A Dixie Rose in bloom

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Jean Arrives at Midnight in a Foreign

Land 9

II Getting Acquainted With The Girls Of Villa Elinore

The sound that roused Jean from sleep next morning was such a chatter as she had never heard before in all her life, and raising her head she looked about to see where she was and what could be the matter. Laura threw her a double handful of kisses at once; little Hannchen greeted her with a string of words which would have delighted her could she have understood, for they were flattering ; and Irenka said :

“I am your friend. This week the whole Pension speaks your language. That is an old rule, one week English, one week French, and the next German. If one cannot, then one cannot, but each must try. You shall say no American that is not elegant.”

“Not elegant !” Jean’s cheeks flushed slightly, and her voice was edged with displeasure, but Irenka gave her no time for 27 resentful answer, only smiling and adding:

“Now we arise and dress for the morning coffee.’ ’

By daylight the big room looked very bare indeed, containing in addition to the beds, each with its chair and table, only a pair of double washstands and two broad dressers. Jean was informed that it was her duty as last arrival to get up first and close the window, and it was with a homesick thought of her colored nurse who had always spoiled her, that she rolled out and started across the floor. If Mammy knew how she was being ordered about by Russians, the old woman would come to her precious Blossom if she had to swim the wide Atlantic. J ean felt sure of that.

She shivered as she reached the current of cold air from outside, but the surprise that awaited her gave her imagination a new turn, and the exclamation she made roused her companions to a sitting posture among their pillows. Unconsciously she fell into Mammy’s style of speech:

“Lawsy-mussy, girls !” she cried. * 4 That must be a mountain , right there in our own front yard ! I never saw a mountain before, and it almost slapped me in the face!”

The great dark hillside rose truly so near the window that it seemed she might touch it by merely reaching out a hand ; and coming as Jean did from a flat inland country, she was filled with wondering awe. She lingered now, shivering with cold, yet unable to tear herself away, until Irenka said:

“It is but a va-ry small hill indeed. It remains there forever and will not fly away. Hurry you and dress.”

“Oh,” said Jean, “how can you call it small? Do let’s hurry up and you can take me to the top of it this morning after we have breakfast. Uncle Jasper thinks climbing would do me a world of good. Won’t you, Irenka, please?”

“The Aunts say when and where we go,” was the Russian girl’s reply, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders. She could not understand this ecstasy over a modest hillside when she had climbed a real Alpine peak last summer, and the American’s heat was as mysterious to her as her own coolness to Jean.

“Lawsy-mussy,” Jean exclaimed a second time, turning to her clothes; “I forgot there was such a thing as Aunts! But I’ll ask Miss Annya and she will let you go, of course. Don’t be afraid, Irenka.”

“You mean that I should be afraid?” inquired Irenka with unmistakable wrath. “I — a Russian ”

Laura, however, rolled out from her warm bed at this juncture, and took part in the conversation.

“What is this thing you call the ‘lawsy-mussy’?” she demanded, pumping her arms up and down and taking long breaths of the cold fresh air. “I love its sound. I can say lawsy-mussy to the master of the class in English, and he will be pleased that I make progress.”

“No, he wouldn’t and you better not,” Jean advised, laughing at Laura’s contortions. “Why don’t we have a fire to dress by? I’m frozen.”

“One dresses qnicklier in the cold,” said Renka, then added: “You will speak no more, but let the foolish Laura alone and dress.”

She explained which basin and which bureau the new girl was to have, and showed her about the trapeze exercise which always topped off the cold bath. Hannchen, who lay watching the stranger out of bright black eyes, was rousted from bed, and everybody fell silent to hurry with their toilets. After a while Jean broke this stillness:

“Oh, somebody tell me quick,” she said. “Aunt Annya was talking last night about making curtseys to the teachers. Is it so or was she joking. I never heard of making bows, — really and sure-enough bows.”

“One naturally makes the curtsey,” replied Irenka. “We call it the Knix. The young make the Knix before their elders. Do you not bow to your mother when you say good morning and good night?”

“I haven’t any mother,” Jean explained; “I have Uncle Jasper and Ned. But even girls that have mothers don’t how to them where I came from. Yon know I told you

about Shad, my best friend ”

“Shad?” remarked Laura, turning to take part in the conversation; “I have seen that word in the word book. It is a fish. ’ ’

Jean laughed, but before she could retort, Irenka. had caught up her full petticoats to give a lesson in the art of making hows. “I also have no mother,” she said, “but I have a noble father and seven brothers who are tall and grand. One is in this town in the University. I come in to the breakfast; they all arise ; I curtsey to the father — so — and kiss him the hand; he bends like a king, so proud, and kisses me the brow. I hold out the hand, and each brother kisses it in his turn. It is rightly that they should.”

