Sisters

  CHAPTER XIII. FERNS AND FRIENDS

  True to her promise, Jenny Warner went to the seminary on Monday, afterher lessons were over, to see if she could be of assistance to MissO'Hara.

  The kindly Irish woman saw the girl coming and met her at the openkitchen door with so beaming a face that the newcomer was convinced thatsomething of a pleasant nature had occurred, nor was she wrong.

  "Colleen, it's true blue you are, keepin' your word so handsome, butthere's no need for you to be stayin'. Another of them orphans blew inalong about noon-time, and it did me heart good to set eyes on the brightface of her. She went to work with a will, not wishin' to rest even. Hername's Nora O'Flynn, and her forebears came from the same part of oldIreland which gave birth to mesilf. 'Twon't be hard to be makin' thekitchen homelike for _this_ orphan," she concluded.

  Jenny went away joyfully. Things had turned out wonderfully for them all.Miss O'Hara could never have been happy with Etta Heldt, who was of arace she could not understand, but now that she was to have with her oneof her own people, her long days of drudgery would be lightened andbrightened.

  As Jenny tripped down the box-bordered path leading from the seminary toa canyon trail that would be a short-cut to the farm, she passed thetennis courts, where several games were in progress. She glanced at theplayers, wondering if any of them might be the haughty sister of HaroldP-J. But tennis was altogether too strenuous a pastime for the everindolent Gwynette.

  The back trail led along the Sycamore Canyon creek, where ferns of manyvarieties were growing; some were as tall as the girl who was passingthem, while, among the moss-covered rocks, close to the brook, were themore feathery and delicate maiden hair ferns. It had been very warm inthe sun, but there was a most welcome damp coolness in the canyon. For amoment Jenny stood still at the top of the trail gazing down, listeningto the quietness, broken only by the constant gurgling rush of the water.Then she started walking slowly along the trail, picking her waycarefully, as it was rough and rocky, and at places very narrow. Itamused her to note the different sounds of the brook. At one spot therewas a whirling little eddy, then a sudden fall over a steep rock, then ahurried rushing till a broad pool-like place was reached. There thewaters were deeper and quieter, as though pausing for a moment's restbefore taking a plunge of many feet to the lower part of the canyon. Justabove the Maiden-hair Falls, a rustic bridge crossed from one greatboulder to another, and, as Jenny came in sight of it, she stopped,amazed, for there, sitting on one end of the bridge and leaning againstthe bending trunk of a great old sycamore tree, was a girl of her ownage. Who could she be? Jenny had not heard of anyone new moving into theneighborhood. In fact, there were no houses in the canyon except the oneoccupied by the Pascoli family.

  A small stone, disturbed by Jenny's foot, rattled noisily down the trail,struck the bridge and bounded away into the lower canyon.

  The stranger glanced up with an expression that was almost startled andJenny saw that it was the girl in brown whom she had twice noticed: oncein the yard of the seminary, when she had been left so alone, and againin the dining hall when she had passed a dish, almost shyly, to the grandappearing Clare Tasselwood. Jenny remembered that this girl had said"Thank you," and had smiled pleasantly when her cup had been filled withchocolate. She was smiling again, a bright welcoming smile, which assuredJenny that the stranger wished to speak to her, nor was she wrong, for,as soon as the bridge was reached, the girl in brown exclaimed: "Isn'tthis a wonderful place that I've found? It's the first time since I cameto this school that I haven't been depressingly lonesome."

  Jenny's heart rejoiced. This girl must also love nature if she could feelreal companionship in an almost silent canyon. Impulsively, she said,"Shall you mind if I sit here with you for a time?"

  "Mind?" The other girl's brown eyes gladdened. "I was hoping that youwould."

  Jenny seated herself on the rustic bridge directly over the rushingfalls. "Oh, hadn't you better move over near this end?" her companionasked anxiously. "Won't the hurrying whirl of the water underneath makeyou dizzy?"

  Jenny shook her head. "We're old friends," she explained. "I amacquainted with Sycamore Canyon brook from its very beginning way up inthe foothills, and it flows into the sea not far from the farm where Ilive."

