The day of the final practice game—that which was to decide which team
would have the honor to play the Breslins, found every member of all
teams fairly quivering with anticipation.
Jane, Judith, Dozia and Drusilla held a little preliminary meeting at
which the team’s respective places were arranged. Judith, still
incapacitated, was to serve as a scorer, and Norma Travers to take her
place as forward.
“I am not afraid of any one but Dolorez Vincez,” remarked the ever-wise
Drusilla. “She has a form all her own.”
“Yes, Dol is a wonderful player,” agreed Jane. “I wonder where she got
such fine training.”
“She never speaks of her former school,” Dozia commented with a meaning
not specified in her actual words.
“What do you mean, Dozia? Have you an idea there is a dark mystery, in
the former school days, of the dashing Dol?” asked Jane.
“I would not be surprised if that just about described it, Janey,” said
Dozia with a wag of her “roped” head. Dozia’s braids were the pride of
her classmates, and the despair of Dozia. They were wonderful braids,
like the milkmaids of old, and in color a challenging brown. Judith
gave them that shade.
“Mercy me!” exclaimed Judith. “Pray, we do not stumble on any more
mysteries or our athletics may as well be shelved. It seems to me this
year is mostly squabbles and mysteries.”
“Well, I did not intend to say anything about it,” confided Dozia. “But
I am sure, there is something more than queer about Dolorez. Naturally,
one hates so to take exception to the girls who are foreigners. It
always looks like prejudice.”
“Yes, that is the way I feel,” said Jane. “But I have noticed Dolorez
runs out a lot after dark, and just when the rest of us are busy at
books. I heard her remark a couple of times she was hurrying to catch
the mailman, but it seems strange she should so often be late with her
letters.”
“Yes, and did you notice she does not come back quickly?” Dozia asked
significantly.
“Oh, well, let us leave Dol to her own troubles. We have enough of our
own for this afternoon,” suggested Jane. “I guess we have everything
arranged. Judith, your limp is perfectly fetching, just needs a stick
and an eyeglass.”
“Mean thing! When you sprain your throat I shall offer gum drops,”
flashed back Judith.
As a basketball team the girls were first-class noise makers, and if
there were any other ways of racketing than those operated, Bedlam
itself must have held the copyright.
For this, the final tryout, the great gym was crowded with spectators,
as well as with the units of the various teams. Teams One and Two were
to play for place, and that place was to take up the big game with the
Breslins—the event of greatest importance in the whole basketball
season.
The players of most interest were the centers: Jane and Drusilla played
center for Team One, and Marian and Dolores occupied the ring for Team
Two. Jane was jumping center and Marian her opponent.
Little confusion resulted from the application of the new rules, and
nothing of spectacular interest occurred until the end of the first
half. Then two fouls were called simultaneously—and both on Dolorez
Vincez. She had grabbed Minette by the shoulders just as Minette was
making a goal, and the next foul came on top of that, called on the
same Dolorez, who executed another particularly rough play in which
Jane went to the floor. For a moment after this accident there was a
standstill—then taking advantage of the foul called, Drusilla caged the
ball making the second point, and winning the goal Jane had tried for.
“That was a trick,” whispered Judith to Isobel Talmadge, a referee. “I
saw her deliberately put her foot out.”
“I have my eye on that lady,” answered Isobel. “That is not the only
trick she has tried this afternoon.”
With a tie at the first half the interest waxed to a seething point,
and the whistle blew for the last twenty minutes. Every girl seemed in
such fine form and exercised such agility that a grand climax was
promised when the tie should be broken.
Happy, smiling, good natured and expectant, both teams made a picture
the faculty of Wellington had cause to take pride in, and whichever of
these teams would win out as first, the second surely would hold a
place of high standing.
From the lofts, and over the rails, the older girls were unconsciously
climbing to dangerous edges, in the utter disregard of roped-in limits
for spectators, and more than one grad and undergrad had taken and
offered such innocent bets as flowers and fudge on the possible winner
of the second half.
