THE KERNEL IN THE ATHLETIC NUT
The Girls' Branch Athletic League of Central High had been in
existence only a few months. Gymnasium work, folk dancing, rowing and
swimming, walking and some field sports had been carried to a certain
point under the supervision of instructors engaged by Centerport's
Board of Education before the organization of the girls themselves
into an association which, with other school clubs, held competitions
in all these, and other, athletics for trophies and prizes.
Centerport, a lively and wealthy inland city located on the shore of
Lake Luna, boasted three high schools--the East and West Highs, and the
newer and large Central High, which was built in "the Hill" section of
the town, the best residential district, on an eminence overlooking
the lake and flanked on either side and landward, as well, by the
business portions of the city. The finest estates of the Hill district
sloped down to the shore of the lake.
Public interest had long since been aroused in the boys' athletics;
but that in girls' similar development had lagged until the spring
previous to the opening of our story.
In the first volume of this series, entitled "The Girls of Central
High; Or, Rivals for All Honors," was related the organization of the
Girls' Branch, and the early difficulties and struggles of a group of
girl sophomores, most of whom were now on the roster of the basketball
team as named in our first chapter. Laura Belding was the leading
character in that first volume, and her quick-wittedness and loyalty
to the school and to the athletic association really brought about, as
has been intimated, the building of a fine gymnasium for the girls of
Central High and the preparation of the athletic field connected
therewith.
In "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna; Or, The Crew That Won,"
the second volume of the series, was narrated the summer aquatic
sports of the girls and their boy friends; and in that story the
Lockwood twins, Dora and Dorothy, came to the fore as champion
canoeists among the girls, as well as efficient members of the crew of
the eight-oared shell, which won the prize cup offered by the Luna
Boat Club to the champion shell rowed by high school girls.
Lake Luna was a beautiful body of water, all of twenty miles in
length, with Rocky River flowing into it from the west at Lumberport,
and Rolling River carrying off her overflow at the east end of the
lake, where stood the third of the trio of towns--Keyport. Both
Lumberport and Keyport had a well conducted high school, and the girls
in both were organized for athletics as were the three chief schools
of Centerport.
South of Centerport was a range of low hills, through which the two
railroads which tapped the territory wound their way through deep cuts
and tunnels. In the middle of the lake was Cavern Island, a very
popular amusement park at one end, but at its eastern end wild and
rocky enough. The northern shore of the lake was skirted by farms and
deep woods, with a goodly mountain range in the distance.
The girls who had been in the first class at basketball practice began
to troop out of the gymnasium in their street apparel. Chetwood
Belding and his chum, Lance Darby, were waiting for Laura and Jess
Morse. With them was a gangling, goose-necked youth, dressed several
degrees beyond the height of fashion. This was Prettyman Sweet, the
acknowledged "glass of fashion and mould of form" among the boys of
Central High.
"Hullo! here's Pretty!" cried Bobby Hargrew, dancing out behind Laura
and Jess. "You're never waiting to beau _me_ home, are you, Mr.
Sweet?"
"I--oh--ah----" stammered Purt, in much confusion. "It weally would give
me pleasure, Miss Bobby; but I weally have a pwior engagement--ah!"
Just then Hester and Lily came out of the door. Bobby dodged Hester in
mock alarm. Lily stopped in the shelter of the doorway to powder her
nose, holding up a tiny mirror that she might do it effectively, and
then dropping both mirror and "powder rag" into the little "vanity
case" she wore pendant from her belt.
Purt Sweet approached Miss Pendleton with a mixture of diffidence and
dancing school deportment that made Bobby shriek with laughter.
"Oh, joy!" whispered the latter to Nellie, who appeared next with the
Lockwood twins. "Purt has found a shrine before which to lay his
heart's devotion. D'ye see _that_?" pointing derisively to Lily and
young Sweet turning the first corner.
Hester was strolling away by herself. Nellie said, quickly:
"Let's not go _this_ way. I don't want to meet that girl again
to-night."
"Much obliged to you, Nell, for taking my slapping. But Hester never
really meant to hit me, after all. You got in the way, you know."
"You'd better behave," said one of the twins admonishingly. "You made
this trouble, Bobby."
"There you go!" cried Bobby, with apparent tears. "Nobody loves me;
Hester tried to slap me, and Pretty Sweet wouldn't even walk with me.
Oh, and say!" she added, with increased hilarity, "what do you suppose
the boys are telling about Pretty now?"
"Couldn't say," said Dora Lockwood. "Something ridiculous, I venture
to believe."
"It's _funny_," giggled Bobby. "You see, Purt thinks he's really
getting whiskers."
"No!" exclaimed Dorothy.
"Sure. You watch him next time you have a chance. He's always feeling
to see if his side-tapes have sprouted. He _has_ got a little yellow
fuzz on his upper lip--honest!
"Well, Purt went into Jimmy Fabro's shop the other day--you know, that
hair-cutting place right behind Mr. Betting's store, on the side
street? Well, Purt went in and took a chair. Jimmy was alone.
"'What you want--hair cut again this week, Pretty?' asked Jimmy.
"'No--o,' says Purt. 'Sh--sh--shave.'
"Jimmy grunted, dropped back the chair, muffled Purt up in the towels,
and then squinted up and down his victim's cheeks. Finally he mumbled
something about being 'right back' and ran into Mr. Belding's and came
back with a watchmaker's glass stuck in his eye. Then he squinted up
and down Purt's face some more and finally mixed a big mug of
lather--and lathered Purt's eyebrows!"
"Oh! what for?" demanded Dora Lockwood.
