THE POPPING MASCOTS
Like every well-conducted freshman Montana Marie O’Toole took a vast
interest in the basket-ball championship. Having been effectually
barred from the team by her numerous entrance conditions and her even
more numerous fall-term warnings, she was not disappointed, like
some of her friends, when the team was chosen. Being an insuperable
optimist, she cared not that the sophomore players were known as the
Invincibles because they had never lost an interclass match.
When a practical-minded freshman player remarked, “Of course we can’t
win, but we can play ball,” Montana Marie smiled her dazzling smile and
retorted, “Don’t you give up yet. You can play ball and the rest of us
can shriek--yelling is forbidden, they say, in this polite institution.
And maybe--well, truth is stranger than fiction,” Montana Marie
concluded with a cheerful giggle.
From this and many similar speeches the team gradually got the
impression that Miss O’Toole had learned some wonderful trick-play in
dear old Paree, which she was saving, to make sure that the sophomores
didn’t get hold of it, until the very last days of team-practice.
There was still another rumor to the effect that Montana Marie was as
wonderful at basket-ball as at horseback riding, and that the faculty,
out of deference to her peculiar position in college, had consented to
her joining the team just before the great game, provided that her work
until then was kept strictly up to the mark. But when the Invincibles
lost two of their starriest stars, all because of mere low-grades in
some obscure subject like elocution, the rumor that the scholarship
rule was to be stretched for Marie’s benefit lost credence. But that
she was to be depended upon to do something, certainly interesting and
probably effective, nobody seemed to doubt. As Fluffy Dutton remarked,
“She’s an awful bluffer, but somehow she always comes out on top.”
“Yes, she does,” agreed Straight, who, as head coach of the sophomore
Invincibles, was peculiarly interested in Montana Marie’s proceedings,
“and the reason is that nobody can get a word out of her edgewise.
Maybe she has thought up a grand plan, and maybe she hasn’t an idea in
her pretty head. But whichever way it is, she just smiles the same old
smile. She’s a regular wizard at keeping secrets, that girl is.”
“Then maybe the freshman coaches are just as near crazy as you are,”
Fluffy threw out gaily.
“I’ll bet they are,” Straight took up her twin soberly. “I’ll bet she
has even the freshman captain guessing. I’ll bet the freshman high
moguls would go for her good and hard, if they dared,--for raising
false hopes and getting the team overexcited, and all that sort of
thing. But they don’t dare, because they can’t make her out. And
there’s one chance in a hundred that she’s thought up the grand plan
that will save them.”
Straight was a clever forecaster; the situation in the freshman class
was exactly as she had analyzed it. The team lost its temper and
wasted its practice hours discussing the truth about Montana Marie.
The ruling spirits of the freshman class, who saw the fine esprit de
corps of the Invincibles falling in ruins, raged in executive sessions
and singly and in groups interrogated the sphinx-like Miss O’Toole. She
received their inquiries with smiles, giggles, and blank, non-committal
impenetrability.
“I should say we ought to win! Well, rather! Can I do anything to help?
Why, really I can’t tell you offhand like this. I’ll think hard, and
maybe I’ll have a thought--isn’t that what that killing Fluffy Dutton
is forever saying? And when I have a thought, I’ll let you know.”
Thus did Montana Marie O’Toole meet the pointed inquiries of the
leading freshmen, and bring their plans for sounding her to naught.
Montana Marie O’Toole had entered Harding against all rules and
precedents. She had stayed despite the gloomiest prophecies to the
contrary. With all her peculiarities she was close friends with the
most prominent upper-class girls. She always got what she wanted. She
wanted the freshman team to win. “Ergo----” Timmy Wentworth completed
the syllogism with a wave of her good right arm. Timmy, who was
coaching the freshmen, was unable to decide whether or not the vague
confidence they felt in Marie offset the damaging effect of their
constant quarrels about her. But being a lover of the picturesque and
the bizarre, Timmy was personally amused by the episode. Also logic is
logic.
The winter term wore on its long and tedious course. The weather
continued unreasonably cold; so did the hearts of the faculty. The
Invincibles lost a third member, their prize home, and the freshmen
their best center. However, a sub who had been taken on at the last
minute turned out to be quite a wonder at jumping, and on the whole
the freshman chances were looking up a little. Finally it was only two
weeks to the great game, then ten days, a week, and less than a week.
Timmy Wentworth, being consulted by the leading freshmen, advised them
to go to Marie once more.
