A harum-scarum schoolgirl

by Angela Brazil

  CHAPTER XIII

  Crusoe Island

  When the days grew a little finer, and it was possible to venture out ofdoors without being almost drowned, Miss Chadwick began to put the"Principles of Agriculture" into practical application. All through thewinter she and her assistants--Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod--had worked inall weathers looking after the poultry, the pony, and the newgreenhouse, but it was only at rare intervals that it had been possiblefor the school to turn out and do digging in the garden. The "LandClasses" had, however, been studying the scientific side of the matter.They had analysed soils, estimated the rainfall, and examined thegermination of seeds; they understood such mysterious terms as bacteria,protozoa, cotyledons, trenching and ridging, cross-fertilization andspermatozoids, and had some elementary acquaintance with the theory ofthe rotation of crops. They felt like full-fledged farmers when MissChadwick wrote on the black-board such questions as:--

  "How far apart should different kinds of orchard trees be planted toensure enough sunlight?"

  "Explain a method of testing seeds."

  "What effect has transplanting on a seedling?"

  "Describe the difference in structure between a corn-stem and arose-stem. Make a cross-section drawing of each."

  They tried experiments, such as planting in a box six beans with thescarred ends down, and six with the scarred ends up, and noted theresults from day to day; they placed blotting-paper between two panes ofglass, with seeds next to the glass, put the apparatus in water, anddemonstrated the growth of roots; they started one plant in the dark,and another in a light place, grew identical peas in moist cotton orsaw-dust, broke the seed leaves from specimen beans to observe whathappened, and compared the results of distilled water and tap water asnourishment.

  Everybody agreed, however, that it was much more interesting to put ontheir land costumes and work out-of-doors. Miss Chadwick, whose methodswere on the newest lines, taught rhythmic digging, which is far lessfatiguing than anyhow exertions, and was very particular about theposition of the body and the action of the spade. Miss Todd, looking onwith huge satisfaction, felt that she was cultivating girls as well asvegetables, and that her educational experiment promised elements ofsuccess. Certain special pupils were allowed to help to attend to thepoultry--a coveted honour as soon as the fluffy chickens and ducklingsbegan to be hatched; others were being trained to understandbee-keeping; it was rumoured in the school that Miss Todd's ambitioneven soared so high as buying a cow.

  "Where would she keep it, though?" asked Tattie, who was practical.

  "I don't know, unless on the lawn," ventured Jess.

  "Whew! It would spoil the tennis-courts."

  "Well, I suppose she could hire a field. It would be ripping fun tolearn to milk."

  "Don't flatter yourself you'd have the chance. The seniors get all thatkind of fun, and we poor intermediates only get the spade work. I'venever been allowed to feed the chickens once, no--not _once_--and Ithink it's jolly hard luck!"

  "Well, after the way you stuck your fingers into the bee-hive, I shouldthink Miss Ormrod would hardly trust you to feed a sparrow!"

  "What nonsense! I was only investigating!"

  "Oh, I dare say! It sounds very grand when you put it that way. MissOrmrod called you 'Meddlesome Matty', and said you deserved to bestung!"

  One great advantage of the farming operations, in the eyes of theyounger girls, was that so many materials were left lying about, and itwas quite possible to obtain a considerable amount of enjoyment fromthem. A plank placed over a tree-trunk made quite a good see-saw; thenew back gate was a delightful one to swing upon; and, when MissOrmrod's back was turned, it was a favourite amusement to place a ladderagainst the potting-shed wall, climb to the ridge of the roof, and thenslide down and give a flying jump to the ground. There was an old bucketinside the potting-shed upon which Diana had her eye; she had schemesthat centred round that bucket. It had holes drilled in its sides, andhad been used during building operations to light a fire in. She wasdetermined it should be used for that purpose again.

