Mother suggested putting up a lunch for the children on the second
morning of school, but Dick said that they would not need any. “One of
the kids said that we get out the same time tomorrow,” said he. And
Betty corroborated Dick’s statement.
“I’ll not have to wait in line today, Mother,” said Betty. “That’s all
attended to. I know just what to do. You go to your home room, do
whatever you are told to do and I guess you report to your different
teachers. We get out at twelve‐thirty. After we really have classes and
two sessions there will be a place to get lunches, somewhere upstairs.”
Back again in the echoing halls of the school building, Betty felt that
the worst was over, yet she was both lonely and a little timid in regard
to what was still before her. Oh for Janet or some one of the girls she
knew! Other girls, who must have been in the eighth grade together, were
walking arm in arm, or with arms around each other’s waist as they
approached the door of the same home room to which Betty’s feet were
carrying her. She wondered if poor little Doris felt the same way. She
went into the school room with the others, finding its back seats well
filled already. Accordingly she dropped into the nearest front seat,
which was on the outside row near the door.
As it was not polite to stare, she believed, she did not look at the
girls sitting around her except for glances here and there; but it was
perfectly legitimate to gaze forward at the home room teacher. Was she
going to like her?
Two teachers were standing, near the large desk in front and before the
blackboard, which covered its appropriate space on three walls. The
fourth side of the room was devoted to windows. The teachers were
laughing and talking together, apparently in the best of spirits. Then a
gong rang, or something made a sound in the halls and a corresponding
ring in the room. Immediately one of the ladies departed and the other
turned to face the class with a great change of countenance, not exactly
stern, Betty thought, but it was quite obvious that her home room
teacher was ready to handle any obstreperous little freshman who did not
want to keep order.
But no one was disorderly this morning. It was an event to enter high
school. The expectant faces met the dignified survey of the teacher. In
due time she explained what was to be done. Cards were there from the
office. Schedules had been made out for each one. They were to report to
their respective teachers at the rooms whose numbers were given. Lockers
could not be given for some time. They would be obliged to carry their
books and take them home, but it was remarked that they would want to
study at home in any event. Books would be given out on the next day.
“Oh, then, you didn’t have to buy any books,” Betty thought. She
wondered if her mother would like that. They would never buy any second
hand books and her mother had ideas on germs. There were a number of
questions that Betty would have liked to ask as the teacher talked, but
she did not dare interrupt. There seemed to be too many things to
remember. Of course, it was easier for the girls and boys that lived in
the city all the time.
“And now,” the teacher was saying, “I want you to give your whole
attention to one thing. On these cards that I am giving you, you will
see what you are to write; and while I know that this is all rather new
to you, that fact is not going to excuse you for making mistakes in what
is really important. Pay attention and do not write until you are sure
you know what to write down.
“Perhaps you wonder why I am saying this, but if you saw some of the
cards that we have had in past years, you would not wonder at all. When
you read that line saying the year of your birth, don’t put down the
present year. Girls less than a year old are not admitted to the
freshman class!”
There was a subdued ripple of laughter at this, though it was just
possible that some of the girls did not understand the joke. A few
looked worried. But Betty had never been really afraid of teachers,
having had no cause to be afraid, and she did not intend to begin now.
Very carefully she read over the list of what she was supposed to
record; and then, after the teacher was through with her explanation,
she started in. There was nothing very bad about this. Of course they
wanted to know your address and who your father and mother were and
everything.
“Elizabeth Virginia Lee,” she wrote, her name “in full,” in careful
round and legible hand. Writing was not hard for Betty, which was
fortunate and would make her entire school life easier for her. Betty
had been named for two grandmothers. At present she “rather hated it,”
the long names, but she always added that they were good, sensible names
and that her mother like them.
Betty remembered the year of her birth and was not obliged to count
back, as the teacher had suggested might be necessary. Indeed, the
teacher had grown a little sarcastic while remarking that “they” were
“not particularly interested in mere birthdays,” and that “birthday
presents were not given.”
A colored girl across the aisle from Betty looked at the teacher with
such a blank stare at this that Betty’s amusement was increased. My, the
teacher was funny. She wasn’t so bad and was rather pretty, too. Once
Betty’s intelligent and understanding look had caught the eye of her
teacher as she was in the midst of one of the funny speeches and Betty
was sure that the twinkle and comical raising of the eyebrows was for
her.
“She shan’t have any reason to make fun of _my_ card,” thought Betty.
“She looked at me as if she thought I had some sense, anyhow.” But
teachers were accustomed to find response in Betty Lee’s eyes and the
mind back of them. At this stage, however, and particularly when the
girls were dismissed, to find their respective teachers and the rooms
where they were to recite, Betty was sure that she had no mind at all.
If she had only known some one! But every one was busy with her own
affairs, or went off with some other girls. And that building! Would she
ever learn where to go? Luckily her home room teacher taught one of the
freshman classes in which she had been placed and in the same room. That
was one off the list very shortly.
The halls were full of wandering pupils on the same errands that
concerned Betty; but her mind was too set upon her purpose to see them
individually until once, when she was almost run over by a tall lad who
came flying around the corner from a run down a stairway, she recognized
the boy who had stood back of her in line the day before.
“Oh, pardon me, _please_!” exclaimed the boy. “I had no business to do
that. I knocked your purse out of your hand and everything!” Stooping to
pick up Betty’s purse and scattered notes and slips, he added “I believe
you were standing in line just ahead of me yesterday. Did you get all
fixed up?”
