Hester's Counterpart: A Story of Boarding School Life

Hester had no doubt that Helen had a great affection for her. There had been some sweet and gentle evidence of it since the first week of school. Hester was beginning to understand what the girls had tried to convey to her that first day of school, when Sara had declared that Helen had such an air. It was the grace which was the expression of fine breeding, intellect and kindliness of heart.

As Hester thought of these things, she could have gone down on her knees to Helen just as she would have done to Aunt Debby.

"We'll be friends all our life. Whatever happens, we will never quarrel. It is lovely to have a friend like Helen." These were the thoughts which came to Hester. Inspired by them to express herself, she opened a note-book and under the date of the month and year, she wrote what had been in her thoughts.

Helen was one who had much affection in her nature, but was never sentimental. She was intensely practical when it came to her work. After her talk with Hester about the work on the team, her mind turned to the petty details, the fulfillment of which meant success.

"I wear my gray basket-ball suit when we play with an outside team," she said to Hester. "You have never seen it. It has D. S. in gold and blue letters. Dickinson Seminary. It looks well, and the suits are really pretty. Mine, however, is beginning to show wear. I have had it for three years. The last time we played over at Kermoor, a hook came loose on the shoulder where my waist fastens. It was a trifle but it almost caused me to lose that game. It pestered me until I could scarcely think of anything else. I made up my mind then that I'd never be placed in such a position again. While I have it in mind, I am going over those hooks and eyes and sew them so tight that they cannot possibly give."

"Why not come out on the campus now, Helen? The girls are going to walk along the river's edge as far as the campus reaches and then climb over the hill and come back the other way. Miss Watson will come with us."

"If I do I'll neglect those hooks. I had my gym work to-day and do not need exercise. You run along and I'll discipline myself about the hooks." She laughed softly at her own remarks.

"Very well. If you will not, you will not," replied Hester, drawing on her red sweater and Tam-o-Shanter. "I'll be off or I'll keep them waiting, and you know Miss Watson does not approve of that."

She went her way down the hall. She was a picture good to look at, and which would have pleased more eyes than the partial ones of Debby Alden.

Upon Hester's departure, Helen went to her sewing. The gray gymnasium suit hung in a public press at the end of the hall, and it took her some time to find her own among the others which hung there. Her needles and thread were at hand, but hooks and eyes were lacking. She found that the waist required several additional hooks and what were in place hung by a mere thread.

"I have a card of hooks somewhere," she said to herself. "I remember distinctly putting in everything in the line of mending that I might possibly need. I remember now. What I thought I would not need often, I put in the bottom of the closet."

The closet floor held quite an assortment of boxes. Articles which the girls used seldom, had been stored here out of the way. Helen remembered that a box with hooks and eyes, buttons and glove-silk had been placed in there, early in the fall when she had unpacked the trunk.

She and Hester had been careful about not infringing upon each other's closet room. Each had her allotted space and number of hooks; but keeping the floor divided was not so easy. Boxes had been moved and shoved about until it was impossible to know whose they were.

Helen sat down on the floor and began a systematic search; in turn opening each box and examining its contents. It required system for the boxes were many and the confusion great. There were handkerchief boxes, spool, candy, and shoe boxes of all sizes and conditions.

She had opened each one without discovering the articles which she needed. She was about to put them back in their places when a little dark covered box, hidden deep in the corner, attracted her eyes. Without a thought that she might be infringing on someone's else right, she took up the box and opened it. She gave a sharp exclamation at the sight of its contents. She sat with it opened in her hand, looking at it steadily. Then she replaced the lid and put the box with the contents just as she had found them, back in the corner. She put the floor of the closet in order, and then went back to her work. She found her card of hooks and eyes in the bottom of her sewing-bag. She was busy sewing them on when Hester came in. They greeted each other as usual, yet Hester was conscious that something was different.

"Are you ill, Helen?" she asked.

"No, Hester."

"Are you worried?"

