“Whoopee! Red Head! My ankle is as good as new, and I am going to be in
the big game. Now let the Breslins beware!”
“Are you sure, Judith, it is entirely well? You know ankles have a way
of kinking up unexpectedly,” Jane warned.
“To tell the truth, Janey, I have been petting it a bit. I have not
been sick since I had the mumps, and it was adorable to have the girls
holding my hands, and looking into my eyes. I really think it is a lot
nicer to have a ‘busted’ ankle than two trustworthy pedals. Except, of
course, when we have the Breslins to whitewash. Then, I like to take a
shot at the fun.”
“You are an incorrigible fraud, Judy, but I am glad to have you with us
to-day. I may not look it, but I am very human, almost to the point of
being stage struck before a crowd. Now, when I jump there in center I
rather feel as if I am going up to the gallery, and I want to stay and
watch the game, from a point of vantage. But, I’ll follow the ball and
do my best,” with an appropriate sigh.
“We are not worried about your nerves, Jane. You may have a set, but
they are beautifully padded—as the health books require. Just look at
that” (bending Jane’s arm up muscle tight). “Why, I believe you could
take up boxing, and make a wonderful record at the biff, bang, biff.
Think I would like that sport myself,” and without warning, Judith
undertook a “biff, bang, biff” that sent things flying about the room.
“Now sit down like a nice little girl and I will tell you the most
delectable news,” coaxed Jane. “I have had an interview with the
Weatherbee!”
“Oh, lovely! Who’s going to be expelled?”
“Not quite that bad. But rather serious, Judy, I won’t keep you on
tenderhooks. Dolorez Vincez is a professional woman athlete! She taught
at Blindwood!”
“She did! She did!” and Judith fairly exhaled surprise. “The detestable
thing! To come down on us like that, and try to bamboosle us out of the
game! Oh, now I know why I suddenly developed a liking for boxing,” and
out went the windmill arms again.
“Be serious, Judith! Mrs. Weatherbee advised me to talk to you——”
“Mrs. Weatherbee is a brilliant woman——”
“All right, Judith,” with an injured air. “If I must talk through a
wall of nonsense, I may as well desist.”
“Oh, Janey, dear, I am all ears. I want to know every last word. How
did the Weatherbee find her out?”
Jane reviewed the case as she had received the information, and
presently the athletic phase being disposed of, she reached the beauty
parlor episode. Judith gasped, and all but gagged during the recital of
this exciting news. Her exclamations apropos of the possibilities in
hair changes knew no bounds, as the freshmen might say, and when it was
finally brought out that Dolorez’ hair had undergone the operation of a
change from black to yellow, and back again via peroxide R.R. Judith
turned a well-balanced somersault, to prove there was absolutely
nothing further the matter with her ankle.
“I saw one of the pledge cards,” Judith recalled, when Jane remarked it
was queer so much could have been planned without the facts reaching
the ears of herself or Judith. “I saw a typewritten page, and I guessed
from the errors that Marian had something to do with it. She cannot
type any more than she can knit.”
“And here is where you come in Judy. You and I are to do all we can to
undo that canvass,” referring to the work of Dolorez in soliciting
customers for the beauty parlor. “You see, some of the new girls may
think it perfectly all right to do as they see fit with their own
money, in their own time, and outside of school grounds. They do not
know the penalty of commercializing the college. Now, we will have to
work quietly, and wisely. We must make it known in some way, that the
faculty will not allow any of the girls to frequent that shop. Of
course, when the promoters find that out, likely they will pull up
stakes and not open up the beauty parlor.”
“Then I cannot be made over! Oh, Jane! Be kind! Think what I shall
miss. All my life I have dreamed of waking up red headed, and now, just
when the possibility creeps to my pillow——”
“Judy Stearns, come into the gym and work that off. I see no other help
for such a condition as that you are suffering from. We will never beat
the Breslins, while your mind wanders to beauty regions. Come along. I
am going to limber you up myself,” and thus ended the chums’
conference.
A few hours later, with Team One in the place of honor on the best car
within commandeering distance, it seemed all Wellington was on the road
to Breslin.
It was late in November, and the afternoon was perfect in its riotous
beauty. Enough wind, plenty of sunshine, a cyclone of late oak leaves,
and crisp, dry frosty air!
In the same picture, carloads of happy, healthy girls, cheering and
yelling their class and college cries, laughing and singing
intermittently to the tune of chugging motors.
Rooting for Wellington all the way over the hills, and then through the
winding roads out to the second school for girls, Breslin, there to
meet and presumably vanquish the lusty foe at basketball.