“And this time don’t you be so afraid of her,” she urged. “Call her
bluff. Make her show her hand. If she gets mad about it, never you
mind. Trick-plays that she keeps to herself won’t help us any. Now is
the time for her to come out with her great thought. If she won’t--or
can’t--why, we shall just have to scrape along without it.”
So a solemn deputation of six, headed by the class president, waited
upon Marie that same afternoon. Marie listened to them with her
habitual contemplative smile.
“It is getting pretty near the time, if we’re going to spring something
good,” she agreed vaguely at last. “But say, what makes you all so sure
that I can think of the right thing?”
The freshman president referred briefly to the rumors. “Reports like
that usually have some truth in them. Besides, you’ve sort of hinted at
something when we’ve asked you before.”
“I have? I’ve hinted? Well, that’s news to me,” declared Marie
jovially. “I just said that I’d try to think, didn’t I, or some pretty
speech like that? Well, I--I’ve been fearfully busy. But of course, if
you’re depending on me----” Marie paused to giggle riotously. “I never
saw a basket-ball game, you know,--a big one, that is, with lots of
people watching and all that. Couldn’t we--couldn’t we--rattle the
other side?”
“How?” demanded the freshman president inexorably.
Marie indulged in her very Frenchiest shrug. “Why, the regular ways, I
suppose, only more so.”
“That’s easy to say,” the freshman president objected sternly. “But
the Invincibles won’t rattle in any regular way. They’re too sure of
themselves.”
“Well, then,” said Montana Marie calmly, “it’s certainly up to us to
think of some unusual ways.” She settled herself more comfortably in
Connie’s easy chair, and passed the inexorable freshman president a box
of very expensive chocolates. “Now you folks go ahead and tell me about
what happens at a big game. Go into all the details. Then maybe I shall
have a thought on the subject of rattling those Invincibles. Fire away
now. And keep the chocolates moving.”
The president began, rather scornfully. Never having seen a big game
herself, she soon found herself somewhat hazy about details. So were
the rest of the deputation. In the end Marie hunted up Connie, who had
retired to a quieter spot for the purposes of study; and Connie, who,
from much experience, believed in all Montana Marie’s strange methods,
took up the tale. The team-mascots interested Marie extremely.
“Have we got one fixed up yet?” she demanded.
The deputation explained that they had. It was to be Professor Hart’s
youngest son, arrayed in “invincible” armor.
Marie nodded approvingly. “What’s theirs?”
“We think they’ve got black Mandy’s little Mandy to be it,” explained
the freshman president. “We don’t know how she’s going to be dressed.”
Marie ruminated. “Does a team ever have more than one mascot?” she
demanded at last.
Connie said no. “It would be like carrying a purse full of lucky
pennies,” she explained primly. “One mascot is enough.”
Marie considered. “If there’s no rule against more than one,” she
announced at last, “I think a whole row stuck up in the freshman
gallery--popping out one at a time, you know, when things were going
against us--would be sort of rattling--if you ask me.”
“Where’d you keep them till they popped?” inquired a practical freshman.
Marie shrugged. “Ask Connie.”
“In the boxes that the back row of girls stand on, couldn’t you?”
suggested Connie promptly.
“Of course,” agreed the freshman president.
“Well, what could we have for the extra ones?” pursued the practical
freshman.
“Class animal,” suggested somebody.
“Black Mandy’s Jimmie,” suggested somebody else. “Little Mandy will
curl up and cry when she sees all the people staring at her, but Jimmie
would be game for anything.”
“It isn’t against any rules, is it, for mascots to keep popping out?”
asked a cautious girl--she had made herself a leading spirit by saving
her class from many of the indiscretions common to impulsive freshman
bodies.
Connie, upon being appealed to, could not think of any rule covering
the popping out of extra mascots after the great game had begun. “Of
course,” she said, “Miss Andrews always asks the galleries to sit
still and not scream; and near the baskets you can’t have your feet
over the edge. Those are the only rules I ever heard of.”
“Well, we can get around those all right,” the freshman president
declared easily. “The mascots can pop as silently as ghosts. But if the
sophs don’t giggle or shriek or make some silly disturbance just as the
Invincible home is trying to make a basket, or the center is diving
after a new ball--why, then we shan’t have the bother of carrying you
around the gym. on our shoulders, Miss Marie O’Toole.”
“The bother of what?” demanded Marie blandly.
