The Leader of the Lower School/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
A Mass Meeting
A large school is a state in miniature. Quite apart from the rule of the mistresses, it has its own particular institutions and its own system of self-government. In their special domain its officers are of quite as much importance as Members of Parliament, and wield an influence and an authority comparable to that of Cabinet Ministers. Tyrannies, struggles for freedom, minor corruptions, and hot debates have their places here as well as in the wider world of politics, and many an amateur "Home Rule Bill" is defeated or carried according to the circumstances of the case. At Briarcroft Hall there had hitherto existed a pure oligarchy, or government of the few. The Sixth Form had jealously kept the reins in their own hands, and, while granting a few privileges to the Fifth, had denied the slightest right of interference to the Lower School. So far, though the Juniors had grumbled continually, they had never taken any steps to redress their grievances. Here and there one of them would offer an indignant protest, which was treated with scorn by the Seniors, and things would go on again in the old unsatisfactory fashion.
Gipsy, with the unbiased judgment of an entirely new comer, had formed her opinion of the Briarcroft code, and deeming reform necessary, set to work to preach a crusade. She expounded her views to Hetty Hancock, Lennie Chapman, and a few other sympathizers, and organized a plan of campaign.
"What we want to do is to combine," she announced. "It's not the slightest scrap of good a few single girls going and airing their woes to the Sixth. They're not likely to listen. If we could show them that the whole of the Lower School is one big united body, pledged to resist,—well, they'd just have to give way."
"All the lower Forms feel the same," said Hetty. "I was speaking to the Third about it this morning."
"How are we going to begin?" asked Lennie.
"We must call a mass meeting of Juniors, and put the thing to them fairly and squarely," said Gipsy. "Explain what we want, and draw up a programme of what we mean to do, then see if they'll give their support."
"Best lose no time about it, then. I'll post up notices at once, and we'll have a meeting at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon in the play-room. It's no use letting the grass grow under our feet. Have you a pencil and a scrap of paper there, Lennie? Give them to me, and I'll make a rough draft. How will this do, do you think?
"‘A Mass Meeting of all Members of the Lower School will be held in the Junior Play-room on Wednesday at 2 p.m. prompt. Business: To consider the question of readjusting the Management of the various Guilds.
"First rate!" said Lennie. "I'll help you to make some copies. We must pin one up on the notice board of each Junior classroom, and one in the dressing-room. It'll make a stir, and no mistake!"
"Rather!" chuckled Hetty. "Gipsy, you're an Oliver Cromwell!"
"You might add: 'Chairman, Hetty Hancock', then I guess it will do," said Gipsy, scanning the scrap of paper.
As Lennie had prophesied, the announcement caused a great stir throughout the Lower School. Excited girls crowded round the notices discussing the question, and for that day the talk was of nothing else. Gipsy had rather taken the popular fancy; and though a few considered it impertinence on the part of a new girl to offer any criticisms on existing institutions, all were anxious to hear what she had to say on so absorbing a topic. At 2 p.m. on the Wednesday, therefore, the play-room was crowded. Juniors of all sorts and conditions were there, from the tall girls of the Upper Fourth to giggling members of the Third, and small fry of the First and Second, who felt themselves vastly important at being included in the proceedings. The instigators of the movement were determined that the meeting should be held in strict order. They had placed a table to serve as a platform, and arranged benches that would accommodate at least a part of the audience.
"Lennie, you make them take their seats properly," commanded Hetty; "big ones at the back, and little ones in front: those First Form kids can sit on the floor. Don't stand any nonsense with the Third. Now, Gipsy, are you ready? Then we'll mount the platform."
Hetty had been studying up her duties as "Chairman", and was anxious to do the thing in style. She had prepared her speech carefully beforehand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she began glibly, "at least, I mean girls and fellow members of our Junior School, my pleasant business this afternoon is to introduce to you the speaker, Miss Gipsy Latimer. Though she is a newcomer amongst us, I'm sure we all realize that by her wide experience of American and Colonial schools she is particularly fitted to speak to us on the subject in hand. She has had the opportunity of studying the working of other Societies and Guilds, and she will no doubt be able to offer us many valuable suggestions. I will not take up the time of the meeting by any further remarks, but will at once call upon the speaker to address us."
