"Carolyn!" exclaimed Betty and Kathryn in one breath. Both girls jumped
up and ran toward the pavement where Carolyn, trim and pretty, and still
in her traveling suit, was lightly and quickly leaving the car, looking
back for a word or two with its occupants and then, smilingly, coming to
meet her two friends.
"Am I still on your list of friends?" she asked, holding Betty off after
an embrace. "Kathryn, I don't deserve to have such a nice welcome and I
know it! Will you girls ever _forgive_ me for not writing?"
It was the old Carolyn. My, but she was sweet. Betty knew why, "all over
again," as she said to herself--why she loved Carolyn Gwynne.
"Do you have to do anything for ten minutes or so?" continued Carolyn,
walking between the girls to the porch and being escorted, not to the
steps, but to a hanging swing in which they all could sit.
"Not a thing," Betty assured her, "and for more than ten minutes, I
hope, if you are mentioning how long you can stay."
"They'll be back for me," said Carolyn. "We came most of the way by
train, but were met, and I asked to drive around this way in case I
should see anything of Betty, to make my peace with her--and here are
both of you. I'm positively afraid to meet Peggy Pollard. I owe her two
letters, and I don't owe you girls but one! And oh, I've the grandest
plan for next summer. Positively, you've both got to begin planning now
to come to our camp with me. Even if I didn't write, I thought of
you--every time I went in swimming, Betty--or almost, to be real
truthful--I could see you in your bathing suit, cutting the 'dashing
waves' or rolling in the sand with me."
"I'd love 'rolling in the sand' with you, Carolyn," laughed Betty, "but
I've had a perfectly delicious summer at home. I am, of course, _very
much offended_ at you for not having answered my letter; but I'm afraid
I can't keep it up because there's so much to talk about. Kathryn, can
you stay mad at Carolyn?"
"Never could," smiled Kathryn. "Carolyn gets away with a lot of things
she forgets because she is so nice about remembering some more important
things."
"There!" exclaimed Carolyn. "You're a friend worth having, Kathryn!" And
Carolyn wondered at the affectionate glance, full of meaning, that Betty
gave Kathryn. It was generous of Kathryn to praise Carolyn, in view of
her acknowledged bit of jealousy.
"Betty, I laughed and laughed over that letter. It was too clever for
words. And the funny things that happened to you! How do people ever
keep house and remember all the things that they have to be careful
about? I suppose it's nothing unusual to have somebody at the back door,
a ring at the front door, the ice man coming and all while a body is
talking at the telephone and trying to get an important message, but you
certainly made it funny. 'Hello, hello--yes, Father--I don't quite get
that--where did you say to meet you?--mercy, there is the ice man and
somebody else is knocking, too and the door-bell is ringing--what'll I
do?--you can't hold the 'phone?'--something like that, Kathryn. And you
_must_ have been scared the time you forgot to keep the screen door
fastened and that agent walked right in."
"Yes," laughed Betty. "I thought he was taking a gun from his pocket and
I backed toward the front room door, ready to run, while he fixed me
with his awful eye, and then asked me if I wanted to buy whatever he
had. I didn't even look at it. I gasped out, 'No, sir,' and then I heard
what I had on the gas stove boiling over and knew it would put out the
gas; so I turned and fled, and when I came back the man was gone and
nothing was missing!"
"How soon can you girls come out? I'll be unpacking tomorrow and the
house will be upset while things are getting back into shape again, but
the day after that--oh, have you heard about Louise Madison, and Ted
Dorrance?"
Carolyn's manner was so impressive as she asked this question that
Betty's heart gave a little leap. What could be the matter! An accident?
"What about them?" asked Kathryn, "married?"
"Not a bit of it. Just the other way. My sister heard all about it.
Somebody wrote to her from the same summer resort where the Dorrances
and the Madisons _happened_ to be together. Somebody that goes to the
University was there, too, and paid a lot of attention to Louise; and
she liked it--and him, of course--and you may imagine what Ted thought
about it. So all at once Ted left and went somewhere else, with some
boys from here, and the girl that wrote to sister claims that Louise is
engaged to the other man, though we don't believe it. Louise is only a
freshman in college!"
"You never can tell, Carolyn," wisely returned Kathryn. "Louise is sort
of flirty anyhow. And, for that matter, Ted is pretty nice to all the
girls, only since he has been taking Louise around there's been nobody
else."
"It seems too bad," remarked Betty, pondering. "They are both so nice. I
thought it so romantic last year."
"I never thought it could last," said Carolyn, "from what my sister said
then. You see, Louise is older than Ted and a year ahead of him in
school; and it doesn't stand to reason that when she is with all these
University people next year, in the same classes, and the boys liking
Louise the way they always do--that Ted would have much of a chance."
"But Ted is a very unusual boy," Betty insisted.
"Ted _is_ one of those boys that everybody likes," Carolyn assented.
"Well, we'll let him look after himself. Kathryn, did you hear that
Finny is coming back to join her more democratic sisters in the
sophomore class?"
"Yes. I was just telling Betty about her. Do you know why she decided to
come back to high school?"
