It had been on the tip of her tongue to exclaim,--

"Why, if you think your lessons are hard, in a cla.s.s like yours, what do you suppose mine must be, when I am in with such big girls;" but she only said,--

"I spose the first day everything seems harder; but when we get used to the teachers and the lessons, they won't seem so hard."

The dinner-bell rang, and Ruby exclaimed,--

"Oh, I am so hungry. It just seems as if I had not had anything to eat for a year. Let's hurry and go down before the rest, Maude."

But everybody else was hungry, too, so Ruby and Maude were by no means the first of the stream of girls that hurried into the dining-room.

CHAPTER XVII.

LEARNING.

I suppose you can hardly fancy a school where little girls were not allowed to wear their hair as they liked; where they had to courtesy to teachers when they left the room; and, what was still more surprising, had to eat whatever was given to them at the table. I think that such a school would seem so very old-fashioned nowadays that no little girls could be found who would be willing to go to it, and even in those days there were very few like it.

The dear old Quaker lady, Miss Chapman, taught the little girls to do just as she herself had been taught to do when she were a little girl; so you can easily imagine that her ways was not quite the ways of other teachers. And yet, since her scholars were as healthy, happy, rosy-cheeked little girls as you could find anywhere, I do not know that any one could complain that her ways were not very good ways.

They seemed very strange to new scholars sometimes, if they had attended other schools where the rules were not so strict; but they very soon grew used to them, and then they did not mind them at all, and were very happy.

If Maude had not been sitting by her friend, Mrs. Boardman, perhaps she would have made a great fuss at dinner-time about eating the piece of sweet potato which had been served to her.

She did not like sweet potato, and she liked the idea of having to eat it, whether she wanted it or not, still less, and the clouds began to gather on her face. She glanced about the table, and saw that Ruby was having a hard time, trying to eat a dish which she did not like, and that some of the other girls did not look very happy when they heard the rule.

Mrs. Boardman whispered a few encouraging words to Maude, and the little girl reflected that as long as she had really tried to be good about some other things, she might as well try to be good about this rule, too, and so she managed to eat the small piece of potato without saying anything about not liking it. After the girls had eaten the portion which was put upon their plates the first time, they were at liberty to decline any more for that meal; so you may be sure that Maude did not take any more.

"Don't let me forget to tell you about a boy I heard about who had to eat something he did n't like, and came very near having to make his whole dinner upon it," whispered Mrs. Boardman. "I don't think you can imagine how it happened, and you can think about it while you are eating your potato. See, it is only a little piece, and it will soon be gone. If I were in your place, I would eat it all up first, and then you will enjoy the rest of your dinner more when you do not have it to think about."

Ruby did not so very much mind anything that she had to eat at dinner; but two mornings in the week, Tuesday and Friday, there was always egg-plant for breakfast, and for some weeks Ruby would think about it all the day before, and talk about it the day after, until Aunt Emma told her that she might as well eat eggplant for every meal every day, she thought and talked so much about it.

"But I do hate it so," Ruby would say. "I don't see the use in having to eat what one does n't like. I just can't bear it, Aunt Emma."

"But you will learn to like it after a while," Aunt Emma said. "Miss Chapman thinks that little girls ought to learn to like everything that is put before them, and she tries to have a pleasant variety, and not have anything that the girls will dislike. You will see how much easier it will be to eat your piece of egg plant in two or three weeks."

"And it just seems as if I always did get the very largest piece of all," Ruby said in despair. "This morning you had a little teenty piece and mine was twice as large."

"That was so you would have twice as much practice in learning to like it, I suppose," Aunt Emma said with a smile.

After dinner was over there was a half-hour for play and then the school-bell rang, and the girls went back into the school-room. Some of them took music lessons, and they went one at a time to take a lesson in the parlor from Miss Emma.

Ruby was to take music lessons, to her great delight. She had been sure that it would be very easy, and she was quite disappointed when she found how much she would have to learn before she could play as her aunt did.

When school was over for the afternoon, at four o'clock, Ruby breathed a long sigh of relief. The day had seemed a very long one to her, though it had been very pleasant, and it seemed as if it could not be possible that only yesterday at this time she had been on her way to school.

"What do we do next?" asked Ruby of one of her schoolmates, as they went into the house together.

"We all go out together for a walk," answered the little girl. "Will you walk with me to-day? I will come to your room as soon as I am ready."

"All right," Ruby answered, and she ran upstairs to her own room, to put on her hat and jacket.