"What should I have to worry me? You have been gone less than an hour. What should happen in that time to make me either ill or anxious? I have been putting the floor of the closet in order. I am afraid I opened some of your boxes, but I did not disturb their contents."

"No matter if you did. I am glad the closet is in order. It surely needed some attention." Going to the door she flung it wide. "How nice it looks. The boxes piled up like a shoe-store. I wonder how long it will remain that way."

Helen watched her closely. Hester must indeed be a capital actor, for she had showed neither anxiety nor embarrassment at hearing that Helen had opened the boxes.

After dinner that evening, no conversations were carried on between the two girls. Helen, contrary to her habit, went directly to her room and did not mingle with her friends in the library or parlor. She was in her study garb and presumably deep in study when Hester came back to her room. She neither spoke nor raised her eyes at Hester's entrance. Her eyes were upon the text, but she was not studying. She was reviewing certain little incidents of Hester's being with her. A score of trifles to which she had then given no thought, now appeared in gigantic proportion with most pretentious signs. Hester had shown no interest whatever when the pin had been lost. She had not helped look for it. Just before the holidays, Helen remembered it clearly now, she had found Hester in the closet. Hester had blushed and stammered and appeared much confused and had replied curtly to Helen's questions. It was really very suspicious. Helen did not like to think of such matters. She had no desire to think evil of any one; but the evidence was there. She could not go past that. She had trusted Hester, and had really loved her. Hereafter she would trust and love no one.

Even after the close of the study hour, there was no opportunity for conversation; for at the ringing of the half-hour bell, Helen, contrary to her habit, went down the hall to the room of one of the seniors. She did not ask Hester to accompany her and the latter was hurt by the omission. They had been together almost six months and in that time such a thing had never before occurred.

Hester slowly made ready for bed. The fumes of chocolate and fudge in the making were wafted to her from the rooms at the lower end of the hall, and the chatter and laugh came with them. No one called her to come. She felt forsaken and lonely. Such occasions previous to this, she had not waited until a special invitation had been given her, but joined and helped with the merry-making. She felt that something stood between her and Helen. Just what that something was, she did not know, nor could she surmise. There was nothing tangible for her thoughts to work upon to reach a conclusion. She instinctively felt that something was wrong. In this particular case, instinct was stronger than reason. She crept into bed, although the retiring bell had not rung. The two little iron cots stood side by side with only a narrow space between them. Helen had always been the deliberate one of the two. Hester was generally in bed before Helen had finished her reading. It had been the latter's habit to come to Hester's bed and softly kissing her on the forehead to whisper, "Good-night, little roommate."

It was for this good-night that Hester was waiting. She would insist then upon knowing what troubled Helen or what had gone wrong to cause this feeling of alienation. She would have cried had not her pride sustained her. The tears were very near the surface but she forced them back. She would cry for no one, no matter how that one treated her.

A few moments before the retiring bell, Helen came into the bedroom. Knowing that she was late and that the lights would soon be turned off, she prepared hastily for bed. She did not once glance toward Hester, but that might have been because she was hurried. While Hester lay and watched her, the lights went out. She heard Helen laugh softly and say, "Just in time. I just gave the last turn to my hair."

Then she moved toward the cot, but she moved toward the outside and not near that of her roommate. Hester was overcome with homesickness. Her pride took to itself, wings. Raising herself in bed, she turned toward Helen.

"Have you forgotten something, Helen? Are you not going to bid me good-night?"

"Surely. Good-night, Hester."

"But not that way, Helen. I mean the way you always have done."

There was silence for an instant. To Hester it seemed as though hours had passed before Helen replied gently and firmly, "Not to-night, Hester. I – I – cannot – to-night."

CHAPTER XI

After this, Hester Alden believed that school could never be as it had been. The first day proved that she was wrong. Outwardly, life at Dickinson moved on as before. No one appeared to know or care that Hester Alden had been touched to the quick, and that she was very miserable and unhappy.