  "Oh, good!" Again the bright upward glance. "I'm so glad you live on afarm, for I do also, when I'm at home in Dakota. My father is a farmer. Ihaven't told it before, fearing the seminary girls might snub me if theyknew. Not that I would care much. All I ask of them is to let me alone,and they certainly do that." Then in a burst of confidence, "I reallydon't know what to say to girls, nor how to act with them. I have livedso many years on an isolated farm and, would you believe it, I never,actually never, had a flesh and blood girl friend. I've had steens andsteens of book-character friends, and I honestly believe, on the whole, Ilike them best." Then with a shy side glance, "Do you think I am queer?Tell me so truly if you do."

  Jenny moved closer to the girl in brown as she exclaimed, "Yes, I dothink you are queer, if queer means different from those other girls."Then she laughingly confessed, "The truth is I never had a girl friendeither, not one, but I have lots of make-believe friends, so, you see, Ialso am queer."

  The girl in brown beamed, "O, I am so glad, for maybe, do you thinkpossibly you and I might become friends, being both queer and all that?"

  Jenny nodded joyfully. "Why, of course we can be friends if you wish.That is, if Miss Granger would want you to be friendly with any but thegentry. Perhaps she doesn't allow the pupils of her school to makeacquaintances on the outside."

  This thought was not at all troubling to the strange girl. "You see," shebegan seriously, "I am not subject to the rules governing the otherpupils."

  Then, noting the puzzled expression in the listener's eyes, she leanedback against the tree as she laughingly continued: "Suppose I begin atthe beginning and then you will understand about me once for all."

  "We don't even know each other's names," Jenny put in. "Mine is JeanetteWarner. I have always lived with my grandparents on Rocky Point farm,which belongs to the estate of the Poindexter-Jones family." A shadowpassed over the speaker's face, which, a moment before, had been sobright. "I want to be real honest before we begin a friendship. We arenot farmers in our own right. We are hired to run a farm, therefore weare servants in the employ of the mother of one of your classmates. Atleast that is what Gwynette Poindexter-Jones calls us."

  The observant listener saw the flush mounting to her new friend's cheeks,and, impulsively, she reached out a hand and placed it on the one nearher. "What does _that_ matter? I mean so far as our friendship isconcerned," she asked.

  Jenny was relieved. "Doesn't it really? Well, then I'm glad. Now pleasetell me all about yourself from the very beginning."

  Jenny noticed that her companion looked frail and so she was notsurprised to hear her say that she had been very ill. "Lenora Gale is myname," she began, "and my family consists of an unequalled father, and ofa brother who is just as nice only younger. My dearest mother died oflung trouble years ago, and every time since then when I have caughtcold, it has taken my vitality to an alarming extent, and last fall, whenthe bitter winter weather set in, and oh, how cold our northern wintersare, father wanted me sent to California, but he could not come himself.Brother Charles wished to attend an agricultural college near Berkeleyand so I was put in a boarding school up there, just as a place to stayand be well cared for. I was not to attend classes unless I desired. Butthe rainy season continued for so long that Brother thought best to bringme farther south, and that is why I am now in the Granger PlaceSeminary."

  Jenny rose and held out a hand. "Lenora Gale," she said seriously, "thedamp coolness of this canyon will not do at all for you. I'm going towalk back with you to the top of the trail. I can see quite plainly thatyou need a friend to look after you." And evidently Jenny was right, forthe rough upward climb was hard for the girl who had not been well, an
dshe scarcely spoke until they said good-bye at the side door of theseminary. Then she turned and clung to the hand of her new friend as shesaid imploringly, "You won't just disappear and forget me, will you? I doso want to see you again."

  "Indeed not," Jenny assured her. "I'll come up and get you tomorrow, if Imay have Dobbin, and take you home to supper. I want you to meet GrandmaSue and Grandpa Si."

  Lenora's pale face brightened. "Oh, how wonderful that will be. I wishtoday were tomorrow."

  Again Jenny descended the Sycamore Canyon brook trail, but this time sheskipped along that she need not be late to help get supper. At thebridge, though, she stopped for one moment as at a shrine. "Here," shesaid aloud, "is where I met my first girl friend." A lizard on a stonenear lifted its gray head and looked at her with bright black eyes, butJenny, with a song of gladness, passed on down the trail, for oncewithout noticing the wild life about her.