“Yes; and I’m just finding my class rooms now.”
“That’s fine. You’re not from one of our schools–at least I couldn’t
help seeing that the envelope you had didn’t have a city address.”
“No; we just moved here and everything is new.”
“Well, I hope you like it. This is a great school.”
“Oh, isn’t it! I suppose you’re a senior and know all about everything.”
The boy laughed. “Not exactly ‘everything,’” said he, “and I’m a junior.
I hope I meet you again, but not to pretty nearly knock you over.”
“Oh, that was all right,” replied Betty. “You didn’t hurt me any.”
The boy started on, then stopped. “By the way, where are you living?”
Betty named the suburb and the street.
“I thought I saw you on the car yesterday. I live out that way, too, and
maybe I’ll come around some time–that is, if it’s all right.”
“We should be glad to get acquainted,” said Betty, who felt sure that
she could safely be friendly with this kind of a boy, who had looked so
distressed at the results of his haste and had clutched her just in time
to keep her from falling. “We don’t know much of anybody yet, for Mother
and Father came down in a hurry to find a house.”
“Oh, there’s the girl I was hurrying to catch,” suddenly said the boy
called Ted, as a girl came from the direction from which Betty had been
coming. “Louise, come here and meet one of the new freshmen. Probably
I’d better know your name, if I am to introduce you. Mine is Ted
Dorrance.”
“I am Betty Lee,” smiled Betty, looking up at a tall, handsome girl whom
she remembered to have noticed before in the hall and whom she found to
be Louise Madison.
“Lou has a lot to do with one of the school clubs and is always looking
for good material,” joked Ted. “I had my eye on this young lady for you
yesterday. Any relation to Robert E. Lee?”
Betty shook her head. “We’re from the New England Lees, but I suppose
back in England the two families were connected.”
“Well, the name Lee won’t hurt you any with the Southern families in
this town, and there are a good many of them. But we’re keeping you and
I’ve got to see you, Lou, about a matter of business.”
“All right,” said the older girl. “I’ll see you again, Betty, and I’m
real glad to have met you.”
That was interesting, thought Betty, as she climbed the same stairs down
which Ted Dorrance had been running. Louise Madison must be a wonderful
girl. She seemed to be perfectly at home–perhaps she was a senior. Betty
wondered what sort of a club it could be that freshmen could join.
Louise had passed her a few moments before Ted had come dashing down.
She must have finished whatever errand she had and started back very
soon. Well, she now knew two pupils in this school, but not a freshman!
This time Betty was ready at twelve‐thirty to start home with the rest.
She just made the same street‐car with Dick and Doris and listened to
their accounts on the way home. Like Betty, Doris did not know any one
in her class, though Doris said that they “smiled at each other;” but
Dick knew several of the boys and had found out all sorts of facts,
particularly those relating to athletics. “There was a bunch of us
talking together,” said he, “and we’re going to have some great gym work
and everything. The eighth grade boys said that they have great games at
Lyon High School. Did you take in the size of that stadium, Betty? And a
fellow they called Joe said that he helped with a stunt the junior high
had at the faculty and senior basketball game last winter. That’s a sort
of funny affair and the senior team usually beats, though when the
athletic teachers play with the rest of the faculty it isn’t so dead
easy, I guess, from what they said. But first they have a sort of
athletic or gym show. I’d like to be on it.”
“Yes, and break your neck,” remarked Doris with sisterly lack of being
impressed.
“Never you mind. The girls do something or other, too. Maybe you’ll
_have_ to, so far as I know.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, I’ll never do a thing! Couldn’t you get
excused, Betty?”
“Don’t worry, Doris. It isn’t likely that you’d have to do anything too
hard for you. And there’s always Mother, and Father, to decide what is
best for us.”
“But they always stand by anything school does.”
“Of course, because there’s never anything out of the way. But they
wouldn’t let anything happen to us if there _were_ anything that wasn’t
fair or right. Gracious me, if I hadn’t anything more to worry about
than what may happen next _winter_ I’d be thankful. What are your
teachers like?”
That started the children on a new track and Betty had amusing and
detailed descriptions of what had happened and what this teacher and
another were like. Doris was in a home room for girls and Dick in one
for boys. “There are a great many of us boys,” said Dick with much
dignity. “I don’t know just how many but I shall find out. Then when you
write to Janet, be sure to have her tell Bill.”
“Can’t you write to Bill yourself?”
“I don’t like to write letters,” calmly replied Dick. “Besides, Bill
might think I was getting stuck up telling him such big stories as I’d
have to tell.”
“And I suppose Janet won’t think _I’m_ stuck up?”
“Janet will think that everything you do is perfect, just as she always
has.”
“That is news to me, Dick. Why we’ve had some of the most–well,
_disagreeing_ arguments over things that you ever heard of.”
“Of course. Janet has a mind of her own. But all the same you needn’t
worry over what Janet would think. I know. Bill’s told me.”
“Then you think I’d dare write Janet everything about Lyon High, do you?
Of course, I’m going to risk it, Dickie, anyway. And I think it was nice
of Bill to tell you that.”
“Oh, Bill didn’t do it to be nice. He thought Janet was silly.”
This was not so flattering, but Betty laughed. She had brought it out
herself.