On the day of the Archery Contest, lessons stopped at noon at Hilltop.
By two o'clock all the girls were assembled on the south lawn. They all
wore immaculate white dresses, that contrasted prettily with the autumn
colors. A stack of bows, their strings loosened, stood against the bench
near the target and a heap of feathered arrows lay on the ground.
Under the shade of a big tree, the score board flashed forth in white
letters, "Archery Day."
Forty girls were competing. You could pick them out from among the
others by their eager expectant expression.
The faculty in the daintiest of gowns were making the guests, who had
driven in from all around the countryside, as comfortable as possible in
the grey wicker chairs that had been brought down from the school, and
placed in a half circle back of the shooters. They came because they
loved the pretty sight of the girls in their white dresses on the green
lawn, with the old mansion as a background, rather than for any real
interest in Archery.
There were tables under the trees, where, after the contest, lemonade
would be served to the girls, and tea to the guests and faculty.
Prue at the last moment had decided not to enter.
"Why swell the number of the old wing failures?" she said to Gwen, and
Gwen nodded, fully conscious of the sacrifice she was making; and to
repay her for it, she made her official score-keeper.
The twins, with Sally and Daphne, and Gladys and Ann, formed a little
group with her around the board.
"Prue, if I make a score, will you please write it very large?" Phyllis
requested. "I don't expect to make more than one, and it would be a
comfort really to see it."
"I'm as nervous as a cat," Sally shivered. "I have a horrible feeling
that the old wing is going to lose."
"Oh, don't even breathe it!" Gladys wailed. "The very idea makes me turn
cold all over."
"My hands are icy," Ann held them out for inspection. They were
beautiful hands, firm and capable, but they trembled ever so slightly.
Gwen and Poppy joined them.
"I declare you all look like picked chickens," Poppy protested, "I never
saw the old wing hang its head so low."
The girls straightened up, every chin lifted with determination.
"That's better," Gwen encouraged. "If you feel like dropping them again,
just look at the new wing."
"The Red Twins are positively walking on air," Sally ground her teeth
and looked appealingly at Phyllis.
Phyllis put up one hand in entreaty.
"Don't look at me like that," she entreated. "I'm only in the contest
because you and Jan insisted. I won't even hit the target, and I know
it."
"Never mind, I will," Janet comforted; "though, of course, we won't beat
the Red Twins."
"I've put them together, and Phyllis and you directly after," Gwen
explained; "then you'll see what you're up against. It isn't as bad as
it looks. We still have Agnes Leiter, Puss Boroughs, and Poppy, all last
year's team girls, and Marion West has been practicing all summer. She
only missed out by a point for the team last year. Then there are a
couple of Juniors, that have belonged to archery clubs at home, so we
may pull through."
"But look what we're up against," Gladys groaned.
A bell tinkled as Miss Hull walked out of the hall, a soft grey dress
floating about her, and a shade hat on her aristocratic head. It was a
signal for the contest to begin.
Gwen had arranged the order cleverly. The girls who had been on the team
the year before were played off first. As there were six to three in
favor of the new wing, the score looked very one-sided, as Prue marked
it on the board.
Then came the younger girls, who stood very little chance of scoring the
required six points. They were worked off quickly, and then the real
work began. Two girls from the new wing, would alternate with two girls
from the old wing. Cheering followed every score, so that it was
impossible to tell which side was ahead.
"Ann, you're up after Kitty," Gwen said as she hurried by. "Mind, you do
us proud."
"Do my best," Ann replied shortly. She was working her fingers to take
some of the stiffness out of them.
Kitty took her place marked by white tape.
"She's too little to be really dangerous," Phyllis laughed, as she
strung her bow.
Kitty shot rapidly, but with a nice precision. Only one of her arrows
went astray, and that pinned the leg in the target.
The other four hit. Two on the white, counting two, one on the red,
counting three. Kitty waited an effective moment before she loosed the
fifth.
"Make it a bulls-eye," one of the Red Twins shouted.
The arrow went its way through the air, and bore deep into the broad red
circle.
"Making eight in all," Prue said in satisfaction. "Ann will do better
than that."
"Look," Sally pointed across the lawn, where the Red Twins were sitting,
their special bows lying across their knees. Kitty and Louise Brown were
swooping down upon them.
"Don't you ever do that again, Bess," Kitty said angrily. "If you have
any silly advice, and you feel you must yell it out, you're to wait
until the player has finished. Do you understand?"
"I told her to keep still," May grumbled, "but she wouldn't do it."
"You see that she does next time," Louise advised.
The girls walked on. Their lecture had made no impression whatever on
Bess Ward. She tossed her head with a great show of indifference, and
started whistling.
"Yes, she's decidedly bumptious," Gladys said quietly, as Ann rose to
take her place. "If she so much as breathes aloud, when you're up, I'll
murder her," and Gladys fastened her eyes on the Red Twins, and looked
so threatening, that Bess squirmed uncomfortably.
Ann did everything that she did methodically, and though her hands may
have been cold, none of the onlookers, who watched her carefully string
her bow and fit her arrow, guessed it.
"Don't watch her, it gives her fits," Prue whispered almost in tears.
So the girls directed their gaze towards the target. One arrow whanged
through the air and hit the red, so near to the bulls-eye, that the
spectators gasped. Another arrow fell just beside it. The third pinned
the blue, and the fourth and fifth returned to the red, in a little
cluster.
"Fourteen, oh my Aunt Jane's Poll-parrot!" Sally exclaimed. "How
perfectly beautiful!"
"I knew she'd do it," Prue exulted, as she wrote the number down, in
broad white letters.
"Your turn, Sally," Gladys said. "You've got Louise's twelve to beat."
Sally groaned, but when she took her place, her wonderful blue eyes
blazed from their setting of raven hair.
Four arrows sped through the air in quick succession. Sally did
everything with a rush. The girls counted the total.
"Eleven," Phyllis groaned.
"If the next one is wide of the target----" Gladys did not finish the
terrible thought.
They looked at Sally. She didn't look a bit flustered, but for some
reason or other, she was taking her time.
Then she did a curious thing, but a thing so like Sally that neither the
girls nor the faculty could repress a smile.
She suddenly closed her eyes very tight, and without taking aim, let go
of her arrow.
"Aunt Jane's Poll-parrot!" Gladys whispered, as though she were praying
the mythical bird to carry the arrow safe to the target.
Daphne put her hands over her eyes, and didn't take them down until the
shout that rose high and clear told her that Sally's blind shot had
found its way home.
"A blue!" Janet almost screamed. "Just one point more than she needed to
beat Louise."
Sally threw down her bow, and came back to them.
"So much for that," she said grinning.
"Sally Ladd, I declare you're a caution!" Poppy squeezed her hand.
"Whatever made you take such a terrible chance, child?"
"Oh, life's a chance," Sally replied airily. "When I'm in a hole, I
always trust in my luck, and it never fails me."
From that minute "Sally's luck" was added to the phrases of Hilltop.