THE DEBATE
"Gyp--_what_ do you think has happened?" Jerry frantically clutched
Gyp's arm as they met outside of the study-room door. Jerry did not wait
for Gyp to "think." "My name's been drawn for the debate--this Friday
night! Miss Gray just told me. I'm taking Susan Martin's place."
"What _fun_----"
Jerry had wanted sympathy. "Not fun at all! I am scared to death."
A bell rang and Gyp scampered off to her classroom, leaving Jerry to go
to her desk, sit down and contemplate with a heavy heart the task that
lay before her. She had never so much as spoken a "piece" in her life;
since coming to Highacres she had listened, with fascination, to the
weekly discussion of current topics, envying the ease with which the
boys and girls of the room contributed to it. She had wondered whether
she could ever grow so accustomed to large groups of people as to be
able to talk before them. Now Miss Gray, waving in her face the little
pink slip that had done all the damage, was driving her to the test.
However, there had been a great deal in Jerry's simple childhood, spent
on the trails of Kettle Mountain, that had given to her an indomitable
courage for any challenge. Real fear--that horrible funk that turns the
staunchest heart cowardly, Jerry had never known--what she had sometimes
called fear had been only the little heartquake of expectation.
Once, when she was twelve years old, she had ventured to climb Rocky
Point, alone, in search of the first arbutus of the year. Spring had
come to the lower slopes of the mountain but its soft hand was just
breaking the upper crusts of ice and snow. As she climbed up the trail a
deep rumble warned her that a snowslide was approaching. She had only
the briefest moment to decide what to do--if she retraced her steps she
must surely be overtaken! Near her was a tall crag of rock that jutted
out from the wooded slope of the trail; on this she might be safe. With
desperate haste she climbed it and, as she clung to its rough surface,
tons of ice and snow thundered past her, shaking her stronghold,
uprooting the smaller trees, piling in fantastic shapes against the
sturdier. As Jerry watched it had been fascination, not terror, that had
caught the breath in her throat; she had not recognized the threat of
Death; she had glimpsed only the picture of her beloved Kettle angrily
shaking old Winter from his mighty shoulders.
So, as Jerry sat there in the study-room, her frowning eyes focussed on
a spot straight ahead of her, her spirit slowly rose to meet the
challenge of the debate. These others had all had to live through their
"first," ease had come to them only with practice, she reminded herself.
It was pleasantly exciting, too, to be surrounded, after school, by a
group of interested schoolmates, each with a suggestion.
"Just keep your hands tight behind your back," offered one.
"I 'most choked to death in one debate," recalled Peggy Lee, laughing.
"I had a cough-drop in my mouth to make my voice smooth and when it came
my turn I was so scared I couldn't swallow it and there I had to talk
with that thing in my cheek, and every minute or two it'd get out and
'most strangle me! Oh, it was dreadful. I don't believe that story about
Demosthenes and the pebble."
"I'd get some famous orator's speeches and practice 'em. It makes what
you say sound grand!"
"Don't _look_ at anybody--just keep your eyes way up," declared Pat
Everett, whose experience went no farther than reciting four French
verses before a room full of fond parents, at Miss Prindle's
boarding-school.
All of this advice Jerry took solemnly to heart. Gyp volunteered to help
her. Gyp was far more concerned that she should practice the arts of
oratory than that she should build up convincing arguments for her side
of the question. From the Westley library Gyp dug out a volume of
"Famous Speeches by Famous Men." Curled in the deep rocker in Jerry's
room she searched its pages.
"Listen, Jerry--isn't this grand? 'Let us pause, friends, let us feel
the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the
order to advance, let us behold the wild charge, the glistening
bayonets, the rushing horses, the blinding----'"
"But, Gyp, that's nothing about the Philippine Islands!"
"Of course not--at least all that about the horses and the bayonets--but
you could say, 'Let us pause----' and wave your hand--like this! Here,
he's used it again," her finger traced another line, "it sounds
splendid; so--so sort of--calm."
Jerry pounced upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had
compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine
Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind
carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic.