Every pleasant day the girls were taken out for a walk, and the teachers took turns in going with them. To-day Mrs. Boardman was going to take them, and Maude was very glad, because she had obtained permission to walk with her. All the girls were very fond of Mrs.

Boardman, and they would obtain her promise to walk with them so many days ahead that she could hardly remember all the promises she had made.

When they were all ready they started out, Ruby and Agnes Van Kirk at the head of the little procession and Maude and Mrs. Boardman at the end.

Ruby felt very important as she looked up at the window and waved good-by to her aunt. It was great fun going out to walk this way, with a whole string of girls behind her, instead of going down the road with a hop and a skip and a jump to Ruthy's house. If Ruthy could only be here, and if at night she could kiss her mother and father good-night, Ruby was quite sure that she would think boarding-school quite the nicest place in the world.

They had a very pleasant walk. They went down the winding road, bordered upon either side with wide-reaching elm-trees, and then turned down towards the river. After they reached the path that wound beside the water Mrs. Boardman let the girls break their ranks, and run about and gather some of the wild flowers and feathery gra.s.ses that grew there in such profusion.

Ruby gathered a beautiful bunch of plumy golden-rod for her Aunt Emma, and when she went to look for Agnes, she displayed it triumphantly.

"Just see what a beautiful bunch of goldenrod I have," she exclaimed in delight. "Won't Aunt Emma be pleased? But have n't you got any flowers, Agnes? Why, what have you been doing? I thought you were looking for flowers too."

Agnes opened a paper bag, which she had loosely twisted together at the top, and which seemed to be empty, and said,--

"No, I did not get any flowers, but just see what a beautiful caterpillar I have. Is n't that lovely?"

Ruby peeped into the bag, and saw a large mottled caterpillar walking about upon a leaf, apparently wondering where he was, and doubtless thinking that the sun had gone under a cloud, since he could not see it anywhere.

"Is n't he a beauty?" repeated Agnes, in delighted tones, taking another look at her prisoner herself, and then twisting the bag together again.

Ruby hesitated. She did not like to say that she thought it was the very ugliest caterpillar she had ever seen, and that if Agnes really wanted a caterpillar she would have thought that one of the fat brown ones that she could find anywhere around the school would have been nicer, and yet Agnes seemed to admire it so much she really felt as if she ought to say something.

"Well," she said at last, as she found that Agnes was waiting for her, "I think it is certainly one of the biggest caterpillars I ever saw.

What are you going to do with it? I don't see what you like caterpillars for."

"Oh, it is n't for myself," Agnes answered. "It is for Miss Ketchum.

She is very fond of studying about bugs and caterpillars and everything of that kind, and nothing makes her quite as happy as to have a nice new caterpillar to watch."

"What does she do with them?" asked Ruby.

"She puts them in little boxes with thin muslin over the top, or mosquito netting, so that she can look through and watch them, and she feeds them every day with leaves or something else that they like, and then after a while they spin themselves all up into coc.o.o.ns, and go to sleep, and then by and by a beautiful b.u.t.terfly comes out. Oh, Miss Ketchum just loves caterpillars."

"I wish I had a caterpillar for her," said Ruby. "Well, I will get one for her the very next time I see one, as long as she likes them so much. I never heard of any one liking caterpillars before, though, did you?"

"No, I don't know as I did," said Agnes. "But I think I shall like them very much too before long, for I like to watch the b.u.t.terflies come out, and I like to keep looking out for new caterpillars. I don't think I would like to bother taking care of them as Miss Ketchum does, but perhaps I won't mind that after a while. She has such a nice book about them."

Miss Ketchum was very much pleased with the new specimen when Agnes gave it to her, after the girls got home from their walk, and Ruby looked with great interest at the little boxes in which captive caterpillars were walking about, apparently feeling at home and very happy as they nibbled at their nice fresh leaves, or sunned themselves upon the netting.

"Isn't Miss Ketchum nice?" said Agnes, as the girls went up to their own rooms. "Some of the girls don't like her as well as they do the other teachers, but I do. She is always so kind about helping one with lessons, and she never gets cross unless she has one of her bad headaches, and then I should think she would be cross, for the girls tease her. She was so kind to me when I first came that I just love to get her caterpillars or do anything else I can for her."

"She was so glad to get that new one, was n't she?" said Ruby. "I will help you get some for her, Agnes, the very next time we go out walking.

We will walk together, and then we can both watch for them."

"That will be ever so nice," said Agnes. "You see most of the girls make fun of Miss Ketchum because she wears those little curls on her forehead, and is absent-minded sometimes, and likes caterpillars so much, and it will please her ever so much if you like her, and help her instead of laughing at her."