Helen was courtesy itself. She was careful to include Hester in all her invitations, but it was a carefulness forced upon her from a sense of duty and not from love. Hester was not dull. She felt the difference. She could be quite as proud as Helen. So she raised her head a trifle higher as she walked and drew her shoulders a little more rigid and gave back to Helen the same rigid courtesy that she was receiving.

To Hester it was tragic. The alienation was a genuine sorrow to her. To one who merely looked on, the two girls were acting foolishly. A few words would have cleared away the misunderstanding and saved them from suffering. Helen acted from what she thought was a high sense of justice; Hester's action was from pride only.

The other girls in the dormitory knew not the cause of the estrangement, for both Helen and Hester had that sense of honor which impelled them to keep closed lips on such matters. The intuition of the girls told them that affairs between Helen and Hester were not quite the same. That was as far as their intuition carried them.

In spite of Hester's unhappiness, matters at Dickinson moved on as before. Renee came to borrow; Erma laughed merrily; Mame wept over the condition of her clothes which looked as though they were fresh from the French tailor; Josephine grew eloquent on moonlight, love-stories, and kindred subjects; Mellie Wright came and went like a gentle ray of sunshine. The strangest part of all to Hester was that Mellie, who never appeared to notice what took place, was first to grasp the situation. Before the week had passed, she made an occasion to join Hester on the campus. No reference at all was made to the state of depression which hung over Hester like a cloud, but before the two had parted, the younger girl carried with her these impressions:

Everything comes right some day, and that day comes when least expected; nothing matters if one continues to do what is right, regardless of other people's opinion of one; and if one is blue, the best thing to do is to do something and do it quickly.

Mellie did not put her philosophy into those words, nor did she make a personal application for her companion. The strongest impressions are those which we receive unconsciously. After this talk with Mellie, Hester's pride and ambition were aroused. She was indignant with herself that she had given way to any show of feeling and vowed to herself that from that instant she would not lose control over her emotions.

Fortunately for her, basket-ball practice followed close on her resolutions and putting her thoughts into action, strengthened her.

She played right guard on the scrub team with Edna Turnbach opposed to her. Edna was little, wiry, and active, an opponent that was really worth while.

Hester cast her troubles to the wind and went into the game with all her energy. Edna was quick, but Hester matched her with cool calculation. Her long strides were equal to Edna's quick ones; and she had the advantage of length of arms which could be kept beyond Edna's reach.

The left guard on the scrub team was Emma who resembled a little Dutch doll wound up and set to moving. Emma had no guile in her disposition and was utterly lacking in self-assertion. She admired Hester's playing and never failed to play the ball into her hands. Just the moment Hester's hand touched the ball, Emma encouraged her with cries of "Show them how to play, Hessie. Show them how scrubs play when they once get started."

Emma was both an inspiration and an advantage. Hester played with all her energy. To watch her, one might believe that all the future depended upon the winning of the game.

For the first half, she had the ball the instant the captain's hand had left it. Passing it on to Emma with a quickness and deftness which was almost beyond belief, she rushed forward in position to receive Emma's return pass. It was no easy matter for Edna was close at her heels and the center stood in her way. But by quick side movements, a sudden jerk beneath outstretched arms, the thing was done.

Only once during the first half was the ball worked back to the goal of the opposing team; but even then it did not make a score. For three minutes, it went from end to end of the cage and at last went from the hands of the scrubs on a foul that Emma had made.

During the game, Hester was not only playing right guard. She played the game alone with a little assistance from Emma – a game of solitaire. She was the team and made every score.

Miss Watson and Doctor Weldon stood in the gallery looking on.

"Hester Alden is a brilliant person," said Miss Watson. "She will amount to something if she continues."

"She can do little in mathematics. She'll pass on about seventy-five per cent," said Miss Laird. She had long since erased Hester's name from her good books, for Miss Laird knew only angles and equations, fixed values and ratios, and had no conception of nor admiration for a mind which was not as her own.

