CHAPTER X GRIGS

The more Patty saw of Hilda Henderson the better she liked her.

Hilda was not quite so scatter-brained as Clementine, yet she was far more merry and companionable than Lorraine.

So it came about that Hilda and Patty were much together.

They often walked together when the school went for a promenade in the Park, and Patty was surprised to find that there was a lot of fun in the English girl, after all.

Then, too, they were congenial in their tastes. They liked the same things, they read the same books, and they almost always agreed in their opinions.

One day the girls were gathered in the gymnasium. It was recreation hour, and the various groups of young people were chatting and laughing.

Patty sat in a window-seat, looking out at the steadily falling rain.

“It’s a funny thing,” she said, “but although a rainy day is supposed to be depressing, it doesn’t affect me that way at all. I feel positively hilarious, and I don’t care who knows it.”

“So do I,” said Hilda; “I’m as merry as a grig.”

“I know most of your English allusions,” said Patty, “but ‘grig’ is too many for me. What is a grig, and why is it merry?”

“A grig,” said Hilda, “why, it’s a kind of cricket or grasshopper, I think. I don’t know Natural History very well, but the habits of grigs must be merry, because ‘as merry as a grig’ is the only thing anybody ever heard about them.”

“Of course grasshoppers are merry,” said Clementine; “you can tell that by the way they jump. But grig is a much nicer name than grasshopper; it sounds more jumpy.”

“Girls!” said Patty, with an air of sudden importance, “I have a most brilliant idea!”

“Your first?” inquired Adelaide, interestedly.

“No, indeed,” said Patty, “I often have them when I’m in your vicinity. But this is really great. You know that foolishness about Prigs and Digs and Gigs?”

“Yes,” said the girls in chorus.

“Well, there’s no sense to it; it doesn’t mean anything, really.”

“Do you happen to know, Miss Fairfield, that you’re attacking old and time-honoured institutions of the Oliphant school?” asked Clementine in mock indignation.

“So much the worse for the honourable Time,” rejoined Patty. “Now listen; I think we can have a society, a real true society, I mean, that will be a lot more fun than any of those ancient and honourable orders.”

“Grigs!” cried Hilda, with a sudden flash of understanding.

“Yes,” said Patty, “Grigs. You see, I never could make up my mind which of those other three sets I’d belong to, because none of them seemed to fit me. Now if we start a society of Grigs, a regular club, you know, we can invite anybody we want in the school to join it.”

“What kind of a society will it be?” demanded Adelaide.

“What is the chief characteristic of a grig?” demanded Patty in return.

“Well, I never met one,” said Adelaide, “but Hilda says they have nothing but merriment to distinguish them from other animals.”

“That’s enough,” said Patty. “All that the members of our society need do is to be merry. Honest, girls, don’t you think it will be fun?”

“I do,” said Hilda, catching the spirit of the thing at once. “And we’ll have officers and dues, and regular meetings, just like——”

“Just like Parliament,” put in Clementine, “and then, my British subject, you’ll feel quite at home.”

“I used to belong to a club in Vernondale,” said Patty, “and we didn’t do anything but just drink tea and have fun at our meetings. We were merry as grigs, though we didn’t call ourselves by that name. But I think that’s a jolly name for a society—especially a society that has to be made up of Prigs and Gigs and Digs.”

“So do I,” said Hilda; “let’s organise right away.”

“Oh, we can’t,” said Patty, “we haven’t decided what girls to ask, or anything.”

“Let’s organise first,” said Adelaide, “just we four, you know, and then decide on the other members afterwards.”

“All right,” said Patty, “but the bell will ring in a minute and we won’t have time now. Besides, we can’t do it in such a hurry. Now I’ll tell you what; you girls come down to my house Saturday morning and then we’ll do it all up properly.”

“That’s a jolly lark,” said Hilda; “I’ll be there.”

And the others agreed to come, too.

So on Saturday morning the Fairfields’ library was the scene of a most animated club organisation.

“We ought to have some definite aim,” said Hilda, as they talked over ways and means.

“We have,” said Patty decidedly; “I’ve been thinking this thing over, and I really think that to be merry and to scatter merriment around the world is a worthy enough aim for anybody.”

“How do you mean to scatter it?” asked Adelaide, with a look of utter bewilderment at the idea.

“I don’t know yet, exactly,” said Patty; “that’s for the club to decide; but I’m sure there are lots of ways. You know the charitable societies scatter food and clothing, and there’s a Sunshine Society that scatters help or aid or something, and I do believe that there are plenty of ways to scatter merriment.”

“Do you mean to poor people?” asked Clementine.

“Not only to poor people,” said Patty; “it doesn’t make any difference whether they’re poor or not; everybody likes to have some fun, or if they don’t, they ought to.”

“It’s a great scheme,” exclaimed Hilda, her eyes shining, as she thought of various possibilities. “For one thing we could collect comic papers and take them to the hospitals.”

“Yes, that will be fine,” said Clementine, “for when most people send reading matter to the hospitals they send dry old books and poky old magazines that nobody can read. I know, because I have been to the hospital sometimes to read to the children, and I’ve seen the literature that was sent in. And of all forlorn stuff!”

“Yes, that’s the kind of thing I mean,” said Patty; “and we can go to the hospitals ourselves sometimes and chirk up the patients and make them laugh. Clementine could sing some of her funny songs. But that’s only a part of it. We’ll have meetings, too, where we’ll just be merry as grigs ourselves, and make fun for each other.”

