BATTLE
Even as Billie Bradley spoke, the strange girl disappeared into the
woods.
“Please don’t go! Please! You mustn’t until I’ve had a chance to thank
you!”
At the urgent request, or command, the girl reappeared, but with
obvious reluctance. She stood awkwardly, rubbing one foot over the
other.
“Don’t want any thanks,” she muttered. “Didn’t do nothing, nohow. I
guess--I guess--I’d better go now.”
Billie was nonplused by the strange behavior of this young person who
had just saved her life. The manner of the girl had altered completely.
From being dictatorial, “bossy,” and almost offensively sure of
herself, she had become a shy and awkward country girl. Her eyes
avoided Billie’s direct look, whether from shyness or sullenness, it
was impossible to tell.
Billie, painfully conscious of all her cuts and bruises, went up to the
girl and held out her hand.
“Whether you like it or not, I’m going to thank you. My life doesn’t
mean a lot to you probably,” with a whimsical smile, “but it does to me
and I am very properly grateful for it. How you can climb!” she added
with genuine admiration. “If I could scale the side of a cliff like
that, I wouldn’t care whether I could solve a problem in algebra or
not.”
The girl flashed Billie a glance. There was both sullenness and shyness
in it; which was odd, considering the dictatorial tone she had used to
Billie a few moments earlier.
“Don’t be so nice to me,” she said, in a hard voice, “until you know
who I am!”
Billie was given no opportunity to comment on this peculiar observation
for at the moment Vi and Laura dashed in from the woods, rushed to
Billie and flung their arms about her. They had come by the woods path
“around Robin Hood’s barn” and had reached her as soon as possible.
“Oh-h, look out! Don’t hug so tightly, darlings. I’m--to put it
mildly--sensitive. Yes, I’m alive--as you see. No there are no
bones broken--I think. But I’ll have to soak in arnica to-night.
Bruises--hundreds of ’em. But I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I
am just to be alive!”
Animated by the same thought, Laura and Vi left off hugging Billie and
turned to the strange girl.
“We don’t know how to thank you,” Vi began.
“If you knew how much I hate thanks you wouldn’t go to the bother,”
responded the stranger ungraciously. “I don’t do such things for
thanks. Well--good-by!” She turned abruptly and would have plunged into
the woods had not Billie called her.
“I don’t know why you have taken such a sudden dislike to me--to us,”
she said. “I am sorry if I have done or said anything to offend you.
After saving my life, I don’t like you to go away angry.”
“I’m not mad,” muttered the girl. “And I don’t dislike you. I think
you’re grand!”
Was ever such a contradictory, amazing creature? Billie stared at her
in helpless bewilderment.
“Well, then!”
The girl suddenly flung up her head. Her round face was stern and her
mouth was combative, but there were tears in her eyes!
“You won’t be so nice to me when you know who I am, I tell you,” she
blurted. “You’ll be like all the rest of the sneerin’, titterin’ lot of
’em. I hate them, I hate every last one of them!”
This outburst amazed the three girls and roused their curiosity. What
did the strange creature mean?
“It’s true I don’t know your name or where you come from,” said Billie.
“But I am sure I shall like you just as much and be just as grateful to
you for having saved my life, whoever you are.”
“Well, then, my name is Edina Tooker,” the girl threw out the
information like a challenge. “And I’m livin’, just at present, at
Three Towers Hall!”
The girls merely stared at her, doubting if they had heard aright. The
self-styled Edina Tooker laughed harshly.
“You see! A crazy lookin’ jay like me couldn’t be goin’ to your select
boarding school, could she? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Oh,
you don’t need to answer me! I can see it in your faces!”
There was a world of bitterness behind the girl’s harsh tone.
“She has been hurt,” thought Billie. “Pretty badly hurt and her pride
is up in arms.”
Before she could speak Laura said impulsively:
“Why, you can’t be a student at Three Towers Hall. I’ve never even seen
you there!”
“I only come a few days ago,” the girl explained. “And after the first
day I--I kep’ close to my own room.”
That explained it, thought Billie. She had heard of the new girl
from the wild open spaces who dressed like a freak, talked worse,
and kept to her dormitory as though it were a burrow from which she
seldom emerged except to attend classes. Characteristically, these
uncomplimentary rumors had come to her through Amanda Peabody. Billie
had intended vaguely to look up the new girl to see if she could be
of any help. Instead, the new girl had looked her up--and in a most
dramatic fashion!
“I know who you are,” Billie said, friendly eyes on the sullen face of
Edina Tooker. “I’m glad you introduced yourself. I was going to look
you up, anyway.”
The sullen expression on Edina Tooker’s face did not lift. She regarded
Billie suspiciously.
“What for?” she demanded. “So you could see what a freak I am and laugh
at me behind my back?”
This accusation was almost too much for even Billie’s good nature. A
sharp retort rose to her lips--but got no further. She realized in time
how much this strange girl must have suffered to make her so bitter and
resentful. She was showing tooth and claw because that was her only
method of defense. Like some wild creature of the woods, she was backed
up against a wall, unable to distinguish friend from foe, fighting
valiantly and indiscriminately, fearing nothing but surrender.
Billie, holding a firm check upon her temper, replied gently:
“My main--in fact, my only idea in deciding to look you up was to see
if I could help you.”
“Why should you think I needed help?” retorted Edina Tooker harshly. “I
suppose you’d been hearin’ things about me--what a freak I am and all.”
“No one ever said you were a freak,” Billie pursued patiently. “But you
were a new girl from a distant city and I thought you might be glad to
have someone sort of--well, show you the ropes.”
The corners of Edina’s straight young mouth turned downward in a sneer.
“Sounds good, the way you tell it. But you can’t fool me. You’re all
alike up to that school, with your highfallutin’ manners and uppity
ways. You’d come to see me, yes, so that you could laugh at me and talk
about me afterward. ‘Native,’ ‘barbarian,’ that’s a couple o’ the names
I’ve heard your swell friends call me. Mebbe you could add some to the
string.”
“If Billie can’t, I will!” cried Laura, with sudden fury. “You’re
nothing but a heathen and an ungrateful wretch! You don’t know who
Billie Bradley is, maybe, but I’ll teach you!”
“Hush, Laura, please! Come away!”
Laura would not be silenced. She brushed the interruption aside
impatiently and rushed on, her words pouring forth in a torrent:
“Billie Bradley is the most popular girl at Three Towers Hall. She does
almost everything better than anybody else and yet the girls love her
just the same. Maybe you’ve got sense enough to know what that means.
She’s a perfect peach and any girl she takes up may count herself in
luck. You just think of that when you are all alone and try to realize
what you’ve lost. Come on Billie, let’s get away from here!”
Laura turned away with one last, inimical look at Edina Tooker. Vi
joined her, but Billie still lingered behind.
“I’m sorry you feel this way,” she said to the girl who had saved her
life. “I owe you a debt and I’d like to be friends.” Billie paused but
as Edina remained silent with sullenly averted face, Billie went on to
join Laura and Vi.
She did not know that the strange girl looked after her with eyes
suddenly blurred by tears.