OF A NUMBER OF THINGS
While other things were uppermost in Betty Lee’s mind just now, the
committee on Honor Girl were considering her as well as half a dozen or
more of the fine girls that were G. A. A. candidates, made so by the
“petitions” of their friends. No girl goes through a high school course
without being pretty well estimated, in one way or another, by her
friends, but this was a little more definite. The school paper, indeed,
published the main requirements which the choice of Honor Girl, or
points upon which the choice rested: character, appearance, leadership,
school spirit and scholarship of not less than eighty per cent for the
four years of high school work.
Betty’s grades were good, for not once had she fallen below the honor
list, thanks to pride and the stimulus of pleasing her parents. Her
leadership was not to be doubted, for more than one team had she led to
victory, though she had not taken part in as many competitive games as
some of the other girls. And was she not the president of the G. A. A.?
“Betty Lee is efficient,” said one of the teachers on the committee.
“Yes, and she is to be relied on absolutely,” replied another.
Appearance, did not mean beauty, it was to be supposed, but it did
include neat and suitable dressing, and presumably a certain poise of
manner, not impossible to be attained by the young. “Betty Lee’s
experience at the head of some of these organizations has given her that
modest but rather confident manner in the class room, I suppose,” said
one.
“No,” said Miss Heath, “she has always had that. She has been in my
classes from the first. She gets that at home I think. They are all
rather self-contained, good control and all that. I’ve been entertained
there. I’m glad I’m not on your committee, ladies. There’s Carolyn
Gwynne. She is one of the most charming girls I know, quite as generous
as Betty and as friendly, with all the school spirit any one could
desire. If you chose her, you would have a fine honor girl, one that
represents the best Lyon High has. Yet Betty has a few more gifts and
has made a better president of G. A. A. than Carolyn would have made.
She is just as bright as Carolyn, though her grades are not quite as
high. How she has kept up to the mark with all your athletic
performances, I don’t see.”
Miss Heath had been called into one of the class rooms where members of
the committee were discussing the choice, and this was her laughing
thrust at two of the athletic directors. “Oh, yes, one more thing in
favor of my favorite,” added Miss Heath. “Betty has cool judgment. She
thinks things out, which is more than you can say for all of our
youngsters. That is one of the best points in leadership. Betty
expresses herself well, too, in class.”
“How about pep and enthusiasm?” queried one lady.
“I presume all of these girls would make one hundred per cent on that,
wouldn’t they? Witness this morning’s assembly?”
The choice was not an easy one, but it was made, to be kept a secret
until the G. A. A. banquet when the honors were to be given.
Meanwhile last senior hikes and picnics took their place in history,
during the lovely days of April, May and early June. Color Day, a girls’
affair, marked by class stunts and contests, was a jolly occasion.
Betty’s only honor was winning the basketball throw and that was an
accident, she claimed. But she had helped get up the senior stunt, which
won the prize, filling the senior girls with delight. “Betty, you made a
grand class manager,” declared Mathilde, amazing Betty, who did not
suppose that Mathilde thought she could do anything right. But Betty had
never retaliated nor seemed to notice Mathilde’s little slights, except
to avoid contact more or less. “That’s nice of you to say, Mathilde,”
responded Betty with a bright smile. “I’m going to miss all the times we
girls have had,” she added, “and these field days have been such fun.
I’ll miss all of it.”
“So shall I,” said Mathilde, thoughtfully. “I’m going to be married,
Betty. Tell you some more some time.”
A successful and almost too well attended concert of glee clubs and
orchestra finished Betty’s “fiddling” for the year, she said, though she
still attended practices. She was happy over having the largest “score”
and thus winning that past swimming meet. Swimming and music ought to go
together, she told her father. He agreed and reminded her how fishermen
were lured to their doom by the Lorelei and other sirens.
“Oh—you’re a great daddy!” Betty told him, “but you’ll be proud of your
little goldfish yet!”
“I am now, Betty. There isn’t a girl as fine as mine over there!”
“Why, Father! That’s better than the diploma! I know you’re prejudiced,
but it’s very pleasant!”
Then came a day when Ramon Sevilla came “home.” Tall, big, strong,
confident, he had gotten past fear, established in his own country, with
backing now in America as well. But plans changed. Mrs. Sevilla was not
quite strong enough yet to be taken across the Atlantic. The school
paper, known as the _Roar_, came out with a little account which gave a
summary of Ramon’s experiences:
A Former Football Hero Returns.
Who does not remember the Don, otherwise known as Ramon Balinsky? He
is the man who came to fame after Freddy Fisher and in turn was
followed by “Kentucky,” our synonym for victory.