The freshman president explained, and Marie thanked her effusively for
her trouble. “It’s terrible not knowing any of these American college
customs,” she sighed. “But I’m learning pretty fast. I won’t eat very
much between now and the game, so in case you do have to carry me----”
“Before we plan on that,” put in the practical freshman, “we’d better
go and get the mascots engaged and their clothes fixed up. It’s going
to be some work, I can tell you.”
Whereat the deputation departed hastily in search of black Mandy and
little Jim, of purple streamers, metal dish-cloths to serve as chain
armor for the champion mascot, and canton flannel for the manufacture
of a whole family of white rabbits--the white rabbit being the freshman
class animal.
After that, rumors grew wilder and flew faster than ever, but none
of them could be verified. The deputation, being composed of the
most canny members of a large and brilliant class, shrouded all its
proceedings in the deepest mystery; and Montana Marie’s ideas about
the scheme she was supposed to have devised were much too vague for
expression. Having been ridiculed for her ignorance of college customs
early in the fall term, Marie had speedily discovered that silence
kept one from being laughed at. That it also gave one a reputation
for diplomacy, for expert bluffing, and for wonderful eleventh hour
inspirations, was a matter of small concern to Montana Marie, who had
none of Straight Dutton’s analytical interest in the queer crooks and
turns of human nature.
The day of the great game found Harding in a state of unparalleled
excitement. There was the regular great-game-excitement and the special
mystery-excitement. Could the freshmen possibly win? And how would
they try to do it? The line in front of the gym. doors was of record
length. Even Mariana Ellison, blasé C. P., who had never before let a
mere game interfere with the unfolding of her literary emotions, was
to be found in the ranks. Montana Marie was an usher. In a ravishing
white gown, with a huge purple bow on her lovely hair and a purple
wand in her hand, she helped to direct the surging freshman mob to its
proper place in the purple-draped balcony. Arrangements in the freshman
gallery seemed to be complicated. Ushers ran wildly to and fro. The
song leader moved her box three times in response to their whispered
instructions. Everybody else moved countless times. Choice seats were
abandoned cheerfully for no obvious reason. An overdose of purple
drapery obstructed the view at the center of the gallery, but nobody
touched a single fold of the offending decoration.
“The quiet, well-mannered little dears!” jeered Fluffy Dutton from
the riotous sophomore gallery. “I wonder if they’ll wake up and take
notice when their famous trick-play comes on the scene--and doesn’t
work!”
[Illustration: HE WAVED HIS PURPLE BANNER]
But first the teams came on the scene, the Invincibles dancing gaily
around little black Mandy, who was resplendent in a trailing red
academic gown, with a small red mortar board topping her fuzzy black
braids. Little Mandy looked frightened and sucked her thumb, whereas
Johnny Hawkins, in metal-dish-cloth and silver-paper armor, marched
proudly at the head of the freshman players, and he waved his purple
banner with its white rabbit emblem in a bold and fearless manner
that quite upset the decorum of the purple gallery. But only for a
moment; the shrieks of delight were smothered before they were well
begun; songs were sung, not shouted; clapping was subdued to a ladylike
volume. Miss Andrews smiled approval at the purple gallery, whereat the
leading spirits ensconced there winked joyously at one another. The
plot was auspiciously launched.
For perhaps three minutes after Miss Andrews whistled the signal to
the teams to “Play ball,” nothing particular happened. The freshman
center muffed outrageously, the sophomore home barely missed making a
goal, and the freshman guards seized the opportunity thus offered to
do some very creditable interfering, which the center’s stage-fright
rendered quite useless. The ball was back at the sophomore basket,
and the Invincible home had poised it again for an easy toss. Then
there was a faint rustle in the purple gallery, then a breathless
“Ah!” of amazement from the red one, followed by a suppressed titter
of amusement. The Invincible home caught a hint of something in the
air, hesitated, tossed up the ball, and missed the basket. In the
mêlée that followed every member of the Invincibles took a second
off to look around, and the freshmen scored. Whereupon black Mandy’s
Jim, whose striking costume of white and purple stripes had made his
sudden appearance on the top rail of the purple gallery all the more
spectacular, dropped back out of sight, before Miss Andrews had as
much as discovered his presence. Annoyance and uncertainty as to what
might happen next beset the Invincibles. The freshmen scored again.
The purple gallery sang a polite song of triumph, then sat back behind
the purple drapery and let the Invincibles score twice. Just as the
most uncertain of the Invincible homes was about to score an inevitable
point, standing close under the basket, something happened again. The
voluminous purple drapery straightened out taut, disclosing itself as
a huge purple banner with the class numerals on it in white; and at
regular intervals on the white figures there were oval openings through
which purple-capped faces popped out, grinning placidly across at the
agitated red gallery. There was another rustle, a flutter, a giggle.
