The Leader of the Lower School/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
American Fudge
The events narrated in the last chapter had made an epoch in Briarcroft history. Henceforward the Lower School meant to manage its own affairs, and it set to work at once to settle things upon a firm basis. Needless to say, Gipsy was the heroine of the hour. Except for a half-dozen who envied her popularity, the girls recognized that the revolution was entirely owed to her suggestion, and they were ready to acknowledge her as their leader. She took her honours modestly. Having accomplished what she had aimed at, she was quite ready to retire from the position of dictator until some other good cause needed a champion. After several meetings and much discussion, the Juniors decided that instead of founding a number of separate societies for photography, athletics, acting, &c., they would institute one united Guild, which should include all the various forms of school activity, to be covered by one subscription, payable each term.
"It will be far better than dividing things up," said Hetty Hancock, "because sometimes we want to spend more on one thing than on another, and it's awkward to have to vote the funds of the Photographic Society over to the Dramatic, or vice versa. I think we should manage all right this way. We must elect a Committee, of course, and officers. For President, I beg to nominate Gipsy Latimer. She deserves it."
"Yes! Gipsy! Gipsy!" agreed the girls.
But Gipsy shook her head, and like Oliver Cromwell waved away the tempting offer of a crown.
"No," she said firmly; "I've only been a fortnight in the school, and I don't feel up to the post. Better choose someone as President who understands Briarcroft ways better than I do. I suggest Dilys Fenton. She's the oldest girl in the Upper Fourth, and from what I hear she's been here one of the longest. I'll serve on the Committee, if you like, and be of any use I can, but you want an old-established Briarcroft-ite as President. I don't know any of your arrangements yet about cricket or tennis, and I should always be making mistakes."
The wisdom of Gipsy's remarks appealed to the girls. It was certainly more suitable to choose as President somebody who understood the school ways. They appreciated the motive of her refusal, however; and her generosity in thus standing aside made her, if anything, more popular than before. They insisted upon electing her to the post of Secretary.
"You can keep the accounts, and read aloud the minutes of the meetings, and all those sorts of business things better than anybody," declared Hetty.
"If I don't happen to forget which country I'm in, and add things up as cents and dollars, instead of pence and shillings!" laughed Gipsy.
"We'll soon pull you up if you do, never fear!"
Now that her crusade was successfully accomplished, Gipsy settled down to enjoy life at Briarcroft as well as the limited circumstances permitted. She had already made several warm friends among both the boarders and the day girls. Meg Gordon in particular was inclined to accord her that species of hero worship often indulged in by schoolgirls. She brought offerings of late roses or autumn violets from home, and followed her idol about the school like a love-sick swain. She would sit gazing at Gipsy during classes in deepest admiration, and was ready to accept her every idea as gospel. Meg was rather a curious, abrupt girl in many ways, and though she had been a year at Briarcroft, had hitherto kept very much to herself. Her sudden and violent devotion to the newcomer caused no little amusement in the Form. She was promptly nicknamed "Gipsy's disciple", and subjected to a certain amount of teasing on the score of her attachment.
"You agree with every single thing Gipsy says," laughed Norah Bell. "I believe if she declared the trees were pink and the houses green, you'd uphold her!"
"Do you wear her portrait over your heart?" enquired Daisy Scatcherd facetiously.
"It was a very bad snapshot you got of her," remarked Ethel Newton.
"It certainly didn't do her justice," returned Meg, taking the matter quite seriously. "I'm going to have a new camera for my birthday, then I'll try again. But no snapshot could make Gipsy look as sweet as she really does."
"Not to your love-lorn eyes!" giggled the girls.
"Meg's a perfect joke at present," said Ethel Newton to Daisy Scatcherd. "She copies Gipsy slavishly, even to doing her hair the same, and those two big bows of ribbon don't suit her in the least, however nice they look on Gipsy."
"And yet she's rather like Gipsy, just like enough to be a kind of pale copy—an understudy, in fact."
"You've hit it! Understudy's the very word. She's absolutely forming herself on Gipsy."
Curiously enough, Meg Gordon really bore rather a marked physical resemblance to the object of her worship. She was slim, and dark, and about the same height, and though she lacked Gipsy's vivacity of expression, a stranger might quite possibly have mistaken the one girl for the other. It was perhaps just as well that Gipsy had one such devoted ally, for there were a few malcontents in the Form who were not at all ready to accept her with enthusiasm. Maude Helm had taken a dislike to her from the first, and had allowed her prejudice not only to blind her to Gipsy's good points, but to cause her to try to influence others in her disfavour. It is rarely that anybody succeeds in doing a public service without making any enemies, and Gipsy was no exception to the rule. According to Maude's code, she had violated every tradition of school etiquette by pushing herself, a newcomer, into a position of prominence; and that she had conferred a real benefit upon the Lower School by her championship went for nothing.
