The Girl Scouts on the Ranch — Key Ideas to Explore

ery window of Miss Allen’s Boarding School stood wide open in hospitality to welcome the guests of the graduating class. For it was Commencement Week, and visitors were coming from far and wide to see the exercises.

Upstairs in the dormitories, confusion reigned everywhere. Trunks, half-packed, their lids wide open and their trays on the floor, lined the hallways; dresses were lying about in profusion on chairs and beds; great bunches of flowers filled the vases and pitchers; and rooms were bereft of their hangings and furnishings. Girls, girls everywhere! In party dresses or kimonos they rushed about their rooms or bent over their trunks in the hall. Everybody seemed in mad haste to accomplish the impossible.

Marjorie Wilkinson and Lily Andrews were no less excited than the other seniors. They not only shared in the mad whirl of social events and class activities, but as officers they were responsible for their success. When dances and picnics were to be arranged, studying and packing were out of the question for them.

But that afternoon there had been a slight lull in their program, and both girls were in their room, trying to make up for lost time. Marjorie, who had been struggling for half an hour with a buckle and a satin pump, finally put it aside in disgust.

“Lil, I can’t sew that thing on, so as to have it look right! Every needle breaks, and the stitches show besides!”

“Couldn’t you wear them without the buckles?” suggested her room-mate, looking up from the floor, where she was kneeling over a bureau drawer.

“No, the marks would show where the buckles were before,” replied Marjorie, in the most mournful tone.

“Then don’t bother!” returned Lily, cheerfully. “Wear your silver slippers and stockings.”

“With pink georgette? Do you think it would look all right?”

“Yes--it would be stunning!”

“Just as you say,” agreed Marjorie, much relieved to have the matter disposed of. “I wish I had thought of that before--and not wasted a precious half hour with those old slippers!”

Lily stood up, holding a pile of clothing over her arm. She started for the trunk in the hall, but paused at the door.

“Marj, you better ‘waste’ another half hour in a nap, or you’ll be dead. You know as well as I do that tonight’s the biggest thing of the year for us.”

Marjorie smiled contentedly at this reference to the senior dance, which, as Lily had said, was the crowning event of their social career at Miss Allen’s. Later in life, Commencement itself would stand out most clearly in their memory; but now, at the age of eighteen, nothing could exceed the dance in importance. And yet Marjorie was conscious of an indefinable regret about the whole affair, as if already she knew that the realization could not equal the anticipation. The cause of this feeling could be traced to her partner. A month ago, on the spur of the moment, she had invited Griffith Hunter, a Harvard man whom she had met several years before at Silvertown, and whose acquaintance she had kept. But she was sorry not to have asked John Hadley, an older and truer friend.

“Tonight will be wonderful!” she said; “only, do you know, Lil, I do wish I had asked John instead of Griffith.”

“I knew you’d be sorry, Marj!” said Lily. “I never could understand why you asked Griffith.”

“I guess it’s because he’s so stunning looking, and I knew he would make a hit with the girls.”

“But John Hadley is good looking, too!”

“But not in the same way Griffith is. And you have so few dances with your partner!”

Smilingly, she threw herself down upon the bed and closed her eyes. Lily was right; she must be fresh for the dance. The class president could not afford to look weary and tired out. In a few minutes she was fast asleep.

The rest, which Marjorie so sadly needed, was the best beautifier the girl could have employed. Had her mind been on such things, her mirror would have told her, as she dressed, that she looked better. Her color was as fresh and pink as the roses she wore at her waist, and her eyes sparkled with greater brilliancy than ever.