IN PRACTICE AGAIN
All the time the twins had been forbidden to row in the new shell the
crew had been getting on very badly. Professor Dimp was hopeless, and
Mrs. Case could not find two girls to take the twins' places who worked
well with the other members of the crew.
Dora and Dorothy could only walk on the bank of the lake and watch the
crew struggle to make the time that was its former record. Hester Grimes
and her particular friends scoffed at the practice. Hester and Lily
paddled almost daily in their canoe, and they seemed pretty sure of
being chosen to represent the girls of Central High in the canoe race
instead of the Lockwood twins.
Aunt Dora wished to know why Dora and Dorothy were not giving so much
"precious time," as she expressed it, to athletics as formerly, and the
twins had to tell her.
"Humph!" was the old lady's comment; but perhaps she did not feel all
the satisfaction that exclamation implied when she saw how down-hearted
the girls seemed when she walked with them again along the gravel walk
that skirted the waterfront of Colonel Swayne's estate.
The girls' eight-oared shell was out and the crew were practicing. One
of the new girls caught an awful crab and the shell came near being
swamped.
"Mercy me!" ejaculated Aunt Dora. "Is that the best they can do without
you girls to help them?"
This rather amused the twins, despite their sore-heartedness; but their
aunt really began to "take up cudgels" for them. She objected to the
punishment Gee Gee had meted out to her nieces.
"I didn't like the looks of that four-eyed teacher, anyway," declared
the old lady, with some asperity. "I'm going to see about it. Your
father would just let you be driven from pillar to post--he's got no
spunk. What you Lockwoods need in this town is a woman in the family!"
Dora and Dorothy thought this was only a threat. But Aunt Dora actually
appeared at Central High the next morning and obtained an audience with
Mr. Sharp, the principal.
Whatever she said to him bore fruit in a quiet investigation on the
principal's part into the pros and cons of the canoe bumping that had
brought the Lockwood twins to grief. He heard the testimony of eye
witnesses of the collision--something that Miss Carrington had not done.
All that he said to the severe teacher will never be known; but Bobby
heard him say for one thing:
"Loyalty--even in school athletics--is a very good thing, Miss
Carrington. You will admit that, yourself. And these girls are loyal
students. I think they have been punished enough, don't you? Besides, I
fear the testimony you chanced to hear was prejudiced. This Hester
Grimes has been in trouble before for giving untruthful testimony
against a fellow-classmate. Am I not right?"
"And very honorably she admitted her fault afterward," Miss Carrington
declared.
"True. But let us not punish these two girls any longer; for Miss Grimes
may have a change of heart again--when it is too late."
It was with rather ill grace that Gee Gee ever owned up that she was
wrong, even on minor points. She therefore simply called the twins to
her desk after school, and said:
"It has been represented to me that you are needed in these rowing
contests for the good of the school. Personally I believe that athletics
is occupying the minds of all you girls too much. But as your conduct
during the past fortnight has been very good, I will remove the obstacle
to your rowing with your schoolmates again. That is all."
There was what Bobby called "a regular love feast" at the boathouse that
afternoon. It was not practice day; but when Professor Dimp heard of the
return of the Lockwood twins to the crew he was delighted.
Public interest in Billy Long and his possible connection with the
robbery of the department store had rather died out by this time. The
friends of Short and Long had rallied around him, and he was not
arrested. When his ankle was better he hobbled to school on crutches;
but the boys missed him greatly on the ball field.
Billy told his chums that he was sure the two men he saw had hidden
money somewhere about the caverns of the island; and not only were the
boys of Central High interested in this "buried treasure," but their
sisters as well.
"I tell you what," said Bobby Hargrew, on the Beldings' porch one
evening when Laura had been having one of her "parties"; "let's organize
and incorporate 'The Central High Treasure Hunting Company, Limited,'
and go over to Cavern Island and just dig it up by the roots till we
find Billy's treasure in a lard kettle."
"Sounds terribly romantic," said Jess Morse.
"We had a scrumptious time over there at the other picnic," said
Dorothy.
"I vote for another Saturday at the caverns, anyway," said Chet.
"Me, too," added Lance Darby.
"Well, you folks can guy me all you want to," said Short and Long, who
was getting about with a cane now instead of his crutches. "But those
fellers talked of money, and of burying it in a lard can."
"Say!" exclaimed Lance, "a lard can will hold a lot of money."
"All right. You laugh. I'm going to have another look for it when I get
over there," said Billy.
"And I'm with you, Billy," said Josephine Morse, with a sigh. "Goodness
me! I need to find a buried treasure, or something of the kind."
Jess's mother was a widow and in straitened circumstances, and sometimes
Jess was cramped for clothing as well as spending money. She lived at
the "poverty-stricken" end of Whiffle Street, just as the Beldings lived
at the "wealthy" end.
So the party for the next Saturday was made up in this impromptu
fashion, without one of the members realizing what an important occasion
that outing would prove.
It looked to Dora and Dorothy, when they reached home that evening, as
though they might have to "cut" the "treasure hunt," however. Aunt Dora
had gone to bed quite ill, and before morning Mr. Lockwood telephoned
for the doctor. He came and the family was up most of that night. Aunt
Dora had caught cold and it had settled into a severe muscular rheumatic
attack.
The poor lady suffered a great deal during the next few days, having
considerable fever, and being quite out of her head at times. She called
for "Dora" then, almost incessantly, and no matter which twin responded
she declared it wasn't her namesake, but Dorothy, and that they "were
trying to fool her!"
"And, oh, dear, me," said Dorothy, "I wish we hadn't done it, Dora."
"I wish so, too. When I tell her that _I'm_ Dora she doesn't believe
me."
"Poor Auntie!" sighed Dorothy. "I expect she has had her heart set on
taking you home with her."
"Yes, it's preyed on her mind."
"I tell you what!" ejaculated Dorothy.
"What now?"
"Let me take your place. I'll go home with her--for a while, at least."
"No you won't! I'm Dora. I'll go with her," said the other twin,
decisively. "And just think how she went to Mr. Sharp and got us off
from Gee Gee's decision."
"But you mustn't go with her to stay all the time, Dora. That would kill
me!" cried Dorothy.
"No. But I'll go a little while this summer. We'll have to do something
for her. I expect she's lonely in her big house with nobody but
servants."
Thus the twins tried to quiet their consciences--they really had _two_
of those unfortunate arrangements. And the consciences would not be
quieted easily. The girls ran home from school the next afternoon before
they went to the boathouse; and were prepared to cut practice had Aunt
Dora needed them.
But fortunately the patient was asleep, and the twins hurried down to
take their places in the shell. The Big Day was now approaching. There
were not many more afternoons on which the girls might practice for the
races.
"We mustn't disappoint the other girls, and the whole school, and give
up the eight-oared shell practice," Dora said to Dorothy.
"No; but if Aunt Dora is going to be ill long we will have to give up
our canoe work. Let Hester Grimes and Lil Pendleton beat us in that, if
they will. Aunt Dora needs us--and we owe her some gratitude, if nothing
more," agreed her twin.