"Wave your hand _out_ when you say: 'Let us pause and consider----' Oh,
that's splendid! Try it again Jerry--slower. You're going to be
_great_!" Gyp's loyal enthusiasm strengthened Jerry's confidence.
There was for her, too, an added inspiration in the fact that Uncle
Johnny was to be one of the judges. She wanted to do her "very best" for
him. As the school weeks had flown by, each full of joys that Jerry
could realize more than any of the other girls and boys, her gratitude
toward John Westley had grown to such proportions that she ached for
some splendid opportunity to serve him. She had told Gyp, one day, that
she wished she might save his life in some way (preferably, of course,
with the sacrifice of her own), but as Uncle Johnny seemed
extraordinarily careful in front of automobiles and street cars, as the
Westley home was too fireproof to admit of any great fire and there
could not be, in November, any likelihood of a flood, poor Jerry pined
vainly for her great opportunity. Once, when she had tried to tell Uncle
Johnny, shyly, something of how she felt, he had drawn her
affectionately to him.
"Jerry-girl, you're doing enough right here for my girls to pay me back
for anything I have done." Which Jerry could not understand at all. She
could not know that only the evening before Mrs. Westley had told Uncle
Johnny how Gyp and Tibby had both moved their desks into Jerry's room,
and had added:
"Gyp and Tibby never quarrel since Jerry came. She has a way of
smoothing everything over--it's her sunniness, I think. Gyp is less
hasty and headstrong and Tibby isn't the cry-baby she was."
The day before the debate Isobel asked Jerry to show her the arguments
she had prepared.
"Perhaps I can add some notes that will help you," she explained
condescendingly.
Poor Jerry went into a flutter of joy over Isobel's apparent interest.
She ran to her room and took from her desk the sheets of paper upon
which were neatly written each step of her argument. She hoped Isobel
would think them good.
"May I look over them in school?" Isobel asked as she took them.
Jerry would have consented to anything! All through that day her heart
warmed at the thought of Isobel's friendliness. Like a small cloud
across the happiness of her life at the Westleys had been the
consciousness that Isobel disliked her; Gyp was her shadow, Tibby her
adoring slave, between her and Graham was the knowledge that they two
shared Pepper's loyalty, Mrs. Westley gave her exactly the same
mothering she gave her own girls, but Isobel, through all the weeks, had
maintained a covert indifference and coldness that hurt more than sharp
words. Now--Jerry told herself--Isobel must like her a little bit!
Jerry discovered, when Friday night came, that the Lincoln debates were
popular events in the school life. Every girl and boy of Lincoln
attended; on the platform the faculty made an imposing background for
the three judges. Six empty chairs were placed, three on each side, for
the debaters who were to come up upon the stage at the finish of the
violin solo that opened the program.
In the back of the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the
boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily
dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her
belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume.
Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a
patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since
she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance.
Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization of what
a ridiculous figure she would present, walking up before everybody in
her brown poplin that she knew now was different from any other dress
she had seen at school. And Jerry could not get that shiny pump out of
her mind! Her own feet, in their sturdy black, square-toed shoes,
commenced to assume such elephantine proportions that, when the signal
came for the debaters to go forward, she could scarcely drag them along!
How much more weighty could her arguments be if she only had on a pretty
dress--like Cora Stanton's; if she could only sit there in her chair
smiling--like Cora Stanton--down at the girls she knew instead of
crossing and uncrossing her dreadful feet!
After an interval that seemed endless to Jerry, Cora Stanton rose and
made a graceful little bow, first to the judges, then to the audience.
The speakers had agreed among themselves how much ground in the argument
each should cover; Cora Stanton was to outline the conditions in the
Philippine Islands before the United States had taken them over, Jerry
was to show what the United States had done and how qualified the
Islands were, now, to govern themselves, and Stephen Curtiss was to
conclude the argument for the affirmative by proving that, in order to
maintain a safe balance of power among the eastern nations of the world
it was necessary that the Philippine Islands should be self-governing.