Hetty sat down, consciously covered with glory. Her own Form cheered lustily, and even the unruly Third appeared much impressed. The little girls in the front row were staring round-eyed and open-mouthed with admiration. Gipsy rose slowly, took one long, comprehensive glance over her audience, then in her clear, high-pitched tones began her crusade:
"Girls! I'm afraid most of you will think it's rather cheeky of me to have taken the matter up when I've only been ten days or so at Briarcroft, and I'd like at the very start to apologize for what really must look to you like a piece of cocksure presumption. I think you'll all allow, though, that it's a pretty true saying that 'outsiders see most of the game'. I've been examining your institutions pretty carefully since I came, and it seems to me the game's all in the hands of the Sixth. There are five separate Guilds in this school—the Needlework, the Photographic, the Dramatic, the Musical, and the Athletic. I made enquiries about all of them, and I find that though the Juniors contribute the bulk of the subscriptions, they haven't the least voice in the arrangements. Now, in the countries I've lived in, such a state of affairs would be denounced as tyranny pure and simple. I reckon a school ought to be a democracy, and every member who joins a society and pays a subscription has a right to have some say at least in the way the subscriptions are to be spent. If they don't, it's 'taxation without representation', a bad old mediaeval custom that it's taken some countries a revolution to get rid of. I put it to the meeting—Are you willing to sit down and be tyrannized over by the Sixth? Do you mean to go on paying your shillings, and never getting the least advantage or satisfaction out of any of the Guilds?"
An indignant roar of "No, no!" came from the audience. Gipsy had stated the case very clearly. It was what the Juniors had all felt, but had never fairly voiced before. They wanted to hear more.
"Go on! Go on!" they cried eagerly.
"There are at present ninety-three girls in this school," continued Gipsy. "Twenty-two are in the Fifth and Sixth, and seventy-one in the lower Forms. Just compare those figures! Twenty-two Seniors and seventy-one Juniors! Why, our majority is simply overwhelming. Now, for an example let us take the Dramatic Guild. At a shilling a year a head, the subscriptions of the Upper School amount to £1, 2s., and those of the Lower School to £3, 11s. I asked how last year's funds were spent, and found the whole went in hiring Pompadour wigs and other things that were worn by the Sixth. Only three Juniors took part in the performances, and they were actually obliged to provide their own costumes, because there was no money left to buy materials. Now, I ask you, is such a state of affairs to be tolerated any longer?"
"No!" shrieked a chorus of voices.
"The Dramatic Guild is no exception. All the other societies are equally bad. The funds ought to be applied to the general good; and if they're only spent on a few, I call it misappropriation of a trust. In America and in the Colonies our watchword was always 'Liberty'; and we took care that all got their rights. Are you Briarcroft girls going to let this injustice go on, or will you all join together and make a stand for fair practices? In the name of Liberty, I ask you!"
As Gipsy warmed to her subject her brown eyes flashed and sparkled, and the whole of her dark face seemed afire with enthusiasm. She looked a convincing little figure as she stood there, urging the rights of her schoolfellows, and hardly a girl in the room but was carried away by her arguments. Instinctively the Juniors felt they had found a leader.
"I put it to the meeting. Are you ready to combine and stand together? Those who are in favour, kindly hold up their hands."
Such a clamour arose from the play-room that the noise drifted upstairs to the ears of the Seniors, who sat all unconscious of the rebellion that was being preached below. With memories of Wat Tyler, Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, the Seven Bishops, and other famous champions of the commonweal fresh in their minds from their history books, the girls were ready to take any measures suggested to them. There was scarcely a dissenting voice. Enthusiasm fires enthusiasm. Gipsy's speech seemed an inspiration, and everybody was agog with interest.
"She's right!"
"We've been kept down too long!"
"I always said it was monstrously unfair!"
"The Seniors will have to give way!"
"We'll get our rights now!"
"I wonder nobody thought of it before!"
The talk burst out on all sides, for every one was eager to have her own say, and discuss the matter with her neighbour. Even the First Form children had followed the arguments, and were as keen as anybody. Gipsy calmly counted the upraised hands, then rang a bell for silence.