Miss Watson laughed at this remark. She was more liberal-minded than Miss Laird and was not disappointed to find that her girls were not all of the same type.

"You can open an oyster with a pen-knife as well as a chisel," she said.

Miss Laird glanced at the speaker. She was logical but not witty. Seeing that she did not grasp the meaning, Miss Watson continued.

"Taking the oyster as each one's little world, you know, Miss Laird. I have known men and women who have achieved a wonderful amount of success and happiness who could not have made seventy per cent on one of your examinations."

Doctor Weldon had listened in silence. She had sat watching Hester during that intense first half. She read deeper than either of her teachers.

"I am fearful for Hester," she said at last. She spoke so low that only Miss Watson heard her. "She is too easily hurt, and she'll fight off showing it until she drops from exhaustion. If I know the girl, her good playing this evening is not so much for love of the game, as it is to hide the fact that something has gone wrong."

"Rather an excellent trait. Do you not think so?" said Miss Watson. "Personally, I despise a whiner, and haven't a bit of sympathy for a girl who goes about asking for pity. Pride is a good thing when it helps us cover up our own bruises."

"It is very fine, if it is not overdone. You know you cannot keep all the steam in a boiler under high pressure. There must be a safety valve or – trouble. I hope Hester will not be too intense. Intense folk need such a lot of self-control, or they make every one miserable about them."

The conversation stopped at this point. The practice game was over and Miss Watson went below and into the cage to see that the girls were taking the necessary precautions in regard to wraps.

"Hester Alden will play at Exeter," was the general opinion at the close of the game.

"I am sure of that," said Sara Summerson. "During the game I was where I could see Miss Watson. Nothing escaped her. She watched every move Hester made. Emma was all right at first, but that foul put her on Miss Watson's black list. I could tell that. You know how Miss Watson presses her lips together and nods her head when she's pleased. Well, she did that every time Hester made a good play."

"I will not get a chance to go," said Emma. "I am sure of that. I'd like to, for I know lots of Exeter girls. There's a whole bunch of them from up our way."

"You speak as though they were flowers," laughed Erma, as she hurried down the steps from the gallery to join the girls. "A bunch of girls and a bunch of flowers, I presume that is a figure of speech, but nevertheless I would not let Doctor Weldon hear me, if I were you. She might fail to see how flowery it is, and think you are using slang."

Josephine was leaning against the balustrade. Her cheeks were pressed upon her upturned palm and her eyes were raised toward some remote region in the direction of the ceiling. Her hair was bound with a Greek band. She had seen to it that her short-waisted dress was suggestive of Grecian lines of beauty.

"I rather like that term," she said slowly. "We say a bunch of flowers; then why not a bunch of girls. Somehow I always think of flowers when I see a group of girls together. Do people never make you think of flowers? Some seem to me like lilies, others like shy, modest violets."

"Oh, cut it out!" said Emma, disregarding the rules in the use of language. "Just at present they make me think of a lot of empty vessels which will be emptier if they are not out of these duds and into dresses before the ten-minute bell rings for dinner."

Emma strode on down the hall, in company with Mame Cross and Edna Bucher. Edna had her arm around Emma's waist, although she was fully six years Emma's senior. But the younger girl's father was a bank president, a railroad magnate, and a number of other important persons, and Edna believed in cultivating friendship where it would bear fruit worth while. Emma was lavish and Edna fell heir to many discarded trifles and was never ignored when Emma had a spread or banquet.

"Josephine is too sentimental," said Emma placidly. "If she would only waken and talk sense, she would be fine."

"She's such a sweet girl," said Edna. Every woman, girl or child she had ever known, came under that general heading in Edna Bucher's good books. They were "sweet." That was always the sum and substance of her criticism. There might have been a reason for such a general judgment. As in the case of Josephine, obligation fixed the limit of Edna's expression. She was at that moment, wearing a shirt-waist which Josephine had purchased only to find it too small for comfort in wearing.

