Dorothy Dales Camping Days | Page 7

heard. Did Nita peach?"
"There was nothing to hide in our part of the--comedy," declared Dorothy. "Of course, we skipped the man part, and left out the hay cart dump, besides omitting the sheep act, and forgetting the farmer's whip----"
"Hip! Hip!" threatened Tavia. "Couldn't have done better myself. And no one ordered to the guard house?"
"You have not yet been accounted for," said Dorothy, with well-aimed meaning. "Miss Higley said she would see to your account herself."
"Will, eh? Not if I see her first. Did any one say I was there? I should think, with such remarkable skill at omitting, that you might have had the good taste to omit me."
"Tavia, does it strike you that this is packing-up night? That to-morrow we make all our bouquets of remembrance, more or less artificial, and that the day following----"
"We flit the flutter! And good riddance! I just abhor school--notice how I have improved? Last year I 'hated' it."
"And I must admit you have improved otherwise than in your vocabulary," said Dorothy. "Seems to me you have grown almost tall."
"Thanks, pretty maiden. Any more in stock like that?" and Tavia jumped up to get a look in the glass. "Tell me, before I shrink--in your opinion," she begged, making queer passes before the mirror. "But say, Doro, do you ever take a look at yourself? I have to say you are simply splendid, and that's putting it mild. The Dalton youths will be suiciding on account of the returned Calla--that lily is the one that stands beings boxed up without food or--atmosphere--for half the year, I believe, hence my comparison: you have withstood Glenwood, and come out of the ring more beautiful than when you entered. Oh, you need not protest! Everybody admits that you are a perfect Dresden, animated, of course," and Tavia gazed with unstinted admiration at the girl under the study lamp.
"Well, I hope I have not actually grown homely," conceded Dorothy, "for Aunt Winnie is so fond of a good appearance."
"Your hair is darker--that is, on the ripe corn shade. I like that better than the fourteen karat variety. I only wish mine would turn mahogany. I have a mind to turn it."
"I wonder the thoughts do not poison the roots--the idea of you saying a word against your hair! Why, it's simply wonderful! Edna says it sings in the sunshine."
"Oh, Ned pities me I suppose--she has such a fine crop herself. But I would--love--to--be handsome!"
"Suppose you start in to drag down some of that stuff you insist on taking home, Tavia," said Dorothy, indicating the decorations that hung on Tavia's side of the room. "Then it will be handsome is as----"
"Handsome didn't," misquoted Tavia. "I don't mind dragging it down, but I have a mind to get some one to help me. I might give out that we were having a 'doings' and so entice Ned Ebony, and a couple of the others."
"You compendium of laziness! You proverbial prolonger! There, I have used up more energy in giving expression to those expressions----"
"Than I should have used up in expressing the whole art gallery via the Amalgamated Express Company. Now, Doro, I am going to give a dragging-down evening. If you have anything you value, that might get in the drag, take notice," and she left the room, to gather in the innocent victims of her plot.
Dorothy laughed. She did love Tavia, and once more they were separating from the days and nights spent together at dear old Glenwood. The girls had occupied room "nineteen" in spite of the fact that their advance in class entitled them to other quarters, but each loved the apartment, and they had "grown into it," as Tavia remarked.
"I believe I had better rescue my things," mused Dorothy, "for there is no telling where the dragging may end," and, suiting her act to the words, she promptly put a pile of cushions on the highest chair, and began to take from her side of the room such trinkets as are inconceivably dear to the heart of every schoolgirl.
How differently her division of the room was decorated! Tavia had actually drawn a line--clothes line--straight across the room, marking out the territory of each. Dorothy had put up pictures, birds' nests, flags and the home colors, while Tavia had revelled in collapsed footballs, moth-eaten slouch hats, shot through and through, and marked with all sorts of labels, of the college lad variety. Then she had a broken bicycle wheel, in and out of which were laced her hair ribbons and neckties, this contrivance being resorted to in order to save the junk from the regulation pile--it being thus marked as a useful article. There were pictures, too, on Tavia's side of the room, but how they got there one could never guess from a birds-eye view--for