"That's what Purt asked him," giggled Bobby. "Jimmy said in his gruff
way:
"'I'm hanged if I can see hair anywhere else on your face, Pretty. You
want your eyebrows shaved off, don't ye, Pretty?' So, Chet says,
Purt's been trying to shave himself since then in a piece of broken
mirror out in the wood shed, and with a jack-knife."
Although Nellie Agnew laughed, too, at Bobby's story, she was in no
jolly mood when she parted from the other girls and entered Dr.
Agnew's premises.
The doctor, Nellie's father, was a broadly educated physician--one of
the small class of present day medical men who, like the "family
doctor" of a past generation, claimed no "specialty" and treated
everything from mumps to a broken leg. He was a rather full-bodied
man, with a pink, wrinkled face, cleanly shaven every morning of his
life; black hair with silver threads in it and worn long;
old-fashioned detachable cuffs to his shirts, and a black string tie
that went around his collar twice, the ends of which usually fluttered
in the breeze.
There had long since been established between the good doctor and his
daughter a confidential relation very beautiful to behold. Mrs. Agnew
was a very lovely woman, rather stylish in dress, and much given to
church and club work. Perhaps that is why Dr. Agnew had made such a
comrade of Nellie. She might, otherwise, have lacked any personal
guide at a time in her life when she most needed it.
It was no new thing, therefore, that Nellie should follow the doctor
into the office that evening after dinner, and perch on the broad arm
of his desk chair while he lit the homely pipe that he indulged in
once a day--usually before the rush of evening patients.
When Nellie had told her father all about the unpleasant quarrel at
the gymnasium the doctor smoked thoughtfully for several minutes. Then
he said, in his clear, quiet voice--the calm quality of which Nellie
had herself inherited:
"Do you know what seems to me to be the kernel in the nut of these
school athletics, Nell?"
"What is it, Daddy Doctor?"
"Loyalty. That's the kernel--loyalty. If your athletics and games don't
teach you that, you might as well give 'em up--all of you girls. The
feminine sex is not naturally loyal; now, don't get mad!" and the
doctor chuckled. "It is not a natural virtue--if _any_ virtue is
humanly natural--of the sex. It's only the impulsive, spitfire girls
who are naturally loyal--the kind who will fight for another girl.
Among boys it is different. Now, I am not praising boys, or putting
them an iota higher than girls. Only, long generations of working and
fighting together has made the normal male loyal to his kind. It is an
instinct--and even our friends who call themselves suffragettes have
still to acquire it.
"But this isn't to be a lecture, Nell. It's just a piece of advice.
Show yourself loyal to the other girls of Central High, and to the
betterment of basketball and the other athletics, by----"
"By what?" cried Nellie.
"By paying no attention to Hester Grimes, or what she does. After all,
her shame, if she is removed from your basketball team, is the shame
of her whole class, and of the school as well. Ignore her mean ways if
you can. Don't get in the way of her hand again, Nell," and his eyes
twinkled. "Remember, that blow was not intended for you, in the first
place. And I am not sure that Clara Hargrew would not sometimes be the
better for the application of somebody's hand--in the old-fashioned
way! No, Nell. Say nothing. Make no report of the affair. If Hester is
disloyal, don't you be. Keep out of her way as much as possible----"
"But she spoiled our games with the other schools last spring, and she
will do so again," complained Nellie.
"Then let Mrs. Case, or somebody else, be the one to set the matter in
motion of removing Hester from the team. That's my advice, Miss."
"And of course I shall take it, Daddy Doctor," said Nellie slowly.
"But I _did_ think it was a chance for us to get rid of Hester. She is
_such_ a plague."
The doctor's eyes twinkled. "I wonder why it is that we always want to
shift our burdens on other folks' shoulders? Do you suppose either the
East or West Highs would find Hester any more bearable if she attended
them instead of Central?"
The girls of Central High had something of more moment than Hester
Grimes's "tantrums" to think of the next day. Bobby Hargrew came
flying up the path to the doctor's porch long before school time.
Nellie saw her and ran out to see what she wanted.
"What do you s'pose?" cried Bobby.
"Couldn't guess, Chicken-little," laughed Nellie. "Has the sky
fallen?"
"Almost as bad," declared Bobby, twinkling, but immediately becoming
grave. "The gymnasium----"
"Not burned!"
"No, no! But it's been entered. And by some awfully mean person. The
apparatus on the upper floor has been partly destroyed, and the
lockers broken into downstairs and lots of the field materials
spoiled. Oh, it's dreadfully mean, Nellie! They even sawed through the
rungs of the hanging ladders a little way, so that if anybody swung on
them they'd break.
"And with all the harm they did, nobody can tell how they got into the
building, or out again. The watchman sleeps on the premises. You know,
he's not supposed to keep awake all night, for the same man keeps the
field in repair during the day. But my father says that Jackway, the
watchman, must have slept like the dead if he didn't hear the
marauders while they were damaging all that apparatus.
"It's just too mean," concluded Bobby. "There isn't a basketball that
isn't cut to pieces, and the tennis ball boxes were broken open and
the balls all thrown into the swimming pool. Tennis rackets were
slashed, hockey sticks sawed in two, and other dreadful things done.
It shows that whoever did it must have had a grudge against the
athletic association and us girls--must have just _hated_ us!"
"And who hates us?" cried Nellie, the question popping out before she
thought.
Bobby turned rather white, though her eyes shone. She tapped Nellie on
the shoulder with an insistent index finger.
"You and I know who _says_ she hates us," whispered the younger girl.