CHAPTER V OFF FOR THE SEASIDE
Ruthie, whats a scutcheon?
Um um, said Ruth, far away.
A what , child? demanded Agnes.
Scutcheon?
Escutcheon, she means, chuckled Neale, who was present as usual at study hour.
Well, what is it? begged Tess, plaintively.
Why? demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up. Thats a hard word for a small girl, Tess.
It says here, quoth Tess, that There was a blot upon his escutcheon.
Oh, yes sure, drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated. That must mean a fancy vest, Tess. And he spilled soup on it sure!
Now Neale! how horrid! admonished Ruth, while Agnes giggled.
I do think you are all awful mean to me, wailed Tess. You dont tell me a thing. Youre almost as mean as Trix Severn was to me to-day. I dont want to go to her fathers hotel, so there! Have we got to, Ruthie?
What did she do to you, Tess? demanded Agnes, with a curiosity she could not quench. For, deep as the chasm had grown between her and her former chum, she could not ignore Trix.
She just turned up her nose at me, complained Tess, when I went by; and I heard her say to some girl she was with: There goes one of them now. They pushed their way into our party, and I spose weve got to entertain them. Now, did we push our way in, Ruthie?
Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed indignation, so that when she did so, the other girls and even Neale were the more impressed.
Of course she was speaking of that wretched invitation she gave us to stay at her fathers hotel at Pleasant Cove, said Ruth. Well!
Oh, Ruthie! dont say you wont go, begged Agnes.
Ill never go to that Overlook House unless we pay our way be sure of that, declared the angry Ruth.
But we are going to the shore, Ruthie? asked Tess.
Yes.
Maybe
Pearl Harrod will ask us again, murmured Agnes, hopefully.
I guess we can pay our way and be beholden to nobody, said Ruth, shortly. I will hire one of the tents, if nothing else. And well start the very day after High closes, just as we planned.
Despite the loss of her soulmate, Agnes was pretty cheerful. She was to graduate from grammar school; and although she was sorry to lose Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she was delighted to get out of the pigtail classes, as she rudely termed the lower grades.
Im going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever you say, she declared, just as soon as I get into high school next fall. Im old enough to forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!
Not yet, my child, not yet, laughed Ruth. Why! there are more girls in High who wear their hair down than up .
But Im so big
You mean, youd be big, chuckled Neale, if you were only rolled out, for he was always teasing Agnes about her plumpness.
Well! I want to celebrate some way, sighed Agnes. Cant we have a specially nice supper that night?
Surely, child, said her sedate sister. What do you want?
Well! repeated Agnes, slowly; you know Ill never graduate from Grammar again. Couldnt we kill some of those nice frying chickens of yours, Ruthie?
Oh, my! cried Neale. What have the poor chickens done that they should be slaughtered to make a Roman holiday?
Mr. Smartie! snapped Agnes. You be good, or you shant have any.
If that Tom Jonah hadnt been busy on a certain night, none of us would have eaten those particular frying chickens, laughed Neale. I wonder if that Gypsy is running yet?
He didnt get the frying chickens in the bag, said Agnes. They were in another coop. We hatched them in January and brought them up by hand. Say! I dont believe you know much about natural history, Neale, anyway.
I guess he knows more than Sammy Pinkney does, Tess said, again drawn into the conversation. Teacher asked him to tell us two breeds of dairy cattle and which gives the most milk. Shed been reading to us about it out of a book. So Sammy says:
The bull and the cow, Miss Andrews; and the cow gives the most milk.
Dots school held its closing exercises one morning, and Tess in the afternoon. Then came the graduation of Agnes and Neale ONeil from the grammar school. Ruth was excused from her own classes at High long enough to attend her sisters graduation.
Although the plump Corner House girl was no genius, she always stood well in her classes. Ruth saw to that, for what Agnes did not learn at school she had to study at home.
So she stood well up in her class, and she did look too distractingly pretty, as Mrs. MacCall declared, when she gave the last touches to Agnes dress before she started for school that last day. Miss Ann Titus, Miltons most famous seamstress and gossip-in-ordinary, had outdone herself in making Agnes dress. No girl in her class not even Trix Severn was dressed so becomingly.
The envious Trix heard the commendations showered on her former friend, and her face grew sourer and her temper sharper. She well knew she had invited the Corner House girls to be her guests at Pleasant Cove; but she did not want them in her party now. She did not know how to get out of the fix, as she called it in her own mind.
She had intimated to two or three other girls who were going, however, that Agnes and Ruth had forced the invitation from her in a moment of weakness. If she had to number them of her party, Miss Trix proposed to make it just as unpleasant for the Kenway sisters as she could.