“I’d love to see Ned kiss my hand,” said Jean; but Laura broke in impatiently:

“Talk with me, American, talk with me. I shall love you if you are gay, but there came once a new girl who had a homesickness and she wept. Be not as her. Be full of laugh. ’ 7

The stranger was accommodatingly full of mirth at this request, and Molasses-Head continued: “Let us hide away your chocolates in that thing — of which I do not know the name.”

She pointed to the travelling bag beside the bed, and J ean was glad to have her help in putting the confections out of sight. They were licking their fingers for the express purpose of drawing Irenka ’s chiding upon them, when a bell sounded from below and the Russian caught Jean’s hand in hers.

“We make a line in the hall and in five minutes we enter the coffee-room. But firstly you shall know the other girls. We are ten altogether, six besides these in our room, which is the nicest room and is called Parnassus. I stay behind to-day with you. I shall be your friend. That is an honor because I am the cleverest girl in Villa Elinore and have been longest here.”

While Jean absorbed this frank self-praise they ran down two flights of stairs, to where half a dozen girls stood one behind the other, waiting for their leader and — could J ean have known it — still more eagerly for a glimpse of this stranger who had come from across the sea. She felt the curious eyes upon her, and held her head up, trying not to flinch under their gaze; but Irenka’s words of introduction soon made her realize that the others must be more uncomfortable than herself, for the Russian was merciless in her comments :

“The little one is Babette,” she began, with the truly beauty-child who led the line. “We call her the table police because she will tell the Aunts when you take too much cake or butter. Observe her. She knows not English but understands quite well-ly that I speak of her. ’ 9

Babette was a darling, and Jean, observing her as commanded, saw a little girl with a heavy mane of chestnut hair cut straight below the ears and brushed to shine like satin. Her skin was as pink as roses, and notwithstanding the cold February morning her sleeves were cut to show two soft arms well above the elbow, while a pair of round bare knees peeped out between the scant skirt and the white, hand-knit socks. The newcomer’s eyes went reluctantly from this vision as Irenka’s voice directed, but her mind staid with Babette, so that she heard little of the other introductions.

“The next is Eugenie, who is twelve and has little sense but will get more later on, I hope. It is not in books she needs sense but in her manners, which are not perfect. You have seen Hannchen and Laura, who sleep with us in Parnassus. Elsa is a dove girl who is always sweetly cooing; Hedwig, as you may see, is a round white pudding of a maiden; Lili is a merry one with hook nose and va-ry red cheeks. She takes homesick in the night sometimes and then she is not merry. She weeps.”

No one spoke before Irenka had regained her breath, so she continued: “That last 35 one is Olga, and she is Russian like myself, and also the cousin to me. She is beautiful, with blond hair like your own, but a face that is white while yours is green because you are not healthy.”

Whatever color poor Jean’s face may have shown before, it turned to a mortified scarlet at this plain speaking, for it is one thing to look interesting and frail and quite another to be called unhealthy green! She thought Irenka the very rudest girl she had ever met, and wondered with considerable heat why the noble father and the seven grand brothers had not taught her true politeness as well as the art of making curtseys. Just then the second bell was rung and the little procession started toward the dining-room. Jean looked on while one girl after another spread her apron and made a low curtsey to the two old ladies at the table. Irenka spoke sharply in her ear, but the stranger only crimsoned a little more and without a bend of her knees she stopped behind the empty place at her leader’s side. Neither of the Aunts made any comment, and during the long German prayer, Jean stole glances at each of her companions, drawing mental sketches for her first letter to Shadow.

Aunt Annya was tall and straight with a small head covered by the softest of white hair, and her sister seemed her counterpart. There should he three of them, Jean remembered, and she turned impulsively to ask Irenka where the third one was, but something in the Russian’s expression checked the whisper on her lips and set her to studying the girl instead. Irenka, seen now in a good light, was graceful and slender, with an aristocratic oval face and a wealth of dark hair above it. The lips were full and red, upturned at the corners, and there was something haughty in the set of the head on its delicate throat.

From her neighbor Jean’s gaze went across the table to little Babette, who stood with reverently sober look; hut in the middle of 37 the prayer two mischievous eyes were opened cautiously and the child gave Jean a swift, knowing smile; for she was an old pupil though so young in years, and had watched more than one new arrival examine her surroundings while Aunt Annya read the morning service.