“We approach the conflict with optimism,” said Jane grandly, at the
risk of a buffeting shower of “whacks” for attempting anything as vague
as mere optimism.
Always a red letter day at Wellington, the meeting with the Breslins on
this particular occasion possessed the additional interest of being the
deciding game in a school championship.
“I saw the great, big, strong right forward of the Breslin to-day,
Jane,” Drusilla Landers remarked apprehensively, “and I fear we have a
real foe to fight in her muscle and stride. She is so tall, and so
long, and so——”
“She would have to be something else besides tall and long to outdo our
windmill,” said Jane, referring to Drusilla’s particular arm sweep. “I
am counting on your arms to toss that ball into the basket more times
than the Breslins can count.”
“Oh, woe is me! I may wave—not too near a face, or I may wag not too
near a line, but to shoot baskets with my windmills—Jane dear, help me
out and make it dribbles. I adore dribbles.” Drusilla was now bouncing
up and down with the auto motion, “doing the short hills” in the famous
on high record of the well-tried Wellington seven passenger.
“Our chauffeur, one Thomas, has little regard for basketball
conditions,” Judith remarked. “Just then he registered a bumper on my
pet ankle.”
“But Tom is out to get there,” Jane insisted. “He knows we play at
three thirty, and I have promised he can see the game.”
“What! A man see us play!” screamed Clarisse Bradley.
“Pray why not?” asked Jane. “Are we not good enough players?”
“Oh, yes, but——”
“But the bloomers, and things, eh, Clare?” joked Norma Travers. “To my
overstrained mind, it seems really pathetic that we can or have to call
in the very chauffeur to view the exhibition—I mean the game,” she
corrected archly.
“Yes, indeed. I think we should have a real public game, with everyone
invited,” Jane declared. “Here we are! Now everyone must take care of
her own traps. We don’t want the Breslins criticising our personal
deportment, or our practical application of domestic science.”
Tumbling out of the cars the Wellingtons and their guests were met and
welcomed by the Breslins at the great gate, with its inviting arch
leading into the beautiful grounds surrounding the exclusive school,
variously designated as seminary and college.
That a conflict was imminent between the guests and their hosts seemed
difficult to realize, such giggling, chattering and such volumes of
sounds, without words, as were charged and surcharged, through the
atmosphere.
“Some day our psychologists will investigate the mysteries of school
girl noise,” predicted Mrs. Weatherbee to Miss Rutledge, “and I expect
the finding will be of immense interest to those who have to listen to
the noise and keep out of the fun.”
“All here?” called Jane.
“Here! here!” came the response. Then the choristers, or glee club, or
cheering squad, any of which would have denied the accusation, took up
that old nonsense:
“We’re here, because we’re here, because we hate to go away:
Oh, Breslin fine, and Wellington, get ready for the fray!”
“A wonderful picture,” commented the local scribe, a promising young
woman, who did the press work for the schools, and incidentally gained
a broader education outside, than was allowed inside the big stone
walls.
“Yes, I like the big red ties,” assisted Miss Talmadge, to whom the
press girl had attached herself. Isobel Talmadge knew everybody, and
always said things good enough to print.
“And the hunters’ green of our girls,” said Constance Lipton loyally,
“makes such a refreshing change from the inevitable blue or khaki. I
think our girls’ suits practically attractive.”
That also was sure to get in the paper.
“And have you noticed, Miss Nevins,” Dorothy Blyden ventured, “what a
pretty contrast the Gray Bees make?” The Gray Bees were the Breslins,
of course, and good little Dorothy felt obliged to see that something
nice be said about them.
“A pretty gym,” the scribe condescended to note. “My, how prettily the
colors are blended! I suppose every class in both schools is
represented in those flags and pennants?”
“Yes, we sent ours over,” confessed Constance. “We knew we would have a
big audience! Here they come. Now for the cheering squad!”
The formalities of cheers inspired the teams to such activity as only a
call to arms might be hoped to accomplish. Every girl glowed with
interest and enthusiasm as they lined up, tossing up the ball, getting
acquainted with it, as they usually did before a game, and making use
of the same opportunity to get acquainted with the personnel of the
teams. Each girl made double use of every moment, until the whistle
blew.
As the game started, interest compelled the closest attention. The
first half occupying twenty minutes of time, was played off without
anything more startling than a couple of disastrous fumbles being made
by each side. Every one hated to see the ball thus “abused,” such skill
as was demanded by the promised excellence of both teams seemed to
indicate the very cleanest, cleverest play.