  Down by the brink of the lake was a boat-house that belonged to theschool. It was kept carefully locked, and Miss Todd had the key. Sinceshe had taken over the school she had allowed no one to use the boat--agrievance at which the girls sometimes grumbled. There was a smalllanding-stage at the edge of the water, and only six feet away from thiswas a sort of island formed of some willow-stumps and a little soil. Itwas a tiny place, hardly worthy to be called an island, and yet forDiana it held an immense attraction. She wanted to get on to it. Shewent down one day with Wendy, Peggy, and Vi, and they took the plankwhich had been used for a see-saw, fixed it as a bridge from thelanding-stage to a willow-stump, and then walked across and tookpossession. Their new property was only about as large as a good-sizeddining-table, but they were immensely pleased with it.

  "We'll bring down the Stars and Stripes and hang them up!" exultedDiana.

  "The Union Jack, you mean!" corrected Wendy. "Can't run up even anAllied flag on British soil without first claiming it for the King! I'dlike to have a picnic here!"

  "That's exactly what's in my mind," agreed Diana, waiving the questionof the colours. "And I've got a brain-wave. We'll carry the bucket over,light a fire, and cook something. Wouldn't it be rather ripping?"

  "A1!" beamed Peggy and Vi.

  "Crusoe Island", as the girls named their willow-clump, might certainlyclaim the doubtful distinction of being the smallest British possessionin the world, but it was an important one in the eyes of its owners.They duly brought down the Union Jack and the American flag, and--as aconcession to Diana--planted them side by side on its scanty soil. Theydecided not to tell seniors or juniors anything at all about it. Ofcourse, in a vague way, the whole school knew of its existence, butnobody had troubled before to land on its few yards of surface. It waswell hidden by the boat-house, so that any operations there were notvisible from the garden or orchard. The rest of the intermediates,admitted with many cautions of silence into the secret, approvedwhole-heartedly; the form squatted in a circle on their territory,linked little fingers, and pledged themselves into a sort of CrusoeSociety. Everybody felt that the first thing to be done was to hold aninauguration feast. They borrowed the bucket, filled it with coal andcoke from the greenhouse, and carried it successfully over the plank tothe island.

  "So far so good!" purred Diana. "We've got our fire!"

  "But not our feast!" qualified Wendy.

  "We shall have to be jolly careful to dodge those juniors," advisedJess. "If they see us carrying out cups they'll be on the scentdirectly."

  "We mustn't risk it. Besides, Barker would be sure to catch us in thepantry, and make a clamour if we took cups; we must manage withoutthings from the house."

  "There's a large biscuit-tin lid in the hen-yard," suggested Sadie. "Ifwe washed it very well, it would do as a frying pan."

  "Good biz!"

  "What could we fry?"

  The commissariat question was indeed the problem of problems. Thevillage was unfortunately out of bounds, so that, except on statedoccasions, when they were escorted by a mistress, the girls were unableto do shopping "on their own". There are ways, however, of crawlingthrough even the most barbed-wire fence of rules.

  "Toddlekins never told us we weren't to ask anybody else to do shoppingfor us," said Wendy demurely. "When you've not been told not to doanything, you're not disobedient if you don't do it--oh! I'm gettingrather in a muddle, but you know what I mean."

  They did, and they grinned approval.

  "There's a little boy working on the next farm," continued Wendy. "I'vesmiled and waved to him over the hedge sometimes. I believe he'd do_anything_ for me. If you can stump up some cash, I'll get him to run anerrand for us. He's picking stones out of the field at this presentmoment--at least, to be absolutely truthful, he was, ten minutes ago,and I don't suppose he's stopped. If I go to the orchard fence I cancall to him."

  The circle looked at Wendy with admiration. They had n
ot before realizedthe riches of her resourcefulness. Each promised to contribute sixpence,and told her where to find their purses, so that they need not arousesuspicion by visiting their dormitories in a body.

  "We'll be lighting the fire while you get the prog," they assured her.

  So Wendy departed on her foraging expedition, collected the necessaryfunds after much hunting in various drawers and coat pockets, hurried tothe orchard, and climbed the fence. Freddie Entwistle was still steadilyengaged in the rural occupation of ridding his father's field ofsuperfluous stones, but he kept an eye on the horizon, and at the sightof Wendy's beckoning finger he flung duty to the winds.

