A MUDDY TENNIS BALL
Nan and Jo ran to join Sadie in an instinctive gesture of defense.
Lottie Sparks staggered beneath the blow--for it was really a pretty
hard wallop--but rallied the next moment in admirable style.
She wiped the mud from her ear as several of the other girls, sensing a
scene, came running up. A flush of fury spread over Lottie's dark face.
She had been made ridiculous. Out of the corner of her eye she could
see that some of the girls were trying to hide their amusement at sight
of her mud-streaked face. Others were tittering outright.
"Of all the outrageous things!" cried Kate Speed, adding fuel to her
crony's wrath. "You might know one of those Woodford girls would try a
thing like that!"
"I don't know what you mean, Kate Speed!" cried Jo, stepping forward
angrily.
Nan spoke urgently to her more fiery chum.
"Don't make a scene, Jo. Let it go." Then to Sadie, "Tell the girl
you're sorry, Sade. We don't want any trouble."
Sadie, who had been too dismayed and conscience-stricken to attempt any
explanation now stepped forward, stammering some sort of apology.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean----"
"Oh, you're sorry, are you?" Lottie Sparks caught her up viciously,
enraged at the more audible titters of the girls near her. "You didn't
mean it, didn't you? Oh, no, of course you didn't! Your kind is always
innocent! But don't think you can fool me. You did it on purpose!"
At this totally unjust accusation the usually gentle Sadie became
roused to fighting pitch.
"I did not!" she cried, and took another step forward. "Don't dare say
such a thing, you----"
The words died in mid-air. A long sigh of consternation rose from the
watching girls.
Lottie Sparks, beside herself with rage, took careful aim, and, with
all her might, threw one of her school books straight at Sadie's head!
Lucky for Sadie that she saw the missile coming and dodged!
The heavy book whizzed past her ear and came to rest in the muddy
ground of the tennis court.
This was too much!
Sadie, with Nan and Jo to back her up, advanced upon her belligerent
enemy.
There was a murmur of excitement among the girls. They crowded closer
to watch what promised to be a battle royal.
There is no telling what might have come of the argument had not the
English teacher appeared at that moment.
"Girls! Girls!" Miss Tully cried in her crisp, precise voice. "Pray,
what is the meaning of this? What has happened?"
Kate Speed got in her innings first.
"It was all Sadie Appleby's fault, Miss Tully!" she cried. "She threw a
muddy tennis ball at Lottie and hit her in the ear."
"I did not, Miss Tully," cried Sadie hotly. "I never thought of such
a thing. It was an accident and I've already told Lottie Sparks I'm
sorry."
"She threw it at me, Miss Tully," Lottie insisted. "She did it just to
be mean!"
"Oh, she did not! That's a falsehood!" Jo cried out. Miss Tully turned
sharply upon her.
"What kind of language is this for a student of Laurel Hall?" she
reproved, looking sternly at the open-mouthed Jo. "Miss Josephine
Morley, you will do better in the future to set a guard upon your
tongue."
Lottie Sparks was beginning to look triumphant. Kate Speed tossed her
fair head insolently. "I told you so!" was written plainly over the
faces of both of them.
Jo's face burned red with an angry sense of injustice. Nan and Sadie
were equally amazed and impotent.
Jo made one last attempt.
"But, Miss Tully----"
"That will do!" Miss Tully's acidulous tone put a definite end to the
controversy. "I will set the facts of this disgusting quarrel before
Miss Romaine and she will decide upon the sort of punishment to be
meted out to the culprit. It is a disgrace to Laurel Hall that such a
scene could occur within its grounds."
Her stern gaze traveled over the three chums from Woodford.
"I am here now, Miss Tully," came a clear, calm voice from behind the
English teacher. "May I ask what all this trouble is about?"
With relief, Sadie, Jo, and Nan turned toward Miss Romaine as she made
her way into the center of the group. Miss Romaine was fair. _She_
would not judge without a hearing!
Miss Tully lost some of her assurance at sight of her superior. Lottie
and Kate also lost their self-satisfied smiles and began to look
anxious.
Questioned by Miss Romaine, the English teacher gave the details of
both sides of the quarrel as she had heard them.
"I was about to lay the facts before you and let you decide as you
thought fit," Miss Tully finished stiffly.
"Quite right," said Miss Romaine, who was always careful to uphold her
teachers before the girls, however she might disagree with them in
private. Then she turned gravely to Sadie Appleby.
"Then you say again that this was an accident and that you have already
apologized to Lottie?" she asked.
Sadie nodded.
"I certainly do, Miss Jane," she said in all earnestness.