The Don was the man of mystery. We always knew that he had some
romantic history and it turns out that he was the victim of a
frame-up in his native land. Separated from his relatives, who
feared that he was dead, not knowing what had become of them, he
drifted here, always followed by the villains of the piece.
Last summer he was kidnapped and almost killed, though rescued by
friends that included some of our most prominent seniors. It made a
romantic tale of the Maine coast, stolen jewels and smuggled liquor.
The Don has been to Spain and it is whispered that he has even
talked to the king. He has regained his stolen property and while he
goes now by the name of Sevilla, no one knows just what his rank may
or may not be.
However, the Don makes a fine American and until he thinks best to
return to his native land, he has established a home for his mother
and sister and is going to work for the Murchison Company. The
_Roar_ congratulates him and says, “Long live the Don!” Good work,
Ramon. The cheer squad will now lead in Lyon High yells for the Don,
and the band will strike up “El Capitan!”
It was true that a quiet little place had been chosen by Ramon for his
mother and sister, who could now rest from most of her labors and all of
her anxieties. For the present Ramon was to be found suitable work, in
one of the Murchison interests, which would take care of them all and
begin to settle the loan which he had accepted in Spain.
One curious feature about Betty’s new relation with Larry Waite was that
her family knew practically nothing about it. She had no desire to keep
anything from her mother, in one respect, but she had really seen so
little of Larry, and under such circumstances when she did that it was
not natural to speak of it. Mrs. Lee had noted Betty’s depression and a
little change of manner, and while attributing it chiefly to her being
tired with all the various enterprises, she wondered if seeing so much
less of Chet was worrying her at all. “After Commencement,” Betty
thought, “they’ll see.”
Chet, on the other hand was not worrying Betty in the least. He had
seemed not to like it particularly that Betty was Larry’s partner at
supper on that eventful evening, but Chet was not much older than Betty
and like her had had no real experience with a deep attachment. Just now
he was absorbed in his work and a university fraternity. He and Ted with
a few others came around in a car one afternoon to carry Betty off to a
picnic party on the Dorrance grounds, but aside from that there were no
“dates.” It was a natural dropping of rather too constant attention and
Betty was glad to think that her budding romance would not bring any
particular pain to Chet.
Mathilde, whose chief interest was in those lines and whose town
acquaintance was wide, took some little pleasure, Betty thought, in
repeating something that Jack had told her. “I hear that you are being
cut out, Betty, with Chet,” said she.
“How is that?” asked Betty, knowing that Mathilde wanted to have her ask
that very thing.
“Jack says that Chet has a new girl—I forget her name, a new member of
Chet’s class. Chet’s taking her around quite a little. I hope you don’t
mind.” Mathilde looked at Betty curiously. Perhaps that was what was the
matter with Mathilde, curiosity.
“How interesting,” murmured Betty, annoyed, to be sure, but a little
amused, too. “No—Chet and I will always be the best of friends, I
think, but it’s only natural that we should not be together so much now.
I think I know the girl you mean. There were a lot of us on a picnic
together the other day.” Blessings on that recent picnic, Betty thought.
She really did not enjoy having Mathilde “crow over her,” and she knew
that before the conversation ended, Mathilde would try to worm the last
detail of that picnic and who were there out of her. As if uninterested
in telling any more, she pleasantly answered the rest of the questions,
for with some people, Betty could be “diplomatic,” too.
In the comforting assurance that everything would be “all right” when
Larry came, Betty laid aside her happy dreams of the future to work hard
just before the “senior exams.” One scholarship prize she would win, if
possible, and she was not going to have it said that a girl prominent in
athletics could not get her lessons. As a senior, she could not play
with the orchestra at Commencement. Freedom from practice there was one
gain, though arrangements for the G. A. A. banquet lay partly on the
shoulders of the president.
At last the examinations were over. Class day was ushered in with
sunshine and entire relief from lessons. Betty was not even in the
pretty Maypole dance or any of the stunts, but with some regrets she
formed a part of the senior parade and carried her part of the long,
long rope of living green and twining flowers that marked the senior
class. As she followed the rest along the track of the athletic field
before the big stadium she tried not to let herself think that “all
these good times” were over, but she winked more than once, to keep a
tear from forming. One big chapter in her life was closing, and Betty
vaguely realized it.
But her mother was in the stadium to hear the brief program and to see
Betty come forward not only for her Latin prize from Miss Heath, but for
another, given to each of the three best Latin students in the entire
senior class.
And afterwards, when the class had its own private meeting there was
nothing but fun for Betty. The class prophet foretold a wonderful
athletic future for Betty as the world’s champion swimmer. “As Lindy was
the first to fly alone, so Betty Lee is to be the first swimmer to cross
the Atlantic!”
“How about the sharks?” someone asked, but was frowned upon by the
speaker of the day.