CHAPTER V A NEW SCHOOL

“I am so glad,” said Patty, as they sat at breakfast Monday morning, “that Lorraine Hamilton goes to the Oliphant school. It’s so much nicer to have somebody to go with than to go alone among a lot of strange girls.”

“You’ll soon get acquainted,” said her father, “and you’ll probably grow to love your school so much that you’ll be restless and impatient during the hours you will have to spend at home.”

This was a great joke, for Patty’s aversion to school and lessons was well known.

“Indeed I won’t,” she exclaimed; “I just hate school, and always shall. Of course I want to learn things, but I’d rather sit at home and read them myself, out of books.”

“It does seem too bad,” said her father, “that you can’t have your own way in this matter; but you just can’t. Your cruel tyrant of a parent ordains that you must go to school for a year at least; but if you study hard and learn a lot during that year, perhaps next year he’ll let you stay at home.”

“Well,” said Patty, resignedly, “I’ll go this year then, because I don’t see as I can help myself; and I’ll just study and cram all the time, so I won’t have to go next year.”

“I wish you were more studious, Patty,” said Grandma.

“I wish so, too, Grandma,” said Patty, “but I’m not, and never will be. So you’ll have to take me just as I am, and make the best of me.”

The school was only three blocks away, and Patty and Lorraine started off together. It was not a very cheerful walk, for Lorraine wore her usual air of glum despondency, and Patty felt so far from gay herself that she didn’t even try to cheer up her companion.

The school term had opened a week before, but Mr. Fairfield had arranged with Miss Oliphant for Patty to go right to her classes immediately upon her arrival.

Patty had never seen the school or the teachers, and Lorraine’s account of them had not sounded at all attractive.

“Let me sit by you, Lorraine, mayn’t I?” Patty said, as they neared the school.

“Yes, indeed,” said Lorraine; “I’ll be glad to have you. Nobody ever wants to sit by me. Perhaps we can’t be together in all our classes, but the opening exercises are held in the big assembly-room, and we can sit together there.”

“All right,” said Patty, who somehow had an unaccountable feeling of loneliness at thought of the strange school. She knew she was foolish, and she tried hard to overcome it, yet she couldn’t help wishing herself back in Vernondale.

The Oliphant school was a large and handsome building, well equipped after the most modern fashion. Miss Oliphant herself received Patty, and welcomed her politely, though without cordiality. Indeed, it would have been difficult to imagine Miss Oliphant showing cordiality. She was a most dignified and important-looking personage. She held her head very high, and her cold grey eyes seemed to look right through Patty and read her very thoughts. But if Miss Oliphant did observe Patty’s dejection, she certainly made no effort to allay it.

“I am glad to see you,” she said, but her formal handshake and conventional smile did not seem to corroborate her words. “You will take your place with the rest in the assembly-room, and after the opening exercises of the morning you will be assigned to your classes.”

This was followed by a gesture of dismissal, but Patty paused long enough to ask: “May I sit next to Lorraine Hamilton?”

An expression of surprise passed over Miss Oliphant’s face, but she only said, “Certainly, if you wish to,” and then Patty rejoined Lorraine in the hall, and together they went to the assembly-room.

As it was already time for school to open, Patty had no opportunity to be introduced to any of her fellow-pupils. She looked at them, however, with a good deal of interest, and decided that notwithstanding Lorraine’s opinion of them they looked like very nice girls. Two or three in particular she picked out as looking interesting, and one dark-eyed, merry-faced girl she felt sure would be especially friendly. She even smiled pleasantly at this girl, but to her surprise her smile was not cordially returned. The girl acknowledged it by a mere nod, and looked away. Patty felt a little embarrassed, and concluded that city girls were horrid, stuck-up things, and she longed for her merry companions at the Vernondale school. Several times she found herself gazing intently at one or another of the pupils, but invariably her look was returned by a cold stare, or ignored entirely.

“I’m perfectly silly to think anything about it,” thought Patty to herself; “it’s just their way of not recognising anybody until they’ve been formally introduced. They’ll be all right after I’ve really met them. I’ve never been foolishly sensitive before, and I’m not going to begin now.”

So Patty bravely put out of her mind all thoughts of the girls’ apparent attitude toward her, and turned her attention to her school duties. She was glad to find that in most of her studies she was in the class with Lorraine, and consequently was able to sit by her all through the morning.

The Oliphant school was attended by both boarding pupils and day pupils, and at noon a hot luncheon was served for all. After the morning lessons were over the girls gathered in groups, chatting gaily while they awaited the summons to the dining-room.

Patty supposed, of course, that at this time Lorraine would introduce her to the girls, but she was disappointed. The two stood together alone, and Lorraine made no suggestion of joining any of the others. Neither did she exert herself to entertain Patty, but stood morose and glum, looking out of a window.

Annoyed by what she chose to consider Lorraine’s rudeness, Patty determined to make her own way, and walking across the room to where the pleasant-faced girl was standing, she said:

“I’m a new pupil, and I feel very lonely; mayn’t I join this group and begin to get acquainted? My name is Patty Fairfield.”

“Mine is Clementine Morse,” said the girl she addressed, “and this is Maude Carleton, and this is Adelaide Hart.”

The girls nodded as their names were mentioned, but paid no further attention to Patty. Maude and Adelaide began to talk to each other about their own affairs, but Clementine good-naturedly opened a conversation with Patty.