"I wouldn't say anything about it except to you two and Peggy, because
it wouldn't be fair to Mathilde not to let her have a chance to make her
own reputation in high school; but I'm pretty sure, from all the really
mean things I heard said about her, that even 'discounting' the truth of
some of them, as the person that repeated the most said to me, the
school where she was didn't exactly appreciate her. Besides, she failed
in several branches and had to make up what she could this summer. But
she'll be a sophomore all right. Now, please don't tell a word of this.
I wouldn't want it to come from me, or be mean to Mathilde, though I'm
going _very slowly_ in that direction!"
This from kind Carolyn was a good deal, as Betty knew. Still, in the
excitement of the return and news telling, girls were likely to say too
much.
"We'll say nothing," replied Kathryn. "At least I can promise for
myself, and you know Betty."
"Oh, how did violin practice go, Betty? You didn't say a word about it
in your letter. It didn't 'harmonize,' to be very musical in my
speech--with washing dishes and cooking and having company did it?"
"Not so very well, Carolyn, but I really did a little bit every day and
I played for Father and he liked it. He would, you know, because I was
doing it, though I will say that Father couldn't stand a discord or a
rasping bow. Jazz makes him nearly crazy when the discord lasts too
long, you know. He took Cousin Lil and me to a movie and got up and
left, asking me if I'd mind first. I whispered that he could stop his
ears while the jazz lasted, but he shook his head; and when we got
outside there was Father waiting to take us into where we could get a
sundae. He said he had accomplished several errands."
"Think you will get into the orchestra?"
"That is another thing. I did want to, you know. But I found out that I
couldn't be a real member until I was a junior, unless I was a genius or
something so wonderful that they had to have me. I was told that this
summer, so my energy lagged in the hot weather. Father said he was sorry
because I 'lacked an incentive,' but I don't know. I like violin anyhow,
and maybe it's just as well not to feel hurried and lose all your
dreams."
"Now isn't that like you, Betty! That's one reason I like you," Carolyn
declared, "because you do have 'dreams.'"
Carolyn looked at Kathryn as if for confirmation of her speech and
Kathryn nodded with a wide smile.
"I'm very practical, though, girls. I'm not sure that having dreams is
altogether good, either."
"First you say one thing and then you say another," Kathryn accused her.
"It's as bad as saying it the way Mr. Simcox answers our questions:
'Well, _yes_; and _no!_'"
Kathryn had so nearly presented their teacher's voice and intonation
that Carolyn and Betty answered with giggles. But Kathryn went on to
say, with real seriousness underlying her fun, "What we should say about
Betty is that she is hitching her wagon to a star and it makes everybody
else want to hitch up, too."
"'Inspiration,' then," said Carolyn. "What'll I hitch up with? I
couldn't play a violin."
"_As_piration," chuckled Betty. "Pick out your brightest dream, 'Caro,'
and put on the harness!"
"She calls me 'Caro.' What kind of syrup do you like best, Betty?"
"'Scuse me, Carolyn. I felt affectionate and had to make up a nickname."
"You are excused. Really, we might have made some little names of our
own to call each other by. Wouldn't it be fun?"
Betty looked mischievously at Kathryn. "We were talking of nicknames
this afternoon, Kathryn and I."
"Betty!"
Carolyn looked from one to another. "You have some secret. That is mean,
to leave out your old and tried friend Carolyn."
"Oh, it wasn't anything, Carolyn, only I'm joking Kathryn about a
nickname she doesn't like."
"I'm not so sure now but I _do_ like it," Kathryn replied, taking up
Betty's half explanation. "Tell Carolyn if you want to."
"Not all of it?"
"Yes, what Peggy is supposed to have said."
Upon this permission from Kathryn, Betty explained that a speech of
Peggy's had been repeated by Mathilde to Kathryn and how the gypsy
reference had been interpreted. "Do you think that Peggy Pollard would
be likely to say anything unkind about Kathryn?" Betty asked in
concluding.
"I can't imagine it. Kathryn, notice how Peggy acts when you see her and
if I were you I'd feel around with some reference to something of the
sort. I'll wager you'll find Peggy as ignorant as can be of even what
you mean. You'll find out that Peggy Pollard is all right. And by the
way, I hear that they are having little sororities in spite of the
rules. If it is all right, and the authorities allow it, why not?
There's one in our class started! The question is who started it, and
why, and how, and if so, can we make it, and do we want to make it----"
Carolyn was obliged to stop for breath.
"Hum," said Kathryn. "Yes, I've heard about it, but I didn't tell Betty.
I heard Betty's father say that he was glad there weren't any sororities
in high school!"
"Poor Mr. Lee!" exclaimed Carolyn. "Betty, do you know what you're going
in for this year--swimming, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes. But no, I haven't thought about it. I took everything with
such seriousness last year; but if I want to, I'll sign up for a number
of things this year. They don't meet often, and you can always stop if
you can't keep on, and I'd love to be on some team, if there'd be no
trouble about it."
"There's always trouble about making a team. There are too many that
want to be on it."
"But you can try out, and if you stand better than somebody else, you
get it and she doesn't. That _oughtn't_ to make trouble."
"Why don't you try out for the hockey team in the fall and the
basketball in the winter?"
"Perhaps I will. Wait till the time comes. Oh, there's your car,
Carolyn. What a shame!"
"Yes, and I haven't made a date with you at all."
"There's always the telephone," Betty reminded her. "It was lovely of
you to stop, Carolyn. See you soon. Come back as soon as you can. 'Bye!"