02 Jo of the Chalet School (6 page)

On Mondays and Wednesdays a book was read; but on Fridays discipline was somewhat relaxed, and the girls were allowed to talk, so long as they spoke English and did not make too much noise over it.

‘I must send a copy of the
Chaletian
to England to my old school,’ said Joey, as she resignedly watched Gisela snipping out her stitches. ‘They’ll be awfully interested. I wonder who’ll be editor?’

‘It ought to be one of you English,’ replied Gisela, re-threading Jo’s needle and beginning the work again.

‘See, Joey. I have begun for you. Make your stitches thus, and keep them very even.’

‘Well, I’ll try; and saints couldn’t do more!’ signed Joey. ‘But I shall never sew like that.’

‘You will if you try,’ returned her friend. ‘See, I have made them a little larger than usual, so that you may keep yours the same size.’

Joey took her work, and stitched slowly; while Gisela, who was doing elaborate smocking on a frock intended for her little sister, went on with her own.

‘We must have a page for correspondence,’ observed Juliet presently.

‘Oh, rather! And I think someone ought to write a description of that picnic to the Mondscheinspitze last term,’ added Joey. ‘Herr Mensch told us some jolly legends about the mountains, too. I think someone might write out a least one of them. Bernhilda could do that.’

‘Please fold up your work,’ Mademoiselle said at this juncture.

‘What are we going to do, Mademoiselle?’ asked Joey eagerly. ‘We can’t go out to-day.’

‘Miss Durrant is coming to teach you a new dance,’ replied Mademoiselle. ‘Please carry all the chairs into the little class-room, and leave this one empty.’

There was a scurry, and in less than ten minutes the big double form-room was cleared of all chairs save the one at the piano, and the girls stood ready, wondering what this new dance might be. They knew very little of Miss Durrant, really. She came over to the Chalet two afternoons in the week, and taught them drawing; but otherwise they rarely saw her. They looked at her with interest as she came into the room, followed by Miss Bettany, who was carrying some music.

‘All ready? That’s right,’ said Miss Durrant briskly. ‘Will you please get partners, and then form in two lines down the room. One over, is there? Well, never mind, Rosalie. I’ll come in a minute. Now, girls, I’m going to teach you some of the old English folk-dances. We’ll learn two very simple ones to-day, and I’ll teach you the movements, and then another time we’ll learn more. One thing let me impress on you now. You must never dance on your toes or point them, because that’s folk-dancing. I’ll tell you more about it when we’ve done some, and then you’ll see why. All face me.’

They turned and faced her in two long files. They were all interested, and one or two people were thrilling with excitement.

‘Take hands,’ said Miss Durrant. ‘Now run three steps forward, and then three back. Begin with your right foot always,
and don’t bend your knees;
give at the ankles.’

With shrieks of laughter they began, and soon they were running backwards and forwards as lightly as they could, while Miss Durrant walked up and down, criticising them.

‘Don’t point your toes, Wanda! -Grizel! Stop jumping –
run
! -Joey, you aren’t an elephant; so don’t try to be one! -Straighter knees, Gisela! That’s better! -Come along, Rosalie, try with me.’

Two minutes later she stopped them. ‘That’s called “leading up a double,”‘ she explained. ‘If you do it without holding hands, it’s called “running up a double.” Heaps of the dances begin in that way. Now join hands with your partners, and I’ll teach you slipping step.’

This was easier, and before long they were all slipping, first up, then down, while Miss Bettany played for them. Finally, they learned ‘setting to partners’ and ‘turning single,’ and this last movement proved full of pitfalls for them

‘Joey! You aren’t a spider!’ cried Miss Durrant. ‘And you’ll certainly kick your next-door neighbour if you do it like that. Make your steps as neat as possible. -You ought to be able to turn single in – in a soup-plate!’

‘What price the plate?’ murmured Jo,
sotto voce
, to her next-door neighbour. ‘There wouldn’t be very much of it when I’d finished.’

‘Turn to your right, child!’ This was to Evadne. ‘
Never
turn single to your left unless you’re definitely told to do so. -
Four
steps, Grizel; not two. -Now let’s begin again, and go straight through them.’

When, finally, they were all sure of those five movements, Miss Durrant turned her attention to skipping, and had them all skipping round the room till they were breathless. Then she let them rest for a few minutes while she told them of Cecil Sharp, and his great work for English folk-dancing, and England.

