizzards that drive fiercely across the plain and the snow piles so high that often I do not leave the house for weeks, except now and then to go to the sod buildings where the chickens and cattle are kept. As soon as they can, the boys dig tunnel-like paths to each outhouse and then they shovel the snow away from the windows so that I can have daylight for my work. It was during those snowed-in weeks that I did most of my studying. I had a queer library of my own, perhaps you will think. It contained very few books, and they were the Bible, ‘Ivanhoe,’ ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ ‘Cranford,’ ‘Little Women,’ ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,’ ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ and the almanac, besides the text-books that were used in the country school. I read them over and over on my long shut-in days and evenings, and then sometimes when the boys were away, I would curl up by the fire and listen to the wind that shook the house and wonder if there would ever be anything different. Then, last winter we had a very exciting adventure in a blizzard, and it brought me great good fortune.”

“Oh, do tell us about it, please!” Adele implored.

Matilda Perkins had often told stories aloud when she was a little girl on the prairie. Sometimes her audience had been only her dog, Shep, or again a row of cornstalks that she pretended were children, but to-night, for the first time in her fifteen years, she was called upon to tell a story to real girls of about her own age. The eager interest plainly seen in the nine pairs of eyes turned toward her swept away the last vestige of her shyness and she told the story as simply and as dramatically as she would have done had she been telling it to Shep or to the cornstalks.

“Winter was half spent,” she said, “and we were beginning to think that perhaps there would not be a long, severe blizzard that year, when one afternoon Brother Basil came in from the sod-house where we kept the smoked meat with a heavy ham over his shoulders.

“‘Thought I’d better lay in a good supply,’ he explained. ‘Looks pretty threatening over toward the west. Shouldn’t wonder if we had a blizzard before night.’

“‘I think you’re a good weather-prophet,’ Brother Cedric said as he threw more twisted straw on the fire. We don’t use wood on the prairie, you know, because there isn’t any wood to use. In the late fall, when there is little farm work to be done, we spend hours twisting straw into hard knots, and this we store away for winter use.

“‘Well,’ I said as cheerfully as I could, ‘if the blizzard is coming, we’ll have to let it. We’ll be snug enough in here. I have heaps of potatoes back of the stove and there’s plenty of twisted straw.’

“Then I asked Cedric to light the lanterns that were hanging from the rafters overhead. Basil sliced the meat and soon I had supper cooking. It was growing colder every minute, and before we had finished, we heard a mournful sound in the distance, which made me shudder, though the room was warm.

“In another moment a blast of wind shook the house, and though it was still late afternoon, it suddenly grew very dark. We heard the cattle bellowing with fright above the shrieking of the oncoming storm. For hours it raged and though we could not see it, we knew that the snow was falling heavily.

“‘Hang a lantern in the window,’ I said to Basil. ‘If any one happens to be out in this storm, he may be able to find his way to our house.’

“Cedric shook his head. ‘If there’s any one out in this blizzard,’ he said, ‘heaven help him, for mere man could not.’

“Now, it was right at this moment that I was sure that I heard a voice calling. ‘What was that?’ I asked, listening intently.

“‘Nothing but the wind,’ Basil replied. There was indeed something almost human about the shrieking of the wind, but I was not satisfied.

“I put my ear to the crack of the door and listened. Then I beckoned to Basil and said, ‘I am sure that I hear some one calling for help.’

“My younger brother was convinced that he, too, heard, and without saying a word, he put on his greatcoat and started for the door.

“Cedric tried to hold him back. ‘This is foolishness!’ he cried. ‘You couldn’t help any one who might be out in this blizzard. Why risk your own life?’

“‘If I were the one out there, I’d want somebody to try to save me,’ was all that my brave brother said. Then he opened the door and went out. Our dog Shep bounded after him. The cutting sleet and wind blew in our faces and we had to push with all our strength to close the door again.

“For a moment Cedric, my older brother, paced up and down the room, and then, with a face sternly set, he whirled about and exclaimed, ‘Sister, I can’t stand by and let Basil risk his life alone. I’m the oldest and the one who should have gone. Dad told me that I was to take his place when he died, so I must go and bring Basil back.’ While he was talking, he put on his slicker and beaver cap, and again the door opened and closed, and I was left alone. I took the other lantern down from the rafters and hung it in the south window. Then I threw more twisted straw on the fire and filled the kettle that there might be plenty of boiling water when the boys came back. Suddenly I was terrorized, for the thought had come to me that perhaps they would never come back.

