The response to her appeal had been greater than she anticipated. Nobody
failed to comply, and some of the girls brought several books apiece. A
start was made with three hundred and forty-one volumes, which was
regarded as a most creditable beginning. For the present they were piled
up in the prefects' room until shelves had been made to receive them.
Miss Bishop had given the order to the joiner, but owing to the war it
might be some time before the work was finished.
Meanwhile Margaret decided that the books ought to be catalogued and
labeled, so that they would be quite ready when the bookcases arrived.
She cast about for helpers in this rather arduous task, and her choice
fell upon Winona, who happened to have a spare half-hour between her
classes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Winona, immensely flattered,
accepted the responsibility with glee, and was put to work under the
"General's" directions. She thoroughly enjoyed sorting, dusting, pasting
on labels, and making alphabetical lists.
"I shouldn't mind being a librarian some day in a big public library,"
she assured Ellinor Cooper, her fellow-assistant.
"You'd have to be quicker than you are at present, then," remarked
Margaret dryly. "They wouldn't think you worth your salt if you spent
all your time reading the books. Buck up, can't you? and get on!"
At which Winona guiltily shut "Shirley" with a bang and turned her
attention to the paste-pot.
While Margaret was cultivating the intellectual side of the school,
Kirsty was carefully attending to her duties as Games Captain. Her work
among the juniors prospered exceedingly. They were taking to hockey with
wild enthusiasm and gave evidence of considerable promise. As most of
them were free at three o'clock, they got the chance of playing almost
every day. Kirsty was extremely anxious that these practices should be
properly supervised. She was too busy herself to take them personally,
so she was obliged to delegate the work to anybody who had the spare
time.
"The girls I want most are all at classes or music lessons," she
lamented. "Not a single one of the team's available. Winona Woodward,
I've been looking at your time-table, and find you've two vacant
half-hours. Wouldn't you like to help?"
"Like! I'd sell my birthright to do it!" gasped Winona. "But I'm
fearfully sorry; I'm cataloguing for Margaret!"
"Then I mustn't take you away from the General! It's a nuisance though,
for you'd have done very well, and I don't know who else I can get."
Winona considered it was one of the sharpest disappointments she had
ever gone through.
"Oh, the grizzly bad luck of it!" she wailed to Garnet. "It would have
been idyllic to coach those kids. And it would have given me such a leg
up with Kirsty! To think I've lost my chance!"
"I suppose Margaret might get some one else to do cataloguing?"
"I dare say: but I couldn't possibly ask her, and I'm sure Kirsty won't.
No, I'm done for!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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