When all were seated, the housekeeper with Laura’s help brought rolls and coffee, and Miss Evertz announced to the assembled household :

“This is our new girl, Jean Spencer. She comes, as you know, from far America, a great country and a land of fine deeds and promise. Many of our German people go there and make homes which they love. One may feel exceedingly proud to be of that nation, to remember brave acts and wise laws which have changed a wilderness into a splendid garden, with blossoms and with fruit. You will all be kind that Jean may soon grow happy here. We will also make her strong and sturdy, and her face round and blooming with red color, that she will not think how to persuade her uncle to carry her away to travel.”

J ean flushed and gave Aunt Annya a swift look, wondering by what magic she had read her inmost mind ; but the tall lady only smiled and nodded before entering into animated conversation with her sister Minni. The simple meal was soon over. Then the girls gathered about the newcomer in the big school-room, those who could speaking their welcome in English to her, while Babette and Hannchen capered around and made remarks that must have been highly amusing to judge from the laughter they caused.

Laura gave a graphic description of the midnight arrival, omitting no point of Jean’s trip through the room, and her stumbling over a chair, and finally concluded by throwing two arms about the stranger’s neck.

“And now, American Indian,” she cried, 1 1 1 will be your best friend. I am the one who put chocolates beneath your pillow that you should not starve among us. I am a pleasant

girl. I speak the English like a native

‘ ‘ Like a native of this Germany,’ ’ put in a mocking voice, but Irenka’s sarcasm caused no surprise and Laura did not retaliate.

“I will show you many things,” she went on, “and will lead you up the mountain top where you wished to go. If you will but say

I am the nicest one in Elinore Lawsy-

mussy! Say you love me the best of all.”

Before Jean could find a tactful answer to these embarrassing words, two eager hands had pulled Laura from her and another persuasive voice broke in: “Take me for friend. I have fizzle-lemonade which I will give you and ”

“Fie, Olga, you are too young.” The pretty blonde girl was elbowed away as had been her predecessor, and the circle fell into indiscriminate clamoring and talking all at once.

“I wish to learn the English from her,” insisted Olga.

“No,” chimed in Laura’s voice. “Was it you who laid chocolates beneath her pillow?

Was it you who saved your bonbons and did not eat when you had hunger for sweets? No!”

Little Babette had squirmed her way through the ring of bigger folk around, and now reaching the American’s side she seized both her hands and said something in excited German which, of course, was unintelligible to Jean. There were willing interpreters, however, and half a dozen voices began to talk again.

“The baby says she will be your best friend ! ’ ’

“Babette will speak her English poem!”

“Listen, Jean, you shall listen to the baby’s English!”

They made room for the tiny girl, who swept a low curtsey and began in a high singsong key:

“Chack und Chill went up a pill!”

“She says it always wrongly,” a quiet voice interposed, and Irenka touched the child on the shoulder. “She may not recite until she learns it rightly. I have told her that before.” She finished in an undertone which no one heard except Babette, who fell back, silenced, abashed, but not questioning the older girl’s authority. Then Irenka addressed Jean with the same calm assurance:

“It will not hurt the feelings to say which you wish for your best friend, because it is a custom of the school and each girl may do the same when she first arrives. Say to them that I am your friend. I am the eldest and the cleverest here. Say it, and there will certainly be no more noise.”

A hush had fallen over the group and all eyes were fixed on Jean. For a moment she was half inclined to run away, then she looked around the waiting circle and spoke slowly and distinctly so that they might understand :

“You’ve been very nice to me,” she began, “and it’s hard to say which one I like best. In my country it would be rude to say so, even if you knew. Besides, I have a dear, dear friend at home, and nobody could ever take Polly’s place. I miss her all the time.

But if you really make me choose, I’m going to say ”

There was breathless silence as if momentous things depended on the decision. Jean’s brown eyes travelled from one to another expectant face down the line and gleamed with laughter as they stopped.

“I want you / 9 she said. “Oh, I hope the rest of yon won’t mind, but I want Laura.”

The others dropped away immediately, giggling among themselves, only Irenka showing by a curious narrowing of the eyes that she was displeased. The owner of the molasses braids caught Jean in a smothering hug and bubbled over with noisy satisfaction:

“Ach, ach, du lawsy-mussy me!” she cried. “I am glad to be the friend. I hoped and I gazed hard upon you to make you choose me. And I am not jealous about this friend who is so far away, this fish you call the Shad. The word book says it is a fish. But Irenka is very, very angry, for she never before has wished to be the friend of any new one. She will scold ns much. Come now and I will show yon the customs of the school.”

