The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated)
hearing her classes again. Illness had not changed her materially. It is only in novels that rheumatic fever sweetens tempers, and makes disagreeable people over into agreeable ones. Most of the girls disliked her as much as ever. Her tongue was just as sharp, and her manner as grim. But for Katy, from that time forward, there was a difference. Miss Jane was not affectionate to her,—it was not in her nature to be that,—but she was civil and considerate, and in a dry way, friendly, and gradually Katy grew to have an odd sort of liking for her.
Do any of you know how incredibly long winter seems in climates where for weeks together the thermometer stands at zero? There is something hopeless in such cold. You think of summer as of a thing read about somewhere in a book, but which has no actual existence. Winter seems the only reality in the world.
Katy and Clover felt this hopelessness growing upon them as the days went on, and the weather became more and more severe. Ten, twenty, even thirty degrees below zero, was no unusual register for the Hillsover thermometers. Such cold half frightened them, but nobody else was frightened or surprised. It was dry, brilliant cold. The December snows lay unmelted on the ground in March, and the paths cut then were crisp and hard still, only the white walls on either side had risen higher and higher, till only a moving line of hoods and tippets was visible above them, when the school went out for its daily walk. Morning after morning the girls woke to find thick crusts of frost on their window-panes, and every drop of water in the wash-bowl or pitcher turned to solid ice. Night after night, Clover, who was a chilly little creature, lay shivering and unable to sleep, notwithstanding the hot bricks at her feet, and the many wraps which Katy piled upon her. To Katy herself the cold was more bracing than depressing. There was something in her blood which responded to the sharp tingle of frost, and she gained in strength in a remarkable way during this winter. But the long storms told upon her spirits. She pined for spring and home more than she liked to tell, and felt the need of variety in their monotonous life, where the creeping days appeared like weeks, and the weeks stretched themselves out, and seemed as long as months do in other places.
The girls resorted to all sorts of devices to keep themselves alive during this dreary season. They had little epidemics of occupation. At one time it was “spattering,” when all faces and fingers had a tendency to smudges of India ink; and there was hardly a fine comb or tooth-brush fit for use in the establishment. Then a rage for tatting set in, followed by a fever of fancy-work, every one falling in love with the same pattern at the same time, and copying and recopying, till nobody could bear the sight of it. At one time Clover counted eighteen girls all at work on the same bead and canvas pin- cushion. Later there was a short period of decalcomanie; and then came the grand album craze, when thirty-three girls out of the thirty- nine sent for blank books bound in red morocco, and began to collect signatures and sentiments. Here, also, there was a tendency toward repetition.
Sally Austin added to her autograph these lines of her own composition:—
When on this page your beauteous eyes you bend,
Let it remind you of your absent friend.
Sally J. Austin,
Galveston, Texas.
The girls found this sentiment charming, at least a dozen borrowed it, and in half the albums in the school you might read,—
“When on this page your beauteous eyes,” &c.
Esther Dearborn wrote in Clover’s book: “The better part of Valor is Discretion.” Why she wrote it, nobody knew, or why it was more applicable to Clover than to any one else; but the sentiment proved popular, and was repeated over and over again, above various neatly written signatures. There was a strife as to who should display the largest collection. Some of the girls sent home for autographs of distinguished persons, which they pasted in their books. Rose Red, however, out-did them all.
“Did I ever show you mine?” she asked one day, when most of the girls were together in the school-room.
“No, never!” cried a number of voices. “Have you got one? Oh, do let us see it.”
“Certainly, I’ll get it right away, if you like,” said Rose, obligingly.
She went to her room, and returned with a shabby old blank book in her hand. Some of the girls looked disappointed.
“The cover of mine isn’t very nice,” explained Rose. “I’m going to have it rebound one of these days. You see it’s not a new album at all, nor a school album; but it’s very valuable to me.” Here she heaved a sentimental sigh. “All my friends have written in it,” she said.
The girls were quite impressed by the manner in which Rose said this. But, when they turned over the pages of the album, they were even more impressed. Rose had evidently been on intimate terms with a circle of most distinguished persons. Half the autographs in the book were from gentlemen, and they were dated all over the world.
“Just listen to this!” cried Louisa, and she read,—
“Thou may’st forget me, but never, never shall I forget thee!”
Alphonso of Castile.
The Escurial, April 1st.
‘Who’s he?” asked a circle of awe-struck girls.
“Didn’t you ever hear of him? Youngest brother of the King of Spain,” replied Rose carelessly.
“Oh, my! and just hear this,” exclaimed Annie Silsbie.
If you ever deign to cast a thought in my direction, Miss Rose,
remember me always as
Thy devoted servitor,
Potemkin Montmorency.
St. Petersburg, July 10th.
“And this,” shrieked Alice White.
“They say love is a thorn, I say it is a dart,
And yet I cannot tear thee from my heart.”
Antonio, Count of Vallambrosa.
“Do you really and truly know a Count?” asked Bella, backing away from Rose with eyes as big as saucers.
“Know Antonio de Vallambrosa! I should think I did,” replied Rose.
“Nobody in this country knows him so well, I fancy.”
“And he wrote that for you?”
“How else could it get into my book, goosey?”
This was unanswerable; and Rose was installed from that time forward in the minds of Bella and the rest as a heroine of the first water. Katy, however, knew better; and the first time she caught Rose alone she attacked her on the subject.
“Now, Rosy-Posy, confess. Who wrote all those absurd autographs in your book?”
“Absurd autographs! What can you mean?”
“All those Counts and things. No, it’s no use. You shan’t wriggle away till you tell me.”
“Oh, Antonio and dear Potemkin, do you mean them?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“And you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“And will swear not to tell?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” bursting into a laugh, “I wrote every one of them myself.”
“Did you really? When?”
“Day before yesterday. I thought Lilly needed taking down, she was so set up with her autographs of Wendell Phillips and Mr. Seward, so I just sat down and wrote a book full. It only took me half an hour. I meant to write some more: in fact, I had one all ready,—
‘I am dead, or pretty near:
David’s done for me I fear’
Goliath of Gath.
but