  "D'you want me?" he grinned, as he came panting across the newlyploughed earth.

  "Yes," said his siren sweetly. "I want you badly. Will you go to thevillage and buy something for me?"

  "I don't mind. What shall I get?"

  "Half a pound of biscuits and something to fry."

  "Bacon?" suggested her swain laconically.

  "N-n-no. We had bacon for breakfast."

  "Kippers or ham?"

  "I don't think kippers; but really it must be anything you can get.Here's the money. If there's any change, take it out in sweets."

  "Right you are! I'll be as sharp as I can."

  "It's something to have a knight-errant who's prepared to relieve amaiden in distress," reflected Wendy, seating herself on the fence toawait the return of her chivalrous squire.

  He came back in course of time with his pockets bulging with parcels,evidently very proud of himself for having executed his lady's commands.Her thanks and a commission of sweets left him radiant. He returned tohis stone-picking, living in a dream.

  The party on the island received Wendy with enthusiasm. The fire wasburning beautifully in the bucket, the tin had been scoured with sandand well washed, large ivy leaves had been picked to serve as plates,and the company had their penknives ready.

  "It's sausages!" exclaimed Wendy, opening one of the parcels; "and he'sactually bought some lard to fry them in. What a brain--and only twelve!That boy'll be a general some day, if he doesn't die of over-cleverness.Biscuits to eat with them, my children, and some chocs. for dessert. Ibeg to propose that we accord a hearty vote of thanks to FreddieEntwistle."

  "For he's a jolly good fellow! For he's a jolly good fellow!"

  began Jess; but Diana promptly squashed her.

  "Stop that noise! D'you want to give the whole show away, and haveLennie, and Nora, and Betty, and all the rest of the kids swarming downupon us? Anybody who can't keep quiet will be made to walk the plank.Yes, and splash into the river at the other end of it! We wouldn't pickyou out either; we'd let you drown!"

  "Then I'd sing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' as my 'dying swan song',"protested Jess. "The kids are far enough away. No one can hear us."

  She took the hint, all the same, and did not allow her enjoyment tobubble over into music. Instead, she helped Wendy to prick the sausageswith a penknife and place them on the temporary frying-pan. Thebiscuit-tin lid just fitted nicely over the bucket. In a few minutesthere was a grand sound of fizzling, and a most delicious scent began towaft itself over the waters of the lake. The best of a bucket-fire isthat everybody can sit round it in a circle and superintend the cookingoperations. Eight penknives prodded the sausages so often that it was awonder they were not all chopped to pieces before they were done. Atlast the connoisseurs declared they were brown enough, and they werecarefully and mathematically halved and served on biscuits.

  "Delicious!" decreed Tattie, critically.

  "Couldn't have been better if Toddlekins had reared the piglets on ourown farm," chimed in Peggy.

  "Diana, you haven't taken a bite yet," commented Wendy.

  "I'm not sure that I want any. I think I'll only have a biscuit, afterall."

  "Not want any? Not want the lovely sausages that I risked so much toget? Diana Hewlitt, what's the matter with you?"

  "Oh, nothing--only----"

  "Only nothing, I should say! Eat up that piece of sausage double quick,if you value my friendship."

  "Suppose you eat it for me? That would be sentiment."

  "No, it wouldn't; you must eat it yourself. There'll be a shindy if youdon't. Our first feast! It's a sort of ceremonial!"

  "Not 'the cup of brotherhood' but 'the sausage of sisterhood'!" hinniedJess.

  Diana looked doubtfully at the two inches of brown, porky substance onher ivy-leaf plate, and sighed.

  "I feel like the elephant at the Zoo when they offered him his hundredthbun: It may kill me, but it's a beautiful death," she demurred. "Well,if you're all nuts on my having some, I guess there's nothing else forit. Here goes! What a life!"

  "The Sisterhood of the Sausage," murmured Jess fatuously.