Up in Parnassus the two girls unpacked Jean’s trunk, and put out on the dresser all the pretty toilet pieces and the photographs in their simple frames, Laura offering her unbiased opinion of each object in turn. Uncle Jasper was pronounced a heavenly good man; Ned’s hair was admired for the curl which the owner himself deemed his curse in life; the silver brushes were declared fit for a queen; but when Laura had stared for a moment at the picture of a Japanese-looking girl, with turned-up nose and an expression of blended piquancy and calm, she set it down hard on the bureau and pretended to tear her abundant yellowy-brown hair:

“Ach,” she raved in mock tragedy, 4 ‘that is the Shadow! I know! I know! I have said I was not jealous, but it is not true. If I had her here I could — I could — I think I could eat her exactly!”

Jean straightened Polly, patted the picture tenderly, then threw two arms about her new friend.

4 4 Don’t eat my Shad,” she begged with a laugh. 4 4 Don’t eat her, even if you did say she was a fish!”

4 4 Good ! Then you will love me as well as you love her, and whatever she would do for you, I will also do. Remember ! ’ 9

They sealed this promise with a hug, and Jean brought the two remaining pictures to the dresser. The first showed a square house with marble porch in front and stately magnolia trees in the deep yard, and she sighed as she set it down.

4 4 That’s where I used to live,” she said. 44 I was born there, and there isn’t any house in alj the world ^as nice.”

4 4 Why do you not live there now?” asked Molasses-Head.

4 4 Because my Daddy had to sell the place. He lost his money. But if I ever get rich the first thing I’ll do will be to buy our old home back. I’m poor, and my uncle takes care of me. ’ ’

“I, too, am poor,” said Laura. “All the others in the Villa have much, much money. Ach, who is the boy!”

She seized the second of the pictures and looked keenly at it.

“That’s Paul,” explained Jean, “Polly’s twin brother. Hasn’t he nice eyes! We call him the Judge because he’s so serious.”

“How he is stern,” Laura remarked, still studying the photograph. “I could like him and I could also be afraid. I hear the bell. We shall make haste.” And they went down to the school-room with arms entwined about each other’s waist.

m

The days sped swiftly by in Villa Elinore, and Jean was beginning to catch the meaning of a German word here and there, and even to reply, when she found two letters beside her breakfast plate one morning. They bore American stamps and had the very natural effect of diverting her mind from Aunt Annya’s prayer. With unusual effort she kept still until the reading was finished and the girls all seated, then she seized her treasures and blurted out without preface or apology:

* ‘I’m not hungry, Aunt Annya; I don’t feel a bit like eating. So I’ll just go and read what Uncle Jasper says.”

Those who understood her words looked their amazement at this unheard-of frankness. Babette giggled and took the opportunity to nip off a good bit of extra butter from the plate nearest hers. The eldest Fraulein Evertz, after a glance toward her sister Minni, spoke with cold precision:

“One may not jump this way and that according to one’s fancy. There are settled rules in life which must he observed. Take your place, my Jean, and leave your letters until later. It is for discipline.”

Jean managed to discipline her legs sufficiently to bend them and take her seat, but her tongue was a much more unruly member and it slipped from her control.

“If you were as homesick as I am,” she grumbled, “and didn’t know why your uncle got left behind, you wouldn’t talk like that! I’ll stay here if you say I must, but I can ’t eat a bite when I feel so quivery ! ’ ’ This brought no response, and while Aunt Annya talked to each of her docile pupils in turn the refractory one sat twirling the letters between her fingers, too impatient to eat even if she could have done so after saying she wouldn’t. The meal seemed a long, long function, but it was over at last; and avoiding Irenka ’s eye for fear of further interference, Jean ran off to snuggle up beside the porcelain stove and devour a far more delectable treat than bread and butter.

Uncle Jasper had written briefly that since be knew by cable of bis niece ’s safe arrival be bad changed bis plans somewhat, and it might be several weeks yet before be sailed ; but the postscript was read through many times, and caused Jean’s eyes to blur while her mind tingled with new curiosity.

“Rosebud,” it ran, “I ought to explain perhaps that the business which keeps me here now relates to you. I did not intend to have you go over alone. That was an accident over which I had no control, hut since it happened so I am attending to something which your guardian would otherwise have done. I shall not tell you in detail, except that you will he pleased. So try to wait patiently, grow strong like the German girls, and think often of

“Your Uncle Jasper.”

