Dorothy at Oak Knowe

“To-morrow’s half-holiday. Let’s all go help Michael to get the slides ready!”

“Of course – if the storm will let us out! Oh glorious!” said Ernesta Smith flying to Fanny’s side, and trying to see through the great flakes, fast packing against the pane and hiding the view without.

But this only increased the gayety within. Electric lights flashed out, girl after girl ran to fetch her own coasting suit and to spread it before the eyes of her mates.

“Oh! aren’t they the sweetest things!” exclaimed the delighted Dorothy; “the very prettiest clothes I ever saw!”

Indeed they did make a fine show of color, heaped here and there, their soft, thick texture assuring perfect protection from cold. Reds and greens, pinks and blues, and snowy white; some fresh from the makers’ hands, some showing the hard wear of former winters; yet all made after the Oak Knowe pattern. A roomy pair of pantaloons, to draw over the ordinary clothing from the waist down, ended in stocking-shaped feet, fitted for warm wool overshoes. The tunic fell below the knees and ended above in a pointed hood, and mittens were made fast to the sleeves.

“Lovely, but isn’t it terribly clumsy?” asked Dorothy, more closely examining one costume.

“Let’s show her! Let’s have an Indian dance! Hurry up, everybody, and dress!”

In a jiffy every girl who owned a costume got into it and the place was transformed. For somebody flew to the piano and struck up a lively waltz, and away went the girls, catching one another for partner – no matter who – whirling and circling, twisting bodies about, arms overhead, as in a regular calisthenic figure – till Dorothy was amazed. For what looked so thick and clumsy was too soft and yielding to hinder grace.

In the midst of the mirth, the portieres were lifted and Gwendolyn came in. It was unfortunate that just then the music ended with a crash and that the whirling circles paused. For it looked as if her coming had stopped the fun, though this was far from true.

Ever since that day of her open confession her schoolmates had regarded her with greater respect than ever before. Most of them realized how hard that confession had been for so haughty a girl, and except for her own manner, many would have shown her marked affection.

When she had ceased speaking on that day an awkward silence followed. If she had expected hand-claps or applause she failed to get either. The listeners were too surprised to know what to do, and there was just as much pride in the young “Peer’s” bearing as of old. After a moment of waiting she had stalked away and all chance for applause was gone.

But she had returned to her regular classes the next morning and mixed with the girls at recreation more familiarly than she had formerly done; yet still that stiffness remained.

For half-minute, Gwendolyn hesitated just within the entrance, then forced herself to advance toward the fireplace and stand there warming herself.

“It’s getting very cold,” she remarked by way of breaking the unpleasant silence.

“Yes, isn’t it!” returned Winifred; adding under her breath: “Inside this room, anyway.”

“We’re warm enough, dressed up like this,” said Marjorie, pleasantly. “Dorothy says that the Bishop thinks we’ll have tobogganing in a day or two, if the snow holds. She’s never seen a toboggan nor how we dress for the sport, and we brought in our togs to show her. She thinks they look too clumsy for words, so we’ve just been showing her that we can move as easily in them as without them. But – my! It’s made us so warm!”

Gwendolyn turned toward Dorothy with a smile intended to be cordial, and asked:

“Is that so, indeed? Then I suppose you’ll have to get a rig like ours if you want to try the slide.”

“Yes, I suppose so. The Bishop asked the Lady Principal to get me one, but I don’t suppose she can right away. Nobody could go shopping in such weather, and I suppose they have to be bought in town.”

“The blankets are bought there, but usually the suits are made at home before we come; or else by the matron and some of the maids here. I – ”

A look of keener interest had come into her face, but she said nothing further and a moment later went out again.

As the portieres fell together behind her, Winifred threw up her hands in comic despair.

“Whatever is the matter with that girl? or with me– or you– or you!” pointing to one and another around her. “She wants to be friendly – and so do we! But there’s something wrong and I don’t know what.”

“I do,” said a sweet-faced “Seventher,” who had been quietly studying during all this noise. “Poor Gwendolyn is sorry but isn’t one bit humble. She’s absolutely just and has done what she believed right. But it hasn’t helped her much. She’s fully as proud as she ever was, and the only way we can help her is by loving her. We’ve got to love her or she’ll grow harder than ever.”

“You can’t make love as you’d make a – a pin-cushion!” returned Florita Sheraton, holding up, to illustrate, a Christmas gift she was embroidering.

Dorothy listened to this talk, her own heart upbraiding her for her failure to “love” Gwen. She liked her greatly and admired her courage more.

“Win, let’s you and me try and see if that is true, what Florita says. Maybe love can be ‘made’ after all;” she whispered to her friend.

“Huh! That’ll be a harder job than algebra! I shall fail in both.”