A fumble made by Marian cost the Twos a point, when a foul committed by
Norma Travers of Jane’s team evened them up again, without either side
making a basket.
Time after time the big spherical ball was directly in front of the
elusive basket only to be dashed back by an alert opponent.
“Good work!” called the crowd, as Jane tossed the ball clear into the
end field, taking advantage of her privilege as center to run from one
field to another. The throw had been made from the one bounce allowed,
and that she had been able to take in all the privileges occasioned a
sensational play.
Cheer after cheer rang out, then came the expectant silence. Some one
must “shoot a basket” soon, or the crowd would suffocate from pent-up
excitement.
Two more fouls gave each side a free throw, but nowhere near the basket
came the much-abused ball.
Finally the ball was in center, Jane jumped for it, pushed it to the
floor to comply with that rule, and just as she raised it to throw it
with straight aim for the player near the basket, Dolorez waved her
hand in Jane’s face!
“Foul!” shouted the referee, and “Shame!” roared the crowd.
“Disqualified!” came the sentence from the referee, and Dolorez was
compelled to leave the floor. She had been charged with four personal
fouls, thus disqualifying her for more play, but in spite of this
unenviable record she did not leave the floor without a protest.
Marian, quick to realize that a word from her to an official, when only
the captain should speak, might turn her out as well as Dolorez,
promptly substituted Tony Dexter, but it was too late. The foul allowed
Jane’s side gave the free throw needed and into the basket went the
ball for Wellington. That settled it.
“Jane Allen, Center!” went up a wild wonderful shout. The tie was
broken, the game won for Team One, and Jane Allen became official
Center for the season of 1920.
“You were by all odds the best player,” said Isobel Talmadge, when
quiet had almost been restored, and the players regained something of a
normal condition. “But what appeared to be real strategy on Marian’s
team, quickly developed into tricks, all of which measured up for
fouls. I am going to call a meeting of the Athletic Board soon. There
is something about Dolorez’s playing not found on school teams. I
wouldn’t be surprised if she has been something of a professional.”
“Oh, you can’t mean it!” breathed Jane. “She is older obviously, but
how could she be a professional?”
“Oh, very easily, little girl. But you have won your honors fairly and
I congratulate you. We will have a record, after our Breslin Day this
year, I am quite sure.”
“Thank you,” said Jane simply. Judith was tugging at her sleeve and
Drusilla dragging at the other arm.
“Oh, come on. The seniors have a spread for us. Such real coffee and
sandwiches. Isn’t that splendid?” asked Judith, smacking her lips. “But
not half as good as our victory at that. Jane, aren’t you too proud to
walk? Shan’t we carry you?”
“Yes, let’s!” roared the surrounding girls, and in spite of protests
and appeals, Jane was raised to shoulders, then quickly carried to the
far end of the gym where the spread was “cast.”
It was a good-natured crowd that surrounded the improvised tables, and
even the losers took their defeat in the proper spirit, all but Marian
and Dolorez. They had left the gym.
“What was the matter with that old basket?” asked the good-natured Tony
Dexter. “I was waiting all afternoon for a chance to sub, and just when
I got it, ‘whoop’ in went the ball into the net.”
“Yes, and when I all but tucked it in its little bed, it tumbled out,”
sighed Ted Guthrie comically.
“Anyway, I had two bounces and one dribble, that makes a nice little
record for my home report. I love to say I dribbled, sounds so cute and
baby like. Makes mama think I am cutting my eye teeth,” supplemented
the big, clumsy Drusilla Landers, who was so big it was a joke for her
to talk of baby and teeth.
“Eat, children! Eat! For to-morrow we starve,” commanded Constance
Lipton, a grad. “Jane, here is a sandwich made expressly for Center.
See its pretty curve?”
“Oh, it tastes good all around too,” added Jane, munching the tid-bit
all around, making a circle to outline center. “I love them this way.”