During the three weeks before the game with Exeter, nine practice games were played between the first team and the scrubs. In these Hester Alden played right guard. She had never missed a goal which she had attempted and had never made a foul. There had been one or two instances when she might have done quicker work in passing and kept the ball from the control of the opponent; but they were minor faults which faded into insignificance before her more brilliant plays.

During this time, Helen had maintained the letter of courtesy toward her roommate. But there was no longer any show of affection or love between them. Nothing had been said about the trip to Exeter. However, Hester was counting upon it. She knew that her playing had justified Miss Watson and Helen in selecting her. Miss Watson was the head of the athletics, yet the choice of players in reality rested with Helen.

Miss Watson permitted this because she believed that girls who were in sympathy with each other could work together better than where there was an unfriendly feeling or antagonism. Hester, relying on being chosen as a substitute for the Exeter game, made ready her suit, purchased a new pair of gymnasium shoes, and was about to write to Aunt Debby concerning the trip.

The games were played on Friday evening, unless the distance was too great for the visiting team to reach the school in a few hours. Then Saturday afternoon was given over to them. Several days before, Miss Watson read out the names of the substitutes and the teacher who would go in charge of the girls. This important reading took place immediately after the general gymnasium work in the afternoon.

Wednesday morning, Berenice went about with a very wise expression. She looked as though she could tell a great deal if she were insisted upon. Erma, meeting her in the hall, fell prey to her hints and insisted that she tell the secret that was weighing her down.

"I was in the office waiting to see Doctor Weldon," said Berenice. "Miss Watson was in the private office talking with the doctor. It was something about the players for the Exeter game. You know Miss Watson must always give the list to Doctor Weldon before it is announced. Something unusual happened, for they debated a long time. Of course, I could not catch the words. I did not try; but I could not help knowing that there was a discussion."

"There generally is," said Erma. "Doctor Weldon will not allow a girl to play unless she is up in her work and her conduct. Campused twice, and your throat is cut for any work in athletics."

Berenice's face flushed. The reference to being campused touched her.

"This was more than that. It was an argument; Miss Watson held to one idea and Doctor Weldon to another." This was growing interesting. A group of girls clustered about Berenice to hear the startling news.

"Did you hear who the substitutes were?" asked someone.

"Why ask that?" said Sara Summerson slowly.

"I am not brilliant, nor yet am I observing; but I know who the substitutes will be if the choice is according to their playing."

"If it is," said Berenice.

"I think it always is," said Mellie gently. "It would be very foolish to have it otherwise; to risk our securing the pennant on account of a little personal feeling. I do not like to feel that people are unjust. They have always treated me fairly."

"They always will," said Erma.

"They have never treated me fairly," said Berenice. "Every one I meet always tries to make something from me or treats me unfairly."

Erma laughed and the girls followed her fashion.

"They always will, Berenice," she said. "People always find what they are looking for. You always find in every place just what you carry there. You are out looking for trouble, and you will find it waiting around the corner. If you will persist in going about with a chip on your shoulder, you may be sure that someone will take pleasure in knocking it off."

"But the players," cried Emma. "Who are they? When will Miss Watson read the names?"

"I did not hear the names, but I did hear her say that she intended making them public at gym this afternoon."

"I intend to ask Doctor Weldon if I may go over with the girls," said Emma. "Of course, I know that I will not be allowed to play and I don't care much about it. I'd have just as much fun looking on and rooting. I know a dandy lot of girls over there."

"You had better see her early then," said Louise Reed. "She will not grant more than ten extra permissions and I know a number of girls who intend going."

"I'll see her the first thing after luncheon," said Emma. "She will not let us come before one-thirty."

"Whatever you do, Emma, do not get excited and tell Doctor Weldon that you know some 'dandy' girls at Exeter. She will not allow any of us to go if she hears from you that the Exeter girls are of that type. Be careful, Emma."

Emma shrugged her shoulders and tried to look serious, but the effort was a failure, for the dimples came to her cheeks and rippled into smiles. She turned to Mame and asked if she were going.