“I reckon I shall, too, but we can try – all the same. That won’t hurt either one of us and I’m awfully sorry for her, she must be so lonesome.”

“‘Pity is akin to love!’ You’ve taken the first step in your climb toward Gwen’s top-lofty heart!” quoted Winifred. “Climb away and I’ll boost you as well as I can. I – ”

“Miss Dorothy Calvert, the Lady Principal would like to see you in her own parlor;” said a maid, appearing at the door.

“What now? You seem to be greatly in demand, to-day, by the powers that be, I hope it isn’t a lecture the Bishop passed on to her to deliver,” said Florita as Dorothy rose to obey.

But whatever fear Dolly felt of any such matter was banished by her first glance into her teacher’s face. Miss Muriel had never looked kinder nor better pleased than then, as, holding up a pair of beautiful white blankets she said:

“How will these do for the toboggan suit the Bishop wished me to get for you?”

“Oh! Miss Muriel! Are those for me and so soon? Why, it’s only an hour ago, or not much more, since he spoke of it, and how could anybody go to town and back in that little while, in such a storm?”

“That wasn’t necessary. These were in the house. Do you like them?”

“Like them! They’re the softest, thickest, prettiest things! I never saw any so fine, even at Aunt Betty’s Bellevieu. Do you think I ought to have them? Wouldn’t cheaper ones answer for messing around in the snow?”

“The question of expense is all right, dear, and we’re fortunate to have the material on hand. Mrs. Archibald will be here, directly, to take your measurements. Ah! here she is now.”

This was something delightfully different from any “lecture,” and even Miss Muriel talked more and in higher spirits than usual; till Dorothy asked:

“Do you love tobogganing, too, Miss Tross-Kingdon?”

“No, my dear, I’m afraid of it. My heart is rather weak and the swift motion is bad for it. But I love to see others happy and some things have happened, to-day, which have greatly pleased me. But you must talk sliding with Mrs. Archibald. Dignified as she is, she’ll show you what a true Canadian can do, give her a bit of ice and a hill.”

The matron laughed and nodded.

“May the day be long before I tire of my nation’s sport! I’m even worse than Michael, who’s almost daft on the subject.”

Then she grew busy with her measurings and clippings, declaring: “It just makes me feel bad to put scissors into such splendid blankets as these. You’ll be as proud as Punch, when I dress you out in the handsomest costume ever shot down Oak Knowe slide!”

“Oh! I wish Aunt Betty could see it, too. She does so love nice things!”

When Mrs. Archibald and her willing helpers had completed her task and Dolly was arrayed in her snow-suit she made, indeed, “the picture” which Dawkins called her.

For the weather proved what the Bishop had foretold. The snow fell deep and heavy, “just right for packing,” Michael said, on the great wooden slide whose further end rose to a dizzy height and from whose lower one a second timbered “hill” rose and descended.

If the toboggan was in good working order, the momentum gained in the descent of the first would carry the toboggans up and over the second; and nothing could have been in finer condition than these on that next Saturday morning when the sport was to begin. The depression between the two slides was over a small lake, or pond, now solidly frozen and covered with snow; except in spots where the ice had been cut for filling the Oak Knowe ice-houses. Into one of these holes Michael and his force had plunged a long hose pipe, and a pump had been contrived to throw water upward over the slide.

On the night before men had been stationed on the slide, at intervals, to distribute this water over the whole incline, the intense cold causing it to freeze the instant it fell; and so well they understood their business they had soon rendered it a perfectly smooth slide of ice from top to bottom. A little hand-railed stairway, for the ascent of the tobogganers, was built into the timbers of the toboggan, or incline, itself; and it was by this that they climbed back to the top after each descent, dragging their toboggans behind them. At the further side of the lake, close to its bank, great blazing fires were built, where the merry makers could warm themselves, or rest on the benches placed around.

Large as some of the toboggans were they were also light and easily carried, some capable of holding a half-dozen girls – “packed close.” Yet some sleds could seat but two, and these were the handsomest of all. They belonged to the girls who had grown proficient in the sport and able to take care of themselves; while some man of the household always acted as guide on the larger sleds and for the younger pupils.

When Dorothy came out of the great building, that Saturday holiday, she thought the whole scene was truly fairyland. The evergreens were loaded to the ground with their burden of snow, the wide lawns were dazzlingly bright, and the sun shone brilliantly.

“Who’re you going to slide with, Dolly? On Michael’s sled? I guess the Lady Principal will say so, because you’re so new to it. Will you be afraid?”

“Why should I be afraid? I used to slide down the mountain side when I lived at Skyrie. What makes you laugh, Winifred? This won’t be very different, will it?”

“Wait till you try it! It’s perfectly glorious but it isn’t just the same as sliding down a hill, where a body can stop and step off any time. You can’t step off a toboggan, unless you want to get killed.”