  "Don't make such a fuss; you know you're enjoying it, old sport," saidWendy. "It isn't every day in your life you can come and have a blow-outon Crusoe Island."

  * * * * *

  On Thursday morning Diana, who had been restless and fidgety in thenight, awoke with a rash all over her face and chest. Loveday, muchalarmed, would not allow her to get up till the authorities had seenher, and fetched Miss Todd. The Principal, dismayed at the prospect ofinfection in the school, mentally ran over the gamut of possiblediseases from scarlatina to chicken-pox, ordered Diana to stop in bed,and sent at once to Glenbury for the doctor.

  Now it happened that Dr. Hunter was himself in bed, suffering from asevere attack of influenza, and, as it was extremely difficult for him,at a few hours' notice, to secure the services of a really competentmedical man as locum tenens, he had been obliged to put up with a Hindoodoctor who was sent by the London agent in answer to his urgenttelegram. It was a case of "any port in a storm", and though Dr.Jinaradasa's qualifications might be such as only just to satisfy theboard of the Royal College of Surgeons, it was better to send him tolook after the patients than to leave them utterly unattended.Therefore, when the neat little two-seater car drew up at PendlemereAbbey it was not the bluff, rosy-cheeked Dr. Hunter who stepped out ofit, but a foreign-looking gentleman with a very dark complexion. Heexplained his presence to Miss Todd, who gasped for a second, butrecovered herself, received him gratefully, and conducted him upstairsto view his patient. Diana, I regret to say, behaved like the spoiltchild she really was. She buried her head under the bedclothes, and atfirst utterly refused to submit to any examination. Miss Todd coaxed,wheedled, stormed, and finally pulled the clothes away by force anddisplayed the rash to the dark, lustreless eyes of Dr. Jinaradasa. Heasked a few questions--which Diana answered sulkily--took hertemperature, felt her pulse, and retired downstairs to talk over thecase with Miss Todd, leaving a very cross and indignant patient behindhim. Ten minutes afterwards the door of the ivy room swung gently open,and Wendy's interested and sympathetic face made its appearance.

  "Di!" she whispered impressively; "I'm coming to see you, even if it'ssmallpox you've got. I'm supposed to be practising, but I just did abolt. Well, old sport, you do look an object, I must say!"

  Diana hitched herself higher in bed.

  "You needn't be afraid. I'm not infectious," she remarked.

  "They say you've got measles," ventured Wendy.

  "Measles!" snorted Diana scornfully. "That's all they know about it.I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before.I always _do_ get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort ofpoison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What didMiss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearlyforty fits when he came marching into my room."

  "Well, he says you've got measles at any rate, and Toddlekins is in noend of a state. Thinks it's going to spread all through the school.D'you know she's making arrangements to send you to the Fever Hospital?They're to come and fetch you away in the ambulance."

  "_What!_ The idiots! I tell you I _haven't_ got measles. I won't go! Doyou think I'm going to let myself be bundled off to the Fever Hospitaljust because an
ignoramus of a Hindoo doctor doesn't know his businesssufficiently to tell nettle-rash when he sees it? Rather not! I'd showfight first!"

  "They'll roll you in blankets and carry you downstairs!" thrilled Wendy.

  "They'll do nothing of the sort--I'll take good care of that. I wouldn'tbe easy to carry if I kicked, even inside blankets. I never heard ofsuch an outrageous thing in all my life. I've some bounce left in meyet, and I'll use it--see if I don't! Measles, indeed! I wonder hedidn't say it was hydrophobia."

  "Well, whatever it is, you're to be taken to the Fever Hospital; they'veordered the ambulance. I'm awfully sorry, old sport! It's hard luck onyou. I must scoot now, and go back to my practising, or I shall haveBunty on my track. Bye-bye!"

  Wendy vanished, leaving Diana alone and most upset. She considered thatshe was being treated abominably. She longed to telegraph to herparents, but she knew that was impossible.