“Then I happened to glance at our mother’s picture standing on the mantel beside the Bible that she had given to me, and somehow I felt comforted, and I thought:

“‘Surely God will not let my brothers perish when they have gone on an errand of mercy.’

“It seemed hours to me, but it really had not been long, when above the shrieking of the storm I heard the barking of Shep. I ran to the door and opened it wide, caring nothing for the wind and sleet that swept into the room.

“I peered out into the darkness, hoping, fearing. Was the faithful dog coming home alone? No, for I saw a figure, two of them, and they were carrying a third. In another moment they were inside, the seemingly lifeless form had been placed on the lounge and Basil helped me close the door.

“The stranger whom they carried was rather elderly, with iron-grey hair. His eyes were closed and he looked so white that I thought he must be dead, but Cedric and Basil were convinced that this was not so.

“They rubbed his hands and face with snow and I prepared a hot drink to give him as soon as he recovered. At last he opened his eyes and smiled. Such a kindly face he had.

“The boys helped him to Father’s armchair, which always stood near the fire, and I wrapped him in a blanket and gave him the drink.

“When this was finished, he said, ‘Well, little daughter and big sons, you have saved my life and risked your own, than which a man can do nothing nobler.’ Then he told us that he was a bishop and that he had been visiting on the Sioux reservation. He had heard that there was discontent among the tribe and he knew that he could do much toward restoring peace.

“‘My pilgrimage had been a successful one,’ the Bishop ended, ‘but not being familiar with the signs of your sky, I ventured away unwisely.’

“The next day the storm had passed and the prairie was covered with glistening snow.

“When the good Bishop learned that the boys were working hard and saving so that they might send me East to school, the kind man said, ‘Lads, I want to do something to prove my gratitude. Let me do this.’

“And that is why I am here at Linden Hall,” Matilda ended simply.

The girls had been listening with breathless attention. “What an interesting story that was!” Doris Drexel declared. “I am as glad as I can be that you have come to our school.”

The new pupil, knowing that the speaker was sincere, smiled, and there was a happy light in her beautiful brown eyes as she said:

“I want to thank you all for welcoming me so kindly. I know that I must look queer,” she added, glancing down at her old-fashioned dress, “but you see we do not have dressmakers out on the prairie, and I had no mother to help me.”

Adele sprang to her feet as she exclaimed: “Stand up, Matilda. I want to see how tall you are.”

Wonderingly the girl arose and stood by Adele, who said brightly, “Trudie, aren’t we very near of a size?”

“Yes, Della, I think that you are,” her friend replied.

“Good!” the other exclaimed. Then darting to her closet, she brought out her best uniform. “I won’t need to wear this until Sunday, and, let me see, this is Wednesday; Miss Perring, who makes our uniforms, can finish yours by that time. I am going to loan you this, Matilda, and I want you to put it on this very minute before you meet your new roommate, the haughty Geraldine Barrington. She won’t be nice to you, however you look, but at least she cannot say that your dress is not up-to-date, for this is the very newest uniform in the school.”

Matilda was almost overcome with her gratitude, but before she could speak, Adele had dragged her behind a screen and was helping her with the buttons.

A few moments later the other girls were amazed at the transformation that had been wrought, for Adele had also loosened the pretty hair which had been braided so tightly. She stood off and gazed at the new pupil with admiration.

“There now!” she said. “You look just like the rest of us, all except your eyes, and honestly, Matilda, though I don’t want to make you vain, I’ve never met such eyes before in my travels, and I’ve been all the way to Arizona and back. I’ve one thing more to say and that is, that your name does not fit you any better than your dress did. Should you mind if I call you something different?”

Matilda laughed. The shyness of a few hours ago was entirely gone and she laughed as freely and musically as she had done out on her wide prairie, when, with her dog Shep, she had raced through the cornfields.

“Call me whatever you like!” she said.

“Then I am going to name you Starr and spell it with a double-r.”

When the retiring bell rang, Gertrude sprang up, saying, “Come, Starr, I will now introduce you to your roommate.”

“I surely do pity you if you are to room with that Lady Stuckup,” Doris Drexel declared.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Starr replied brightly, “since you girls are kind to me, I shall not care how unkind she may be.”

A truly unpleasant experience awaited this girl from the Dakota prairie.