Dorothy was frightened and surprised, and quickly asked:

“How can anybody call that ‘sport’ which is as dangerous as that? What do you mean? I reckon I won’t go. I’ll just watch you.”

It was Winifred’s turn to stare, but she was also disappointed.

“Oh! you little ‘Fraid-Cat,’ I thought you were never afraid of anything. That’s why I liked you. One why – and there are other whys – but don’t you back out in this. Don’t you dare. When you’ve got that be-a-u-tiful rig and a be-a-u-tiful toboggan to match. I’d hate to blush for you, Queen Baltimore!”

“I have no toboggan, Winnie, dear. You know that. I was wondering who’d take me on theirs – if – if I try it at all.”

Winifred rushed to the other side of the porch and came flying back, carrying over her head a toboggan, so light and finely polished that it shone; also a lovely cushion of pink and white dragged from one hand. This fitted the flat bottom of the sled and was held in place, when used, by silver catches. The whole toboggan was of this one polished board, curving upward in front according to the most approved form, pink tassels floating from its corners that pink silk cords held in their place. Across this curving front was stenciled in pink: “Dorothy Calvert.”

“There, girlie, what do you say to that? Isn’t it marked plainly enough? Didn’t you know about it before? Why all we girls have been just wild with envy of you, ever since we saw it among the others.”

Dorothy almost caught her breath. It certainly was a beauty, that toboggan! But how came she to have it?

“What do you mean, Winifred Christie? Do you suppose the Bishop has had it made, or bought it, for me? Looks as if it had cost a lot. And Aunt Betty has lost so much money she can’t afford to pay for extra things – not very high ones – ”

“Quit borrowing trouble, Queenie! Who cares where it came from or how much it cost? Here it is with your own name on it and if you’re too big a goose to use it, I shall just borrow it myself. So there you are. There isn’t a girl here but wouldn’t be glad to have first ride on it. Am I invited?” and Winifred poked a saucy face under her friend’s hood.

“Am I?” asked Florita Sheraton, coaxingly throwing her arms around Dolly.

“Oh! get away, Flo! You’re too big! You’d split the thing in two!” said Ernesta, pulling away her chum’s arms. “Just look at me, Dolly Doodles! Just see how nice and thin I am! Why I’m a feather’s weight to Flo, and I’m one of the best tobogganers at Oak Knowe. Sure. Ask Mrs. Archibald herself, for here she comes all ready for her share of the fun!”

“Yes, yes, lassie, you’re a fair one at the sport now and give some promise o’ winning the cup yet!” answered the matron, joining the girls and looking as fit and full of life as any of them.

“Hear! Hear! Hurrah for ’Nesta! Three cheers for the champion cup winner!”

“And three times three for the girl Dolly chooses to share her first slide on the new toboggan!” cried somebody, while a dozen laughing faces were thrust forward and as many hands tapped on the breasts of the pleaders, signifying: “Choose me!”

The Bishop was already on hand, looking almost a giant in his mufflers, and as full of glee as the youngest there. The lady Principal, in her furs, had also joined the group, for though she did not try the slides, she loved to watch the enjoyment of the others, from a warm seat beside the bonfire.

While Dorothy hesitated in her choice, looking from one to another of the merry, pleading faces about her, Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard stood a little apart, watching with keen interest the little scene before her, while the elder members of the group also exchanged some interested glances.

“Count us! Count us! That’s fair! Begin: ‘Intry, mintry, outry, corn; wire, brier, apple, thorn. Roly, poly, dimble-dee; – O – U – T spells Out goes SHE!’”

Over and over, they laughingly repeated the nonsense-jingle, each girl whom the final “she” designated stepping meekly back with pretended chagrin, while the “counting out” went on without her. The game promised to be so long that the matron begged:

“Do settle it soon, young ladies! We’re wasting precious time.”

Dorothy laughed and still undecided, happened to glance toward Gwendolyn, who had made no appeal for preference, and called out:

“Gwen, dear, will you give me my first lesson? I choose Gwendolyn!”

It was good to see the flush of happiness steal into Gwen’s face and to see the smile she flashed toward Dorothy. Stepping forward she said:

“Thank you, dear. I do appreciate this in you, and you needn’t be afraid. The Lady Principal knows I can manage a toboggan fairly well, and this of yours seems to be an exact copy of my own that I’ve used so long.”

Other cheers followed this and in a moment the whole party had spread over the white grounds leading to the great slide, the good Bishop following more slowly with the other “grown-ups,” and softly clapping his mittened hands.

“Good! Fine! I like that. Dorothy has ignorantly done the one right thing. If she could only guess the secret which lies under all how thankful she would be that she made this choice and no other.”