‘You all know
some
of the folk-songs,’ she concluded with a twinkle. ‘I have even heard some of you objecting to the constant repetition of a few of them. Joey’s Appalachian nursery songs are very “folk.”

Now form your lines again, and I’ll teach you “Gallopede” and “We Won’t Go Home Till Morning.”‘

When four o’clock came, they were all rosy and breathless with exercise, and, when Miss Durrant gave the order to dismiss, they all crowded round her, begging for more.

She laughed at them. ‘Oh, you’ll have a good deal of folk-dancing,’ she assured them. ‘I hear that the weather is often very violent here in the winter; so, whenever you can’t have walks or games, you will dance, and by next spring I hope you’ll all know at least twenty dances!’

‘Coo!’ said Jo. ‘That’ll take some learning! But I like this. It’s heaps more sensible than foxtrots and onesteps! I say, Gisela! Something more for the mag.’

Gisela nodded. ‘Yes. We must also teach the others what we have learned to-day.’

They all trooped off to tidy themselves for
Kaffee
. Seeing her sister along by the piano, Jo ran back.

‘Madge,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a splendid idea! Best yet!’

‘What is it?’ asked Madge, strolling with her to the window.

‘Let’s give a folk-dance entertainment next summer to the visitors!’

‘Next summer’s a long way ahead, Joey. The winter hasn’t begun yet.’

‘No; but do let’s! It would be gorgeous!’

‘Well, we’ll see. Run along now and make yourself look more respectable, you golliwog!’

Jo ran off cheerfully. ‘That will make another thing for the
Chaletian
,’ she thought as she went.

the ‘chaletian’

The whole school was waiting in the big double form-room by nine o’clock the next morning. The wind was still blowing hard, but it had veered to the north; so the lake-path, though wet from its bath of the previous day, was not continually washed by the waves now, though the water meadows which lay between Seespitz and Torteswald were, to quote Jo, ‘thoroughly squelchy.’ The four day-girls who lived in the latter place had, therefore, managed to come, and Lisa Bernaldi, the other one, was living at the Post Hotel, and had been at school on the Friday afternoon. The wind had stopped blowing continuously, too, and only came in great gusts now. Between these, the juniors were rushed across to the Chalet, even the Robin arriving without mishap.

‘I’m thankful to know the mountains protect us from the east winds,’ said Miss Bettany as she stood at the window watching the angry waves tossing madly to and fro. ‘If it were not for them, I should be afraid that some day we should be washed away. We are very near the shore here, and the water is never more than a few inches below the path.’

‘Mercifully,
ma chère
, it is an impossibility,’ said Mademoiselle, to whom she had been speaking. ‘What are the children to do to-day?’

‘I hope the storm will have gone down by this afternoon,’ replied her Head. ‘If it does, they shall have a long walk to the head of the valley. This morning they will have their meeting, and mending, and home-letters. To-night, they shall dance and play games.’

‘They are very much interested in this magazine,’ said Mademoiselle pensively.

‘Yes – thank goodness! It will give them something to think about!’

The school had no idea of the interest the staff were taking in their latest venture. They assembled in the greatest excitement, and, as usual, when they were in their places, Grizel’s was the first voice to be heard, though what she said had nothing to do with the magazine.

‘Joey Bettany!’ she cried. ‘For goodness sake stop that
wretched
humming!’

‘What for? I can hum if I like!’ protested Joey in injured tones.

‘No, you can’t! You’ve got to think of other people a little. I’m sick to death of those ghastly Appalachian things! I wish Miss Maynard had never brought them for you!’

‘’Twasn’t one of the Appalachian songs!’ retorted Jo triumphantly.

‘Well, whatever it was, dry up! It’s enough to make anyone ill!’

Luckily, Gisela saw fit to interfere, or the squabble might have become serious. ‘Grizel, will you please sit down,’ she said. ‘And, Joey, we are going to discuss our magazine now.’

The pair subsided at once. Gisela was an excellent head girl, and knew how to make her authority felt.

She gave the meeting no time to ponder the wrangle, but plunged straight into the cause for its being held.