"I may take it, then, that the motion is carried by the general consent of the meeting," she continued. "We're agreed that some stand ought to be made against the aggressions of the Seniors. Now, the next question to be considered is what we mean to do, and how we're going to do it. It seems to me that we ought to have something very definite to work upon. What I propose is that a picked few of us go as delegates to the Sixth, and ask for something that has always been refused before. If, as I expect, they say 'No', then we shall have a just ground of complaint, and we'll use it as a text at the Annual Meeting to demand a new arrangement of the Guilds. Four of us ought to make up the deputation. I'm willing to go for one, and I think I can promise for Hetty Hancock and Lennie Chapman. Who'll volunteer to be the fourth?"
There was a moment's silence. It was all very well to shout rebellion in chorus, but the old tradition of awe for the Sixth still oppressed the Juniors, when it came to the point of openly bearding the lions in question.
"I will!" said a voice from the back row.
It was Meg Gordon, a member of the Upper Fourth, a rather nice-looking girl of about Gipsy's own age. Meg had listened with closest attention and wholehearted agreement, and was prepared to embrace the cause with the zeal she considered it deserved. If called upon to do so, she would have been ready even to face Miss Poppleton herself.
"Good!" replied Gipsy. "Then we'll make up a test case. If it's refused, then we draw up a statement of our grievances, and what we want reformed, and present it at the General Meeting. If that's also refused—" (Gipsy paused a moment to let her words take due effect) "then we show our teeth!"
"What's our programme then?" shouted one of the Lower Fourth.
"I'll tell you. If the Seniors have shown themselves unworthy of our confidence, they don't deserve our support in any respect. Instead of voting to elect them as officers, we'll withdraw our subscriptions, and found a separate system of Guilds for the Lower School alone."
The boldness of Gipsy's suggestion almost took away the breath of her hearers. To break loose from the hard regime of the Seniors and form a system of self-governing societies among the Juniors had never occurred to anybody at Briarcroft before. The idea was splendid in its magnitude.
"It seems to me we've got the game into our own hands if we like," continued the speaker. "Nobody can force us to subscribe to societies of which we don't approve. We'll insist on a referendum of the whole school, and see how the result turns out. Are you all ready to combine on this point? Those in favour, please say 'Aye'."
"Aye! Aye! Aye!" arose from all sides.
"Well spoken!"
"Hurrah for the Junior School!"
"Three cheers for Gipsy Latimer!" shouted Hetty Hancock, jumping up agitatedly from her chair, and nearly falling over the edge of the platform in the heat of her enthusiasm.
"Hear, Hear!"
"Hip, hip, hip, hooray!"
The excitement was intense. Gipsy's oratory had been quite spontaneous and unaffected, and like most genuine things it carried conviction to its hearers. In the midst of a babel of voices the big bell rang for afternoon school. The girls fled to their various classrooms, discussing the matter on their way upstairs.
"It's the best idea I've ever heard!" declared Meg Gordon. "Gipsy Latimer's a trump! I'll support her in anything she proposes."
"I wonder we never thought of such a thing before," said Cassie Bertram.
"Yes, to think of our having stood the Sixth for years, and never making a move!"
"I think it ought to have come from some of us, though," objected Maude Helm. "Gipsy's quite a new girl, and it's rather cheek of her to try and foist her American notions upon us, as if we didn't know anything."
"Oh, you shut up! Why didn't you suggest it yourself?"
"I'm rather of Maude's opinion," said Alice O'Connor. "I agree with the thing in principle, but I don't like it coming from a new girl."
"New girls oughtn't to run the whole show," added Gladys Merriman.
"Oh, you three! You'd find fault with an angel! For goodness' sake don't get up these petty little jealousies, and spoil the whole affair. What does it matter if Gipsy's new? Everybody has to be new some time. She's shown she's capable of a great deal more than most of us are."
"And she knows it too, doesn't she just?" sneered Maude. "The way she stood on that platform and talked!"
"It's sheer nastiness on your part, Maude Helm, to try and belittle her! You won't get much glory for yourself by sticking pins in other people; and I can tell you, if you're going to set up in opposition to Gipsy, you've no chance. I'll undertake there's hardly a girl in the Lower School now who won't side with Gipsy Latimer!"