"It's sickening, the way everybody truckles to her," declared Maude to a few of her particular chums. "I vote we stick out, at any rate, and don't let her have everything her own way. We don't want the school Americanized to suit her fancy."
"No; Miss Yankee will have to find out we're not all ready to lick her boots!" grumbled Alice O'Connor.
"Glad she wasn't chosen President of the Guild, at any rate," remarked Gladys Merriman. "If she puts up for anything else I shall oppose her. There are other people in this Form quite as capable of taking the lead as she is, if they only got the chance."
"Yourself not excepted, I suppose!" snapped Mary Parsons, who happened to overhear. "You forget Gipsy refused the Presidency voluntarily."
"Clever enough to see it would pay her best!" sneered Gladys. "She evidently knows how to get round the Form."
"Gladys! How mean you are! Well, you can't do Gipsy much harm by your nastiness, that's one comfort."
"It only makes me like her all the more," broke out Joyce Adamson, who had strolled up to take Mary's arm.
"All the same," said Mary to Joyce, as they walked away, "I believe those three would do Gipsy a bad turn if they got the chance."
"But could they?"
"Easy enough. Gipsy's anything but a favourite with the monitresses after this Guild business, and they'd be only too delighted to drop on her if they found a reasonable excuse."
"So they would, and Gipsy's hardly what you call a bread-and-butter Miss!"
"I should rather think not! She's ready for any amount of fun. She's bound to come into collision with Helen Roper sooner or later. I shall give her a hint that she'd better look out."
Gipsy was getting along famously in the Upper Fourth. Though some of the work was rather different from what she had been accustomed to in her former schools, she was a bright girl, and managed to fill up her deficiencies with tolerable ease. In one or two subjects she was actually ahead of her Form, and in all practical matters she had a mine of past experience to draw upon. She approved of her Form mistress, Miss White, adored the Swedish drill mistress, tolerated the German governess, and detested the French master. For Miss Edith she was disposed to reserve a very warm place in her heart, but she frankly disliked Miss Poppleton.
"There are headmistresses and headmistresses," she said. "Of course one expects them to stand on a pillar above the common herd, but some of them condescend to peep down below. Now Poppie doesn't. I'd as soon think of going to the man in the moon, and telling him I felt homesick or headachy or worried about anything, as I should to her. Much she'd care! She'd tell me not to report myself till I was sent for! Now at Dorcas City Miss Judkins was just a dear! We all went and told her our woes, and she comforted us up like a mother. We might go errands, too, if we asked leave first, and we made Fudge on the play-room stove about three times a week."
"You're always talking about Fudge!" giggled the boarders in whom these confidences were reposed.
"So'd you be if you'd once tasted it, I guess. It was real mean of Poppie not to let me buy that pan. We used to have good times candy making when I was out West," said Gipsy, relapsing into Americanisms at the remembrance of past delights in the States.
"Wish you could make some here, Yankee Doodle! I haven't had even a chocolate drop for three days," declared Lennie Chapman.
"Poppie never said I mightn't borrow a pan," returned Gipsy reflectively. "It would be a pity for you not to see Fudge made. I call it neglect of your education. I believe it's my solemn duty to try and teach you," and her eyes twinkled.
"A duty's a duty," urged Lennie with a disinterested air.
"It's a cruel rule that we may only buy sweets once a week," remarked Dilys Fenton.
"More honoured in the breach than in the observance," added Hetty Hancock.
"I'm not going to break any rules," said Gipsy. "There's no law against borrowing, at least none that I've heard of. It's a good motto to do what you want until you're told not to. Ta ta! I'm off on a foraging expedition. Expect me back when you see me. I'm going to put my powers of persuasion to the test."
"You mad thing! Don't get into too big a scrape; Poppie can make herself nasty!" called Hetty.
"Don't worry yourself! I'll keep carefully out of Poppie's clutches," returned Gipsy, as she banged the door of the Juniors' sitting-room.
"She'll get into a row with Poppie yet, though," said Dilys; "she's far too free and easy for this school. Did you see how Poppie glared at her this morning in maths.?"
"Yes, but Gipsy didn't mind. She takes Poppie very lightly."
"She'll go too far some day," returned Dilys.
How Gipsy managed to wheedle the cook nobody ever discovered, but she returned in a short time triumphantly carrying a tray.