“As if it needed secrets to make me do that,” she said, as she kissed the fine spidery writing, and took up the second envelope. The first words from Polly made her eyes fill again, for Jean was hungry for affection, and got it from all her friends. She was one of those persons who have as many pet names as they have associates, and Shadow had begun:

“My darlingest, precious Jinks: There are so many things to tell, — about me and about your own affairs. That is — I can’t write about yours because it is as great a secret as the answers to Miss Randall’s problems in geometry! Such a beautiful secret, Jinks! Mr. Rose didn’t want anyone to know, but that wise blundering twin of mine heard it at father’s office when he shouldn’t have been listening, and for a wonder let it out to me. Oh, I wish you would finish your education and come home! You know your own old home on Shelby Street? I went past there on purpose, and it looks so sad with its eyes shut — the blinds all down, I mean. It would pop them open in a hurry if it knew what I do ! Goodness, I better tell you about other things. Judge Paul is not going to be a lawyer after all! He says it’s too slow and he wants to be a man as soon as possible and independent. So he’s taking up the cotton business, and you ought to hear him tell us about the length of fibre and staple and those thrilling details. Please don’t mind if I say I think it is splendid of Ned to stay right in his own country. It is un-American to be studying abroad. So hurry up and learn all the ‘furrin’ languages you need and come home to

“Your devoted and lonely Shadow.”

This communication also carried a postscript and Jean laughed shakily as she read:

“I wduld love to be with you over there though, and the only comfort I have is what you wrote about frosted ears and being bossed about by Russians. How can you stand that part! You were always so kind of high-mighty yourself, and did the bossing if anybody did. Why don’t you remind that Renka-girl that the Czar of her country is a wicked man who does not compare very well with rulers of other Christian nations, and just completely wither her! I would. P. M.”

The thought of gentle Polly withering Irenka was so preposterous and so funny that Jean laughed to herself; then, with a characteristic leap from one emotion to another, she realized all at once that she had been rude to Fraulein Annya. Repentance with her. was synonymous with confession; so next moment the old lady saw a blond head appear beside the desk where she sat writing and heard an eager voice exclaim:

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t eat, and I beg your pardon if I was impolite, and Uncle Jasper sends you his regards.”

Aunt Annya looked down at her papers, outlining mentally the words of her rebuke and a following forgiveness ; but she pushed into the pigeon-hole an American letter with the same spidery writing Jean had been reading, and when she looked up both sermon and forgiveness were softened.

“Jean,” she said, holding out a hand which the girl clasped and cuddled to her breast; as Aunt Annya’s hand had not been cuddled since baby days of long ago, “Jean, promise me, my child, that you will curb your temper; for your own sake, for those who love you.”

“I never thought of its being temper,” observed Jean, inclined to debate the matter. But Fraulein Evertz sighed a little as she drew her hand away. She was accustomed to pupils who came to the Pension already moulded to obedience and self-control and this impetuous girl, with her free speech and her lovable nature was a puzzle in more ways than one.

“Promise me you will stop and think before you act,” she said.

“I will, Aunt Annya, I promise you I will,” the girl cried easily, and at the time it seemed a simple proposition.

“I too have a letter from Mr. Rose, ,, Fraulein Annya went on after a momenta hesitation. “He sets great hopes and ambitions on you. And — and — is your uncle strong and robust, my dear? Is he always well?”

“Of course,” began Jean with a little laugh ; then something in the question frightened her, and she grew white. “He’s not — He hasn’t written you he is — sick?” she asked.

“No, he doesn’t say he’s ill,” the old lady sought to calm her. “He takes great care to say he’s well. You may go now, and I hope you will try your best to please him.”

It is doubtful whether in those days she learned as much German as her mates did English, for some things are absorbed faster out of school than in, and the girls, flocking about this new comrade, took fascinated interest in every word she spoke and every movement that she made. They proved to be a happy band, with the primmest of bashful mien before their elders, and the most irrepressible spirits when alone, chattering openly of each other’s faults and virtues, giving lavish praise where praise was due, and equally frank with blame on opposite occasions.

Irenka, slightly disturbed about her place as leader, drew her cousin Olga under her wing and kept the school beauty from the new influence; but all the others welcomed Jean, and the place where she studied or the corner where she worked at her Irish crochet was apt to be the merriest in the room. She told the funniest tales of her colored Mammy, of Shadow, Paul Martin the sober Judge, and of her various nicknames until she became Shinksy and Chinksy according to the different enunciations of her new friends.

Laura Luther drank in fresh words as if she had been a particularly thirsty piece of blotting paper, and gave them out again with a parrot’s glibness, which was very pleas- 55 ing to her teachers until one day in the English master’s class she said:

“Lawsy-mussy, Mr. Davis, honey, I reckon it’s a noun!”

This caused her to be banished from Jean’s company for a half-holiday and two long evenings at home, but even such dire punishment failed to check her desire for picturesque English, and the Fraulein Evertz were near desperation on the subject. They had special reasons for wishing Laura to do well in school, reasons which Molasses-Head herself knew but did not always heed.