“Well, I think the whole thing is lovely,” said Adelaide; “let’s organise right straight off. Patty, of course you’ll be president.”

“Of course I won’t,” said Patty, quickly; “Hilda must be president, because if it hadn’t been for her we would never have known what grigs were, and so we couldn’t be them.”

Hilda demurred at accepting the honourable position, and Adelaide frankly said she thought Patty better adapted for it, but Patty was firm and insisted that the office should be Hilda’s.

“I’ll be secretary, if you like,” she said, “or anything else; but I won’t be president.”

So Hilda was made president and Patty secretary of the noble society of Grigs. Clementine was appointed vice-president and Adelaide treasurer.

The four officers wanted to enter upon their duties at once, and Adelaide begged that they would decide upon what the dues should be, so that she might collect them. Clementine asked Hilda to go home, in order that she might be president during her absence; and Patty declared that there was no use trying to keep the minutes of a society of Grigs, for it would read like a nonsense-book.

But Hilda, who had some notions of taking charge of a meeting, called the members to order and expressed her views.

“We don’t want to be bothered with much in the way of rules and regulations,” she said; “but we must have some few laws if we’re going to be a society at all. Now, first, how many members shall we have?”

“First,” said Patty, “where are you going to meet? do you think it will be more fun just to have a school society and have our meetings there, say in the gymnasium, or do you think it will be nicer to meet around at each other’s houses?”

“Oh, around at the houses,” said Clementine. “Let’s meet Saturday mornings, just like this. If we have it at school, we’ll have to ask a lot of girls we don’t want, or else they’ll get mad.”

This argument was considered good, and meetings at the homes of the members seemed to be the best plan.

“But not every week,” said Adelaide; “I couldn’t come so often. I have a singing lesson every other Saturday morning.”

So it was agreed that the Grigs should meet once a fortnight during the school term, and it was furthermore settled that eight members would be enough for the present.

“For our rooms are awfully small,” said Hilda, “and it will be all I can do to get eight in.”

“Our house is big enough,” said Clementine, “but I think eight is enough to start with, until we see how the club goes. Now who shall the other four be?”

“How would it do,” said Hilda, “for us each to select one?”

“Do they have to be girls in the school?” asked Adelaide; “because, if not, I’ll ask Editha. She’s merry enough for anybody and she loves to do things for hospital people.”

“Why, of course they don’t have to be schoolgirls,” said Hilda; “perhaps it’s better to have some who aren’t, and then those who are and whom we don’t ask won’t have so much reason to get mad about it.”

Although somewhat ambiguous, this speech was understood by the other Grigs, and they all heartily agreed to it.

Then Clementine said she would ask Flossy Fisher. As Flossy was the embodiment of merriment, they all thought her a most acceptable member.

“I shall ask Mary Sargent,” said Hilda. “You girls don’t know her very well, and she seems quiet, but really there’s a lot of fun in her, and you’ll find it out.”

“Oh, I think she’s jolly,” said Clementine; “anybody must be to draw such funny pictures as she does. She got me giggling in class the other day, and I came near being marked in deportment. It was an awful narrow escape. Who are you going to ask, Patty?”

Patty looked at her three fellow-Grigs. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said, and her eyes twinkled; “I shall ask Lorraine Hamilton.”

A chorus of groans greeted this announcement, and then Clementine said: “That’s a good joke, Patty, and an awfully funny one; but, honest, who do you really mean to ask?”

“It isn’t a joke,” said Patty. “You girls each made your selection, and nobody found any fault; now I think I ought to have the same privilege.”

“But we chose merry girls,” said Adelaide; “nobody could call Lorraine as merry as a Grig! Oh, Patty, she’ll spoil the whole club.”

“But listen, girls; the club is to make other people merry as well as to be merry ourselves, and don’t you think it would be a good thing if we could make Lorraine merry?”

“Yes,” said Hilda; “but the people we’re going to cheer up are not members of the club. I think the members ought to be really grigs and not croaking ravens, like Lorraine.”

“If she’s a member, I won’t be,” said Adelaide, “and Editha won’t either.”

“Then that settles it,” said Patty, cheerfully; “of course, Adelaide, I wouldn’t do anything that would keep you out of the club. But look here, girls: if Lorraine gets more pleasant and sunshiny after a while, will you let her come in then?”

“If she gets to be as merry as a grig, of course she can come in,” said Adelaide; “Lorraine is a nice enough girl, except that she’s so disagreeable and always throws a wet blanket on everything. Why, we couldn’t have any fun at all at the meetings, if she sat up there, looking as cross as two sticks.”

“That’s so,” said Patty, with a sigh; “but never you mind, she’s going to improve. She said she’d try to, and somehow the Grigs must help her.”

“And in the meantime you must choose somebody else, Patty.”

“No, I don’t want to; let’s just leave her place vacant for the present, and if we want anyone else in, we can decide about it later.”

“All right,” said Hilda, “and really I wouldn’t be surprised if Lorraine should improve. Why one day this week I saw her smile.”

“I saw it too!” exclaimed Clementine; “it was Tuesday, at noon hour. The rest of the girls were almost in hysterics over something or other, and I saw Lorraine break into a small timid little smile. Oh, she’ll be merry as a Grig yet!”