"Got all I wanted!" she announced. "A pan, and milk, and sugar, and even a bottle of vanilla. Can't you clear a place on the table? The thing's heavy."
A number of willing hands swept away books, needlework, and other impedimenta. It was evening recreation hour, so nearly all the Junior boarders were collected in the room. They viewed the interesting preparations with pleased anticipation.
"There!" said Gipsy, putting her burden down with a slam. "I reckon if any of you care to learn how to make American Fudge, now's your chance! Positively the last opportunity! By the by, 'reckon' is one of the words Poppie said I'd got to avoid, but it slipped out. I'll be more careful next time."
"Does Poppie know you've got these things?" squeaked Aggie Jones, a ten-year-old from the First Form.
"She's a trump if she let you!" echoed Pamela Harvey, of the Lower Second.
"You kids mind your own business!" said Hetty Hancock hastily.
"Poppie never said I mightn't have them, which amounts to the same thing," replied Gipsy calmly. "She hasn't given me a list of school rules, so I can't break them till I know what they are, can I? There's a law in most countries that a dog's allowed a first bite free. Well, this is going to be my first bite. Do you want to join this cookery demonstration, or not?"
"Rather!" said Lennie Chapman, "if you'll take the responsibility."
"And let us taste some of it afterwards!" added Daisy Scatcherd.
"I'd never be so mean as to eat it all myself. I'll share it round evenly to the last crumb. Now, if you want to help, you may measure out three cupfuls of sugar, and three-quarters of a cupful of milk. Now this tablespoonful of butter. Yes, that's all, thanks. Somebody pull that fender away, please; I want to get to the fire."
Stolen waters are sweet, and schoolgirl nature is the same the whole world over. The Junior boarders all had more than a suspicion that Gipsy's cookery was unauthorized, but who could resist the attractions of toffee making?
"I hope it's a sort that goes cold quickly, and won't take till next morning to harden," said Dilys Fenton. "Last 5th of November I think we didn't boil ours quite long enough, and we really couldn't wait, so we ate it soft."
"You boil this till it threads from the spoon, and then you beat it with a fork till it creams," murmured Gipsy, with her head over the pan.
"Let me stir!" begged Pamela Harvey.
"You mustn't stir it. That's the secret of good Fudge-making, not to stir at all while it's boiling. It makes it coarse-grained if you do."
"Won't it burn, though?"
"It doesn't out in U.S.A. But then we make it on stoves, you see. I can't guarantee it on an open fire. By good rights it ought to have pieces of hickory nut in it, but it won't taste bad without."
"I'd call that fire fierce for ordinary toffee," commented Lennie Chapman.
"I'm sure I smell something," sniffed Dilys Fenton.
"Oh, it's burning!"
"Gipsy! Stir it!"
"It's boiling over!"
"Take it off, quick!"
Half a dozen eager hands snatched at the pan, but it was too late; the sugary compound rose like a volcano and overflowed into the fire. A wail of lament came from the disappointed girls.
"I knew it would!" protested Lennie.
"Oh, it's made an awful smell! Open the window, somebody!" shrieked Gipsy. "If we don't mind, Poppie'll nose it out, and come poking up. Oh! Good gracious!"
Gipsy might well exclaim, for there, just behind them, stood Miss Poppleton herself. She had been walking along the passage, and attracted by the smell of burning, she had opened the door quietly to ascertain the cause. There was a moment of awful silence. Eleven sinners felt themselves most horribly caught.
"Who brought these things here?" demanded Miss Poppleton, eyeing the tray and its paraphernalia.
"I did. I got them from the kitchen," answered Gipsy. "We always made Fudge in the schoolroom in Dorcas City," she added, with a spice of defiance in her voice.
"You won't here!" returned Miss Poppleton grimly. "Take those things back to the kitchen at once. You will stay in from hockey to-morrow, and learn a page of French poetry. Each of you others" (glaring at the crestfallen circle) "will copy fifty lines of Paradise Lost, and bring them to me before Thursday. If you can't be trusted, I shall have to send one of the Seniors to sit with you in the evenings."
With this awful threat she departed, having first seen the exit of Gipsy with the tray.
"I knew Gipsy was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later," groaned Dilys.
"And we're in too, worse luck!" wailed Daisy Scatcherd. "Fifty lines is no joke!"
"It's ironical of her to choose Paradise Lost when the Fudge had just boiled over!" said Hetty. "She doesn't like Gipsy, it's easy enough to see that."
"Here's Gipsy back. Well, my child, what do you think of your 'first bite', as you call it? Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"
"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much love lost between Poppie and me."