‘We wish, some of us, to have a school magazine,’ she began. ‘We shall arrange it for ourselves, and we shall have in it accounts of our concerts, and picnics, and schoolwork. We also hope that there may be stories and poems, and letters to the editor. Before we go any further, we should like to know that you all wish such a thing; so will any who do not, please hold up your hands?’

Needless to say, not a hand was raised. Grizel even protested. ‘We all want it, Gisela!
Do
buck up and come to the point!’

‘It goes well,’ said Gisela, paying no attention to Grizel’s remark. ‘Then we must now elect our editor.’

Joey rose to her feet. ‘I beg to propose Gisela Marani as editor,’ she said.

‘I’ll second that!’ said Juliet, following up the proposal.

Gisela shook her head. ‘It is very good of you – I am grateful. But, indeed, I should prefer that someone else had the position. I do not know enough about it, and I already have much to do.’

The members of the assembly looked at each other blankly. They had quite taken it for granted that Gisela would fill the post, and they had not troubled to think of anyone else. There was a silence.

‘What about Bernhilda?’ asked Juliet at length, somewhat doubtfully.

The shy colour flooded Bernhilda’s face. ‘Oh, no! Please, no! I could not!’

‘What about yourself?’ demanded Grizel of Juliet.

‘If I was any use at English, I might,’ replied that young lady. ‘As it is, you might as well have the Robin for editor. She’d be as much use!’

There were giggles over this at the idea of the Robin wielding the editorial pen, but they soon died as the girls once more faced the problem of the editorship. A suggestion put forward by Wanda that Grizel might manage it was promptly squashed by Joey.

‘Grizel? She hasn’t any more imagination than a – a cheese!’

‘I’ve got common-sense, anyway!’ retorted Grizel hotly. ‘That’s better than -’

‘Stop it, you two!’ interrupted Juliet. ‘If you want to scrap, you can do it outside!’

Once more the pair desisted, but there seemed a good deal of truth in Bette Rincini’s remark to Bernhilda that Joey and Grizel were simply spoiling for a fight, and it would come off before the day was over.

Then, no less a person than Simone Lecoutier addressed the meeting. ‘Will not Joey do?’ she asked shyly.

‘She speaks the English; she has the imagination; she is not a prefect, as are Gisela, and Bernhilda, and Juliet, and Bette, and Gertrud; so she is not busy.’

There was a dubious pause. The idea certainly had its points; but to set against them was the fact that Jo was not thirteen for a month yet, and she had no experience.

Then Wanda spoke once more. ‘I think it is a good idea,’ she said. ‘Would not Miss Maynard help with it, so that Joey shall not have too big trouble to worry her?’

‘A bit muddled,’ remarked Joey genially, ‘but I see what you mean. I don’t mind talking it on if Miss Maynard will give a hand with it. But I’ve never run a magazine before, any more than anyone else here, and I can’t do it off my own at, that’s certain.’

Then Juliet had an inspiration. ‘Look here, why not divide it into pages and give various people a page each to be responsible for? Then Joey would only have to collect the pages in, and write her editorial, and arrange the thing!’ They jumped at the suggestion. It solved all their difficulties at one blow; for people who might feel to busy to tackle the whole magazine would scarcely grumble at having one page to look after.

Only Grizel demurred. ‘School mags aren’t run that way!’ she said.

‘I know,’ replied Juliet, ‘but remember, we aren’t an ordinary school. We can’t expect to run things like a high school – not yet, anyway!’

There was common-sense in this, so Grizel held her tongue for the moment.

Then shall we appoint Joey as the editor?’ inquired Gisela. ‘Will you hold up your hands if you agree?’

A forest of hands was promptly waved in the air, and the motion was carried.

The next thing was to decide on the pages. At the invitation of the prefects, Joey joined them on the little dais, and was called on to make suggestions.

She screwed up her eyes, ran her fingers through her hair till it got into the wildest confusion, and then said, ‘Well, who will do the School Notes? That’s the first thing.’

‘Gisela will, of course,’ said Juliet. ‘Grizel must do the Sports Page, and I propose that Bernhilda does a page on the folklore of the district. She must know heaps about it, because her father knows so many legends.’

‘Oh, jolly good!’ declared the editor joyfully. ‘That’s three pages settled, then. Who’s going to do the stories?’

‘Oh, has only one person to do the stories?’ said little Amy Stevens disappointedly.