The uncertain home missed her sure throw, there was a long, futile
scramble for the ball, and Miss Andrews’s silver whistle sounded the
end of the half. Score two to two.
Instantly the purple gallery broke out in tuneful song, the sophomores
in angry clamor. An indignant sophomore deputation beset Miss Andrews.
The senior coaches came running out to join it. The junior coaches
smilingly disclaimed all knowledge of the freshman plot to rattle the
Invincibles. Miss Andrews had seen nothing; upon being enlightened she
summoned the freshman president, who was also the leader of their music.
“But we aren’t breaking any rule,” that budding diplomatist explained
politely. “We haven’t shrieked or clapped noisily,--or stamped”--with a
meaning glance at the sophomore delegation, who blushed at the veiled
accusation. “Basket-ball is supposed to teach self-control, isn’t
it, Miss Andrews? The Invincibles oughtn’t to pay any attention to
sophomore giggles. Of course if it is against the rules to show extra
mascots---- But the sophomores shouted fearfully at first. That was
what rattled our center so.”
In the end the freshman president returned in triumph to the purple
gallery, where immediately the purple banner was again spread out to
while away the tedium of the intermission.
“You’re smart, if you are mean,” Fluffy Dutton called across the big
gym. admiringly.
“Wait till you see the rest of our stunts,” Montana Marie’s clear voice
sang back. “I guess you’ll think we’re smart before we’re through.
Well, rather!”
“Might as well enjoy whatever is doing,” Fluffy advised her irate
neighbors. “This whole business just shows that they knew they couldn’t
possibly win in a straight game. But it’s awfully clever.”
The Invincible team had arrived at the same philosophical conclusion.
When they came back they bowed mockingly to the purple gallery, and
cheered, in pantomime, below the mystic purple banner. They won a goal
in spite of the disconcerting appearance on the freshman railing of a
tiny yellow-haired child dressed as a purple Queen of Hearts. But when
a whole family of white rabbits popped out at once, in assorted sizes,
across the length of the purple gallery, they resigned themselves
good-naturedly to the loss of not one goal only but two. When the
banner unfurled again, this time with rabbit heads in the oval spaces,
the prize center of the Invincibles happened to be facing it, and,
being already half hysterical with weariness, she crumpled up with
mirth. Before her sub. could trot out to the center field, the whistle
had sounded the end of the great game. Score five to four in the
freshmen’s favor, fouls accounting for the extra points.
“Do the stunts all over again and maybe we’ll forgive you,” Fluffy sang
across to the purple gallery. After the mascots had appeared once more,
amid much applause, there was a rush for the gym. floor.
The players were all carried round the gym. on their partisans’
shoulders, and Montana Marie O’Toole, smiling as serenely as though it
were an every-day occurrence, also got her promised ride.
As she was let carefully down to the floor again, she found herself
face to face with Straight Dutton.
“I say,” began Straight, “did you think of all that nonsense?”
Marie flashed her a knowing smile. “You’re too flattering, Miss Dutton,
I assure you,” she parried.
“Not at all,” said Straight with asperity. “I think the whole
performance was extra-specially silly. It just spoiled the game. You’ve
won technically, of course, but not by playing ball.”
Montana Marie thrust her smiling face, topped by the huge purple bow,
close to Straight’s flushed, tired one. “Don’t you tell a soul, and
I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered impressively.
“Cross my heart,” promised Straight eagerly.
“Well, then, I’m sorry you lost,” whispered Montana Marie. “All my best
friends are seniors, and I hate to see them looking so blue. Now don’t
you tell!” Montana Marie joined a band of dancing freshmen and was
whisked off down the gym.
Straight looked after her half admiringly, half angrily. “Just the
same I don’t believe she thought it up. She’s the best bluffer that
ever came to Harding. Smile, look mysterious, say nothing--that’s her
trick-play, and it always scores. I wonder why she was so crazy to come
to Harding. I certainly must ask Betty if she ever has wondered why her
freshman was so stuck on Harding College.”
Then, as her twin rushed up with a reminder that it was time to dress
for the team dinner, “Yes, Fluffy,” Straight answered absently, “I’m
coming this very minute. But I certainly should like to know--nothing
you can tell me, Fluff; so don’t ask me to stop and explain.”