“That’s just always the way it is,” wailed little Clare Bradley. “When
a girl gets popular she receives all the honors. Jane Allen is
over-subscribed—that is what Daddy calls it in the Liberty Loans.”
Everybody roared at pretty little Clare’s definition of Jane’s
popularity. To be over-subscribed in honors!
“I’ll admit I have more than my share!” Jane replied, “but then you
see, my second had to go and hurt her ankle. Otherwise she might have
made that big throw.”
“Oh, never!” protested Judith. “If I saw that basket waiting for my
ball, I would have been stage struck, and ducked. I tell you, Janie,
you looked like all the cowboys when you made that throw. I’ll wager
you had in mind my particular Fedario. Girls, you should see my
Fedario! He’s the handsomest, blackest, wildest cowboy—with the most
wonderful skill at his ropes.”
“Oh, of course,” yelled Weasie Blair. “Janey ought to be best at
basketball. Think of her cowboy training.”
“And the baskets the Indians make!” supplemented Gloria Gude.
“And the great big balls that come with the hail storms,” Ted Guthrie
drawled out foolishly. “I believe if I were brought up in the hills of
Montana I could play anything from hookey to bean bag.”
A deluge of scraps and crumbs put an end to Ted’s wit. As it was, she
had a blouse pocket full of coffee, and she bore up with at least one
ear full of cookey crumbs.
“But where is Helen?” asked Dickey Ripple between munches of real
bread, and nibs at a soda biscuit. “Haven’t seen her in eons.”
“Oh, she was in during the battle,” Jane made answer. “But Nellie is at
something new in music, and she simply cannot tear herself away from
that fiddle.”
“Just the same,” objected Weasie Blair, “she might take time to
celebrate. The Uppercuts don’t often blow us to a feed like this.”
“We accept the compliment,” responded Isobel Talmadge. “I have been
wondering why someone has not seen fit to say the eating was good.”
This brought forth such a storm of compliments, given in chorus without
very much harmony, that the Uppercuts, as the freshmen call the upper
class girls, finally begged for mercy.
“And what became of Marian?” asked Mildred Jennings. “Seems to me all
played well enough to be patted on the back, even if Team One did win
out.”
“Indeed you did,” Jane quickly replied, “and I hope Marian will come in
and test the lovely spread. Naturally she felt badly about Dolorez. I
can’t see why Dol rushed football tactics in.”
The moment she made the remark Jane regretted it. She had not intended
to refer to Dolorez’s disqualification. And now she had brought
attention directly to it.
The hum of subdued voices plainly agreed with Jane in their arguments.
Marian should have stood her ground and helped her team celebrate, if
not victory, then defeat!
“Well, it is no news to have Jane for Center,” spoke up Gloria Gude,
when the Marian incident had been disposed of. “We knew she would be
center, ever since the term opened. Who else made a record anything
like hers of last year?”
“Of course,” chimed in Grazia. “Jane is born Center. She knows just
when to jump—I wouldn’t wonder if she jumps in her sleep, eh, Jane?”
“Now, girls, you all know as well as I do that there is plenty of
splendid basketball talent sitting right here at this table. And the
fact that you have made me Center——”
“Means merely that you are the one best, dandy, all around Center we
could choose,” interrupted Dorothy Blyden. “Three cheers for Jane
Allen, Center!”
“Hip-hip-hoorah!” and the echo shook the rafters.
Then came the epidemic of:
“I know a girl and her name is Jane,” etc.
“Say, girls,” moaned Jane, when throats gave in and the shouts ceased,
“if there is any way of getting a name changed without paying income
tax on the change, I think I’ll apply. You all know that girl whose
name is Jane——”
Came the—
“A reebald—a ribald—reebald, ribald rum!
Wellington! Wellington!
Sis boom—ah—Wellington!
Wellington! Rah! Rah! Rah!”