“You’re a day pupil, I suppose,” she said; “are you a friend of Lorraine Hamilton?”

“Yes,” said Patty; “she’s the only girl I know here. She lives in the same hotel I do, and we came together this morning. She’s in most of my classes. You’re not, are you? At least I didn’t see you in the classroom this morning.”

“No,” said Clementine, laughing; “I’m below you in everything. I’m only one of the Gigs.”

“Gigs!” exclaimed Patty; “what in the world are they?”

“Why, you see,” explained Clementine, “the Oliphant school, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. The girls are all either Prigs or Digs or Gigs.”

“Tell me about them,” said Patty, much interested.

“Well, the Prigs are a lot of stuck-up girls who never do anything wrong. They’re awfully goody-goody, and most fearfully correct in their deportment. They’re on the Privileged Roll all the time. They don’t study so very much, but they’re great on etiquette and manners. Then the Digs are the girls who study like fury. They’re like Kipling’s rhinoceros: they never had any manners, then, since, or henceforward, but they’re most astonishing wise and learned. You can tell them by their looks. They wear two wrinkles over their nose, and a pair of glasses. Then the Gigs are my sort. We giggle all the time, never study if we can help it, and are continually being punished for the fun we have. Which do you think you’ll be?”

“I don’t know,” said Patty, smiling. “I hate to study, so I don’t believe I can be a Dig; I’m sure I haven’t manners enough to be a Prig, and, somehow, to-day I don’t feel jolly enough to be a Gig. Which is Lorraine?”

“She isn’t any of them,” said Clementine; “I don’t believe anybody could classify her.”

Just then luncheon was announced, and the girls all went to the dining-room.

Patty sat next to Lorraine, and was disappointed to see that Clementine was at another table. The dining-room was very pleasant, and the small tables were daintily appointed. Eight girls sat at each table, and though Lorraine introduced Patty to her table-mates, after a few perfunctory sentences to her they began to chat together about matters of which Patty knew nothing.

Poor Patty’s spirits sank lower and lower. The girls were not actually rude to her; they merely seemed to take no interest in her, and had no wish to become better acquainted.

This was decidedly a new experience for Patty. All her life she had been liked by her companions. In Vernondale she had been the favourite of the whole school; and even when she went to school in Boston, the girls though less enthusiastic, had all been pleasant and kind.

She couldn’t understand it at all, but with her usual philosophic acceptance of the inevitable, she concluded that it was the custom of New York girls to treat strangers coolly, and she might as well get used to it.

So, assuming a cheerfulness which she was far from feeling, she addressed herself to Lorraine, and tried to keep up a conversation.

But that depressed piece of humanity was even more like a wet blanket than usual, and Patty was forced to give it up in despair.

She looked around the dining-room and couldn’t help noticing that the group at each table were chatting merrily, and that nowhere else did there seem to be a stranger like herself.

After luncheon there were still fifteen or twenty minutes before class time.

Again Patty determined to do her part toward bringing about a pleasanter condition of affairs. Selecting another affable-looking girl, Patty asked Lorraine to introduce her.

“Why, that’s Gertrude Lyons,” said Lorraine, in astonishment.

“I don’t care if it’s Gertrude Bears, or Gertrude Wild Tigers,” said Patty, “I want you to introduce me. Will you?”

“Certainly,” said Lorraine, staring at Patty; “come on.”

In a half-apologetic way Lorraine presented Patty to Gertrude Lyons, and in a wholly rude way Gertrude stared at them both.

“How do you do?” she said, coldly, to Patty. “Is this your first day here?”

“Yes,” said Patty, determined to be friendly, in spite of Gertrude’s repelling air; “and I think I shall like it after I get better acquainted with you all. It seems a little strange at first.”

“Where do you live?” asked Gertrude, abruptly.

“At The Wilberforce, where Lorraine lives.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“Only two days,” said Patty, smiling, “but I’m already beginning to feel quite at home there.”

“Where did you live before?”

“In Vernondale, New Jersey.”

“Oh,” said Gertrude, and then, as another girl came up to speak to her, the two walked away without a further word to Patty.

This was a little too much. Patty’s face grew crimson, and she turned to Lorraine with a look of angry surprise.

“I knew you wouldn’t like her,” said Lorraine in a dull, careless tone, “but you insisted on being introduced. She’s one of the Prigs, and the Priggiest one of them all. She won’t speak to a girl unless she lives on Fifth Avenue and keeps forty-’leven servants.”

“Well, I think she’s just as rude as she can be,” said Patty; “she isn’t half as nice as she looks.”

“Oh, she snubbed you because you owned up that you came from the country. If you want the Prigs to like you, don’t tell them you came from New Jersey.”

“New Jersey is just as good as New York,” said Patty, growing indignant; “and the girls there are a great deal nicer, and have better manners than the girls at this school. I think Clementine Morse is nice, though,” she added, her sense of justice asserting itself.

“I don’t,” said Lorraine, calmly; “I don’t like any of them.”

With a heavy heart Patty went to her afternoon classes. The outlook was not encouraging. School life was none too pleasant, at best; but school life with a lot of hateful, disagreeable girls promised to be nothing short of misery.

Patty drew a long breath when the lessons were over for the day, and walked home with Lorraine in no more cheerful frame of mind than her companion.