“They are just warming up,” Constance told Miss Nevins adroitly. It
would never do to have fumbles reported in the _Bugle_.
“Oh, yes. All the more exciting when they get warmed up,” came the
encouraging reply, following a “note” scribbled on the reporter’s pad.
The second half was entered upon with renewed enthusiasm. Spectators
leaned forward in their places, and very little conversation broke the
spell of eager watching.
“Watch Judith!” Miss Cooper of Wellington remarked to a Breslin fan.
“You mean the standing center?”
“Yes; can’t she throw?”
“But I am interested in the jumping center. She can do all kinds of
things.”
“I am wondering why she does not do anything in particular,” came the
whisper. “She is one of our stars—Miss Allen.”
“Oh, of course. I know Jane. And don’t you see what she is doing? She
is putting out the very finest line of team play I have ever witnessed.
You just watch.”
At the moment on the floor Jane was passing that ball with such skill,
it never seemed to remain in her own hands long enough for any sort of
play. All she did was pass it on. That was perfect team play, but it
made very little impression on the spectators.
The game was now tied. Then the ball flew outside the lines. Breslin’s
jumping center recovered it and glanced over the situation for the
fraction of a second. Her side center was too well guarded to send it
to her; with a skilful toss, she aimed for the forward, who grabbed it.
“Now for the basket!” whispered the hopeful Breslins.
“Oh, Jane!” almost prayed the Wellington fans, as the ball was thrown
back to center by the confused forward who was unable to pass it to her
partner under the basket.
In the center Jane was surrounding her opponent like a veritable troop.
The Bee was confused. Moments were counting, and she still held on to
the ball.
“One—two and——” rang out in the gym.
Then she tried to throw, but Jane was everywhere. The confusion was
obvious, even to the onlookers.
“Oh, for that count!” wailed someone.
“Throw it!” yelled the captain to the confused Bee. She raised the ball
as if to comply, then with an astonishing fumble, the ball slipped and
rolled to Jane’s feet. Quick as a flash Jane was after it. Then the
dribble, and Jane took one bounce, and with one toss of the ball to her
forward under the basket, the ball went home to a goal! And the goal
was made for Wellington!
“Oh! Oh! ho! ho!
Rah! Rah! Rah Wellington!
Center! Center! Rah! Rah! Rah!”
The cyclone broke. That strategy on Jane’s part won a victory for which
she would have been more content to have had any other of the team,
than herself, strike the decisive blow.
“You did it. We knew you would. Good old Jane.”
“Can’t lose her!”
“Brains tell!”
Came the almost indistinguishable tumult of sound.
“Sheer luck,” Jane insisted.
“Luck!” mocked Judith. “Even luck knows where to light. Jane, if we
lost I should have drowned myself. I have bet away a whole week’s
stamps and fudge, and goodness knows what all. But we won, and I may
open up shop again. Just look over there at Marian. Have her friends
all deserted her?”
“Oh, call her in,” suggested Jane. “It’s a shame, here in a strange
school.”
“Not little Judy,” replied the other. “I may take a chance on betting
fudge against Breslins, but I would not be so rash as to take a chance
on anything like that. Oh, there she goes with our reporter! What if
she gives any news of the Barn Swifts?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t!” but Jane’s voice sounded apprehensive.
“Well, if she does, we will simply—that is, we certainly will,”
stuttered Judith, too overcome to talk coherently. She was waving her
arms and indicating dire calamity on Marian’s unfortunate head.
“Still, Judy, we should have kept track of that nice little reporter.
It would be perfectly awful if Marian gave her any news about Helen’s
hidden talent.”
“Oh, Jane, I am absolutely sure she will do just that. I never before
saw her so abject to a mere business woman. By the way, dear, where is
Helen?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Mrs. Weatherbee asked me if we would not all
agree to leave the child pretty much alone for a few days. She thought
it would be so much better for her nerves, not to be talked to. I
agreed with her, as I have found Helen absolutely impossible lately.
She will not come out, and she just sits and hugs her letters.”
“Does she ever show you any of her letters, Jane?”
“No,” faltering. “But why should she?”
“Why should she not? Now, there, I didn’t mean a thing, but we have not
yet heard the story of that magic card, you know. What was on that
card, Jane?”
“Judy, you little nuisance,” and Jane smiled in mockery. “As if I could
tell you anything about that now! Run along, and tell the girls to
spread the news about our big dance next Wednesday evening. Remember,
it is given in honor of the Breslins.”