Part 15 (1/2)
”Yes'm,” I answered meekly.
”Then drop that pen and pay attention. Even the girls who are to belong to the second cla.s.s in manners know how to do that. Well, I thought that she hardly ever accepts an invitation, and she looks as she didn't expect anybody to like her, and she minds her own business and does exactly as she pleases generally. My next important thought was that sometimes she cuts me in the hall, and sometimes she doesn't, just as she happens to feel. That led to the philosophic reflection that politeness is a question of law.”
”Ah, pardon me, Miss Abbott, but I remember from a story which was read by my teacher about forty years ago when I was in the fourth reader that
”'Politeness is to do or say The kindest thing in the kindest way.'”
”That's what I meant. The law of kindness--that's what politeness is.
Listen to the logic. Mary Winchester is lawless, hence she breaks the law of kindness, hence she has no manners, hence it will be fun to divide everybody here into various cla.s.ses according to their manners.”
So that is the way our cla.s.ses began.
It was awfully, awfully interesting. Robbie Belle said she didn't want to; but Berta and Lila and I talked and talked and talked. We sat in the windows and talked instead of dancing between dinner and chapel. We talked after chapel, and on our way to cla.s.ses or to meals. And of course we talked while we were skating or walking or doing anything similar that did not demand intellectual application. Lila even talked about the cla.s.ses in her sleep. We discussed everybody who happened to attract our attention.
Finally we had sifted out all the candidates for the highest cla.s.s except three. One was the senior president, pink and white and slender and gentle and she never thumped when she walked or laughed with her mouth open or was careless about spots on her clothes or forgot the faces of new girls who had been introduced to her. The second was a professor who was shy and sweet and went off lecturing every week. The third was a teacher who looked like a piece of porcelain and always wore silk-lined skirts and never changed the shape of her sleeves year after year. Not one of the three ever hurt anybody's feelings.
Miss Anglin was obliged to go into the second cla.s.s because she had moods. No, I don't mean because she had them,--for sometimes you cannot help having moods, you know--but because she showed them. She let the moods influence her manner. Some mornings she would come down to breakfast as blue as my dyed brilliantine--(how I hated that frock!)--and would sit through the meal without opening her mouth except to put something into it; though on such occasions we noticed that she rarely put into it very much besides toast and hot water. On other days she made jokes and sparkled and laughed with her head bent down, and was so absolutely and utterly charming that the girls at the other tables wished they sat at ours, I can tell you. We three were exceedingly fond of her, but we agreed at last after arguing for seven days that true courtesy makes a person act cheerfully and considerately, no matter how she may feel inside.
There were about nine in that second cla.s.s, and fourteen in the third and twenty in the fourth, when we started in on Mary Winchester.
Lila and I were rus.h.i.+ng to get ready for the last skating carnival of the season. Some one knocked at the door. It was Mary, but she didn't turn the k.n.o.b when I called, ”Come.” She just waited outside and gave me the trouble of opening it myself. Then in her offish way she asked if we were through with her lexicon. After I had hunted it up for her, she happened to notice that Lila was wailing over the disappearance of her skates.
”I saw a pair of strange skates in my room,” she said and walked away as indifferent as you please.
Now wouldn't any one think that was queer?
It made Lila cross, especially when she found that the skates had three new spots of rust on them. March is an irritable month, anyhow, you know.
Everybody is tired, and breakfast doesn't taste very good. She sputtered about the rust till we reached the lake where we found two big bonfires and three musicians to play dance music while we skated. Imagine how lovely with the flames leaping against the background of snowy banks and bare black trees! Berta and Lila and I crossed hands and skated around and around the lake with the crowd. When we stopped in the firelight, Lila looked unusually pretty with her rosy cheeks and her curls frosted by her breath. Berta's eyes were like stars. Of course Robbie Belle was beautiful, but she did not a.s.sociate much with us that evening. After one turn up and back again while we discussed Mary Winchester, she said she thought she would invite our little freshman roommate for the next number.
We kept on talking about Mary. Lila was insisting that she ought to be put in the tenth cla.s.s or worse, while Berta maintained that she wasn't quite so bad as that. I kept thinking up arguments for both sides.
Lila counted off her crimes, and she didn't speak so very low either.
”Mary Winchester doesn't deserve a place even in the tenth cla.s.s. Why, listen now. You admit that she borrows disgracefully and never returns things. At least, she helped herself to my skates. It is almost the same as stealing. She has no friends. She always goes off walking alone, and sits in the gallery by herself at lectures and concerts. Everybody says she is queer.”
”Miss Anglin thinks girls in the ma.s.s are funny,” I volunteered, ”though maybe they are not any more so than human kind in the bulk. She says that we all imagine we admire originality, but when we see any one who is noticeably different from the rest, we avoid her. We call her queer and are afraid to be seen with her.”
”Mary Winchester's independence is commendable,” protested Berta. ”I envy her strength of character. She ignores foolish conventions----”
”As for instance, the distinction between mine and thine,” interrupted Lila, ”you don't live next to her, and you don't know. Her disregard for the property rights of others indicates a fatal flaw----”
”Fatal flaw, fatal flaw!” chanted Berta mischievously, ”isn't that a musical phrase! Say it fast now, and see if it tangles your tongue.”
I was afraid Lila would feel wounded, so I remarked hastily that we agreed that Mary was not polite; the question was as to the degree of impoliteness.
”Even Robbie Belle acknowledges that she is not a lady,” chimed in Berta; ”she said it when Mary wanted to take that stray kitten to the biological laboratory. She declared it would be happier if dead.”
”And it wasn't her kitten either,” I contributed. ”Robbie found it up a tree. It is necessary to weigh every little point in a scientific study like this.”
”Don't you see, girls, that Mary Winchester does not come from good stock,” began Lila, ”of course she isn't a lady. Her att.i.tude toward the rights of others is certain proof that her family has a defective moral sense. Perhaps her brother----”