Chapter 3: The Rescue

Brenda started for school a little later than usual the morning after Julia’s arrival. As she walked up Beacon Street she saw Edith and Nora ahead of her, half-way up the slope on the sidewalk next the Common.

“Oh, dear, they might look back,” she said to herself. But they neither looked back nor paused on their way, and Brenda was prevented from hurrying by a line of wagons and street cars which blocked Charles Street. She was kept standing for two or three minutes at the street crossing, and when she continued her way Edith and Nora had turned into the side street leading to the school. When Brenda reached the school door, Belle was the centre of a group of girls seated on the steps.

“Why didn’t you call for me, Belle?” cried Brenda petulantly.

“Oh, I had to do some errands on the way, and I thought, too, that you would stay home with your cousin.”

“Well! I should say not. I shall see enough of her.”

“Tell us about her, Brenda,” cried Nora who came out from the house for a moment. “Belle says she has come. What is she like?”

“Like? Why, like any girl. There’s nothing special about her. She wears black and I think she feels kind of superior. It’s going to be awfully hard for me.”

“Yes, Brenda,” said a thin-faced girl in the group back by Belle. “You don’t think any one could be superior to you, do you?”

Brenda, with her back to the sidewalk, was ready with a sharp reply, when a warning look from one of the girls closed her lips.

“Why, girls,” said a cheerful voice behind her, “ought you not to go inside now? You should be in your seats by twenty minutes past nine. I have said many times that you were not to wait for me.”

The girls all respected Miss Crawdon, and they were just a little afraid of her. Her authority was not always agreeable, when she chose to make them feel it. Miss Crawdon was tall and blonde, with eyes some one said “that saw everything.” These were the right kind of eyes for the principal of a girls’ school. She had a pleasant voice with a tone of decision in it that no one dared dispute. At her words the girls seated on the steps slowly arose, and in a very short time they were at their desks, getting out books and preparing for the day’s work.

Brenda and Belle occupied adjacent seats. Edith and Nora were in the same room, though a little nearer the window. They with about ten other girls formed what might be called the middle class of a school of forty. There were about fifteen older girls who would stay in school one or two years longer, while Brenda and her friends had three years before them. At least they would not “come out” for three years.

The older girls naturally kept much to themselves. They “did up” their hair, wore skirts almost touching the ground, and were in every way envied by their juniors. The youngest girls of all concerned themselves very slightly about the oldest of all. But the girls of Brenda’s age imitated in many ways the doings of these older girls, and when, as occasionally happened, one of the graduating class invited a younger girl to walk with her at recess, the latter for a day or two after was treated with great deference by her companions.