  "Whatever happens, I'm not going to that wretched Fever Hospital," shesaid to herself. "I'm sure Cousin Cora wouldn't like me to be takenthere. Why shouldn't I go to Petteridge? They're all well again from the'flu'. What a brain-wave! I declare I will, and tell Cousin Cora allabout it!"

  Diana was nothing if not impetuous. She jumped up immediately, and begana hasty toilet. She was just three-quarters through with it when sheheard footsteps on the stairs. She immediately whisked her nightdress onover her clothes, and popped into bed just three seconds before MissTodd entered the room. The excitement of such a rush made her face moreflushed than ever. Miss Todd came and looked at her critically.

  "Yes, the rash is coming out very nicely," she observed.

  "It's nettle-rash, not measles!" affirmed Diana defiantly.

  "That's for the doctor to decide, not you. I'm afraid you must havecaught it the day you went in the omnibus to Glenbury. It takes nearlya fortnight to incubate."

  Diana shivered with anxiety lest Miss Todd should wish to inspect theprogress of the rash on her chest as well as on her face, and thusdiscover that she was half clothed beneath her nightdress, butfortunately the head mistress did not descend so far in herinvestigations. Instead, she turned to Diana's drawers, and beganfilling a hand-bag with various necessaries. She did not mention theFever Hospital, probably judging it better not to prepare the patientbeforehand, but to wait until the ambulance arrived. Diana, of course,knew why she was collecting the garments, but feigned to ignore thematter, and made no comment. She wished Miss Todd would be quick and go.She was so terribly afraid that the ambulance might drive up before shehad the chance to make her escape. Flight seemed certainly preferable toa struggle.

  The mistress at last found a sufficiency of nightdresses and othergarments, and, telling Diana to keep herself covered up and warm, tookher departure.

  The moment she was safely out of the way the invalid sprang up andresumed her interrupted toilet. Diana had suffered from nettle-rashseveral times before, and the treatment had not included stopping in bedor even staying indoors. Her complaint was really more in the nature ofdyspepsia. She felt as if fresh air would do her good. She did not dareto walk downstairs in case she might meet anybody, so she decided toadopt the method she had found effective last autumn, and climb outthrough the window and down the ivy. Lessons were in progress, so nobodywould be in the garden to watch her, except Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod,who would probably be engaged with the horse or the hens. She swungherself out, therefore, and let herself down by the thick stems. Thenshe dodged round the house to the bicycle-shed. She did not yet possessa machine of her own, but Wendy's stood handy, and she knew her chumwell enough to borrow it. She wheeled it through the back gate,fortunately without meeting Miss Carr, and then set off at top-speed forPetteridge Court.

  Mrs. Burritt was naturally much surprised to see her young cousin turnup in so unexpected a fashion, and with a rash on her face, but she didthe most sensible thing in the circumstances: she put Diana to bed, andsent to Dunswick for a doctor. He arrived during the course of theafternoon, and, after a careful examination of his patient, pronouncedher complaint to be nettle-rash.

  "There's not a doubt about it!" he declared. "You need not be in theleast afraid that it's measles."

  Armed with a medical certificate to that effect, Mrs. Burritt motoredover to Pendlemere Abbey to patch up peace with Miss Todd. Partly forreasons of health, and partly to let the storm blow over, she keptDiana at Petteridge until the rash had entirely disappeared and the girlseemed in her absolutely normal condition. Mrs. Burritt took her back onthe understanding that bygones should be bygones, and a fresh startshould be made without any reference to former delinquencies.

  Miss Todd received Diana quite amiably, but insisted upon her having acarbolic bath, and herself washed her hair with strong disinfectantsoap. The clothes she had worn disappeared mysteriously for some days,and were then returned from the stoving department of the GlenburySanitation Office. Diana made no comments at head-quarters, but laughedto herself.

  "I'm sure Toddlekins believes I've had measles," she confided to Wendy.

  "Of course she does. She said she hadn't the least doubt about it, andthat you hadn't eaten anything which could have caused you to havenettle-rash."

  "What would she say if she knew about the sausages?" queried Diana.