CHAPTER VII
"A HARD ROW TO HOE"
Since Ruth Fielding had organized the S.B.'s, or Sweetbriars, there hadbeen little hazing at Briarwood Hall. Of course, this was the first realopening of the school year since that auspicious occasion; but the effectof the new society and its teachings upon the whole school was marked.
Rivalries had ceased to a degree. The old Upedes, of which The Fox hadbeen the head, no longer played their tricks. The Fox had grown much olderin appearance, if not in years. She had had her lesson.
Belle and Lluella and Heavy were not so reckless, either. And as theS.B.'s stood for friendship, kindness, helpfulness, and all its memberswore the pretty badge, it was likely to be much easier for those "infants"who joined the school now.
Ann Hicks was bound to receive some hard knocks, even as Mrs. Tellinghamhad suggested. But "roughing it" a little is sometimes good for girls aswell as boys.
In her own western home Ann could have held her own with anybody. She wasso much out of her usual element here at Briarwood that she was like astartled hare. She scented danger on all sides.
Her roommates could not always defend her, although even Mercy, theunmerciful, tried. Ann Hicks was so big, and blundering. She was tallerthan most girls of her age, and "raw-boned" like her uncle. Some time shemight really be handsome; but there was little promise of it as yet.
When the principal started her in her studies, it was soon discovered thatAnn, big girl though she was, had to take some of the lessons belonging tothe primary grade. And she made a sorry appearance in recitation, at best.
There were plenty of girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as aschoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. And unless the victim is blessedwith either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goeshard with her.
Poor Ann had neither--she was merely confused and miserable.
She saw the other girls of her room--and their close friends in theneighboring quartette--going cheerfully about the term's work. They hadinterests that the girl from the West, with her impoverished mind, couldnot even appreciate.
She had to study so hard--even some of the simplest lessons--that she hadlittle time to learn games. She did not care for gymnasium work, althoughthere were probably few girls at the school as muscular as herself. Tennisseemed silly to her. Nobody rode at the Hall, and she longed to bestride apony and dash off for a twenty-mile canter.
Nothing that she was used to doing on the ranch would appeal to thesegirls here--Ann was quite sure of that. Ruth and the others who had beenwith them for that all-too-short month at Silver Ranch seemed to haveforgotten the riding, and the roping, and all.
Then, Helen had her violin--and loved it. Ruth was practicing singing allthe time she could spare, for she was already a prominent member of theGlee Club. When the girl of the Red Mill sang, Ann Hicks felt her heartthrob and the tears rise in her eyes. She loved Ruth's kind of music; yetshe, herself, could not carry a tune.
Mercy was strictly attentive to her own books. Mercy was a bookworm--nordid she like being asked questions about her studies. Those first fewweeks Ann Hicks's recitations did not receive very high marks.
Often some of the girls who did not know her very well laughed because shecarried books belonging to the primary grade. Ann Hicks had many studiesto make up that her mates had been drilled in while they were in thelower classes.
One day at mail time (and in a boarding school that is a most importanthour) Ann received a very tempting-looking box by parcel post. She hadbeen initiated into the meaning of "boxes from home." Even Aunt Alvirahhad sent a box to Ruth, filled with choicest homemade dainties.
Ann expected nothing like that. Uncle Bill would never think of it--and hewouldn't know what to buy, anyway. The box fairly startled the girl fromSilver Ranch.
"What is it? Something good to eat, I bet," cried Heavy, who was on hand,of course. "Open it, Ann--do."
"Come on! Let's see what the goodies are," urged another girl, but whosmiled behind her hand.
"I don't know who would send _me_ anything," said Ann, slowly.
"Never mind the address. Open it!" cried a third speaker, and had Annnoted it, she would have realized that some of the most trying girls inthe school had suddenly surrounded her.
With trembling fingers she tore off the outside wrapper without seeingthat the box had been mailed at the local post office--Lumberton!
A very decorative box was enclosed.
"H-m-m!" gasped Heavy. "Nothing less than fancy nougatines in _that_."
She was aiding the heartless throng, but did not know it. It would havenever entered Heavy's mind to do a really mean thing.
Ann untied the narrow red ribbon. She raised the cover. Tissue papercovered something very choice----?
_A dunce cap._
For a moment Ann was stricken motionless. The girls about her shouted. Onecoarse, thoughtless girl seized the cap, pulled it from the box, andclapped it on Ann Hicks's black hair.
The delighted crowd shouted more shrilly. Heavy was thunderstruck. Thenshe sputtered:
"Well! I never would have believed there was anybody so mean as that inthe whole of Briarwood School."
But Ann, who had held in her temper as she governed a half-wild pony onthe range, until this point, suddenly "let go all holts," as Bill Hickswould have expressed it.
She tore the cap from her head and stamped upon it and the fancy box ithad come in. She struck right and left at the laughing, scornful faces ofthe girls who had so baited her.
Had it not been disgraceful, one might have been delighted with the changein the expression of those faces--and in the rapidity with which thechange came about.
More than one blow landed fairly. The print of Ann's fingers wasimpressed in red upon the cheeks of those nearest to her. They ranscreaming--some laughing, some angry.
Heavy's weight (for the fleshy girl had seized Ann about the waist) wasall that made the enraged girl give over her pursuit of her tormentors.Fortunately, Ruth herself came running to the spot. She got Ann away andsat by her all the afternoon in their room, making up her own delinquentlessons afterward.
But the affair could not be passed over without comment. Some of the girlshad reported Ann's actions. Of course, such a disgraceful thing as a girlslapping another was seldom heard of in Briarwood. Mrs. Tellingham, whoknew very well where the blame lay, dared not let the matter go withoutpunishing Ann, however.
"I am grieved that one of our girls--a young lady in the juniorgrade--should so forget herself," said the principal. "Whatever may havebeen the temptation, such an exhibition of temper cannot be allowed. I amsure she will not yield to it again; nor shall I pass leniently over theperson who may again be the cause of Ann Hicks losing her temper."
This seemed to Ann to be "the last straw." "She might have better put mein the primary grade in the beginning," the ranch girl said, spitefully."Then I wouldn't have been among those who despise me. I hate them all!I'll just get away from here----"
But the thought of running away a second time rather troubled her. She hadworried her uncle greatly the first time she had done so. Now he was sureshe was in such good hands that she wouldn't wish to run away.
Ann knew that she could not blame Ruth Fielding, and the other girls whowere always kind to her. She merely shrank from being with them, when theyknew so much more than she did.
It was her pride that was hurt. Had she taken the teasing of the meanergirls in a wiser spirit, she knew they would not have sent her the duncecap. They continued to tease her because they knew they could hurt her.
"I--I wish I could show them I could do things that they never dreamed ofdoing!" muttered Ann, angrily, yet wistfully, too. "I'd like to fling arope, or manage a bad bronc', or something they never saw a girl dobefore.
"Book learning isn't everything. Oh! I have half a mind to give up and goback to the ranch. Nobody made fun of me out there--they didn't dare! Andour folks are too kind to tease that way, anyhow," thought the w
esterngirl.
"Uncle Bill is just paying out his good money for nothing. He said Ruthwas a little lady--and Helen, too. I knew he wanted me to be the same,after he got acquainted with them and saw how fine they were.
"But you sure 'can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' That's ascertain as shootin'! If I stay here I've got a mighty hard row tohoe--and--and I don't believe I've got the pluck to hoe it." Ann groaned,and shook her tousled black head.