Lottie started forward.
"Miss Jane, she did it just to be mean. She did it on purpose!"
Miss Romaine turned swiftly upon the girl.
"That is ridiculous, Lottie Sparks, and I am ashamed that a girl of
mine could make such an accusation. Sadie has said that it was an
accident and has apologized. You must accept her apology and forget the
incident. I will not hear another word on the subject!"
Miss Romaine turned away, frowning. Thoroughly cowed, but smoldering
with resentment, Lottie Sparks stepped back to let her pass.
Miss Tully had already slipped away, and as the chums from Woodford
turned back to the tennis courts they saw the English teacher entering
the Hall.
Jo could not avoid crowing a little over the vanquished enemy.
She picked up Lottie Sparks' book and, with a twinkle in her eye,
handed it to the owner.
"You may need it again some time," she said.
Lottie Sparks snatched at the book.
"Maybe I will," she said, and added vindictively: "Next time I won't
miss with it, either!"
This was the first declaration of open warfare between the two camps.
But scarcely a day passed after the incident of the tennis courts that
either Kate or her friend did not find some excuse for annoying or
slighting the chums from Woodford.
The girls could afford to laugh at most of these annoyances. They were
popular with the rest of their classmates--with all, that is, who did
not comprise Kate Speed's snobbish following--and they were content to
give those unpleasant girls a wide berth.
Then one day toward the end of their third week at Laurel Hall, there
came more startling news.
Thieves had been at work again the night before, only that this time
they had done their task more thoroughly.
About five o'clock in the morning the janitor, who slept in a room over
the garage that was used for Miss Romaine's sedan and a Ford truck
which carried supplies from the village to the Hall, was awakened by
the put-putting of a motor boat on the lake. He saw two men set off in
it, apparently leaving the Laurel Hall dock.
With the first robbery in mind and feeling uneasy, the janitor dressed
quickly and made the rounds of the gymnasium and the boathouse. Here
he found his suspicions justified. The gymnasium and the boathouse had
both been robbed again!
The janitor went directly to Miss Romaine with his report. In some way
the news leaked out before the Head of Laurel Hall intended it should.
Like wildfire it spread among the excited girls.
"The lockers in the gym have been practically cleaned out!" wailed Nan.
"We should have slept with our things under our beds, that's what we
should have done!" cried Sadie.
"I don't want to sleep under a bed!" Nan said crossly. "I prefer a
mattress."
"I was speaking of the things, silly, not ourselves," retorted Sadie,
with withering scorn.
Nan got up and walked restlessly about the room. In the course of her
rambles her eye happened to light upon three tennis rackets, carefully
cased and standing each in its own place against the wall.
"Anyway, we've some luck," she said, brightening. "We've managed to
save our rackets out of the wreck."
"Yes, but how about my gym suit?" said Jo gloomily. "Chances are I'll
not get another."
"Cheer up! Maybe some of the stuff will be found," said Sadie
optimistically.
"Not with that long-whiskered sheriff down in the village and his
short-brained helper on the job," said Nan flippantly. "If they didn't
catch the thieves before, there's not much chance of their doing it
now. A fine mess we're in, I'll say!"
That afternoon Miss Romaine called a special meeting of all the
students of Laurel Hall in the auditorium.
She spoke simply and sincerely of the second robbery, sympathizing
with the girls who had lost their property and assuring them that no
effort would be spared to apprehend the thieves and recover the stolen
articles.
But in spite of these assurances the girls remained uneasy and nervous.
"How do we know that this thief isn't some sort of maniac?" one of them
suggested.
"It certainly sounds like the work of a crazy man," another admitted.
This dread supposition spread through the school like fire and for days
after the second robbery scarcely a girl could be found who would set
foot in the grounds of Laurel Hall after dark.
The local police, represented by the sheriff and his assistant, were
being stirred to real effort by the insistence of Miss Romaine and the
girls hoped daily that they would receive some word in regard to their
stolen property and the identity of the thieves.
Poor Jo was in a worse plight than any of them. She had bought her
gymnasium suit with a bill from that pitifully small roll handed to her
by her father. She had no money to buy another. She could not bring
herself to confess this to Nan or Sadie and she would not confess it to
her father, who would probably sacrifice something he needed himself to
send her the money.
"No, you will just have to grin and bear it, Jo, old girl," she told
herself, and added ruefully: "The hardest part of that is the grin!"
Things were still at this pass when Jessie Robinson burst in upon the
chums one night, her dark eyes flashing.
"Girls, I've just heard the most abominable thing!" she cried. "I'm so
mad I could bite!"