A hush followed the burst of applause that greeted Cora. Jerry settled
back in her chair with something like relief--the thing had begun. She
caught a little smile from Uncle Johnny that gave her courage. She must
listen carefully to what Cora said.
But as Cora, prettily at ease, began speaking, in a clear voice, Jerry
grew rigid, paralyzed by the storm of amazement, unbelief and anger that
surged over her. For Cora Stanton was presenting, word for word, the
arguments _she had prepared and written on those sheets of paper_!
And in the very front row sat Isobel, with Amy Mathers, their
handkerchiefs wadded to their lips to keep back their laughter.
It was very easy for poor Jerry to recognize the treachery. She was too
angry to feel hurt. And, more than anything, she was too confused--for,
when it came her turn, what was _she_ going to say?
Wildly she searched her mind for something clear and coherent on the
hideous subject and all that would come was Gyp's "let us pause--let us
feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear
the order to advance--the wild charge----"
She did not hear one word that the first speaker on the negative side
uttered, but the clapping that followed brought her to a pitiful
consciousness.
She rose to her feet, somehow--those feet of hers still twice their
size--and stepped out toward the edge of the platform. A thousand spots
of black and white that were eyes and noses and hats danced before her;
she heard a suppressed titter from the front row. Then, out of it all
came Gyp's strained face. Gyp was leaning a little forward, anxiously.
Jerry gulped convulsively. From somewhere a voice, not in the least like
her own, began: "You have been shown what the United States has done--"
(no, no--Cora Stanton had said _that_!) "I mean we must go back (that
was quite new) to--I mean--the ideals of America have been transplanted
to----" (oh, Cora Stanton had said _that_)! Jerry choked. Out of the
horror strained Gyp's agonized face. She lifted her chin, she must say
_something_----
"Let us pause (ah, familiar ground at last)--let us pause----" There was
a dreadful silence. "Let us pause and--and--let us pause----"
With the last word all power of speech died in Jerry's throat! With a
convulsive movement she rushed back to her seat. If they'd only
laugh--that crowd out there in the room. But that silence----
Then, before anyone could stir, Dana King, the second speaker on the
negative side, leaped to his feet with a burst of oratory that was
obviously for the sole purpose of distracting attention from poor Jerry.
And something in the good nature of his act, in his reckless wandering
from the subject of the debate to gain his end, won everyone's
admiration. As one wakes from a consuming nightmare so poor Jerry roused
from her stupor of ignominy; she forgot Isobel, in the front row, and
clapped with the others when Dana King finished.
Then came a determination to redeem herself in the rebuttal! She had
caught something of the fire of Dana King's tone. She was conscious,
now, of only two persons in the room, Gyp and Uncle Johnny. She turned,
as she rose again to speak, so that she might look squarely at Uncle
Johnny. Now she had no clamor of words jingling in her brain; very
simply she set against the arguments of her opponent the full weight of
those she had herself prepared--Cora Stanton, who had learned them at
the last moment, parrot-fashion, had found herself, in rebuttal, left
floundering quite helplessly.
Dana King, speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis
had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only
one premise to fall back upon"--and Jerry had decided then, with
something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy she had ever,
ever known.
There was tumultuous applause when the judges announced that the
affirmative had won. And there was a little grumbling that Dana King had
"sold" his side.
Jerry, wanting to hide her ignominy, contrived to get away without
seeing Uncle Johnny. She could not, of course, escape Gyp, who declared
valiantly and defiantly that she had been "splendid."
Gyp had not closely followed Cora Stanton's address, so she had not
guessed the truth, and Jerry could not tell her--Jerry could not tell
anyone. For, if she did, it must be traced to Isobel, and Isobel was
Uncle Johnny's niece. At that very moment Uncle Johnny was talking, down
in the front of the Assembly room, to Isobel and Amy Mathers, and he
stood with one arm thrown over Isobel's shoulder.
But, alone in her own room, the pent-up passion that had been searing
poor Jerry's soul burst; with furious fingers she tore off the brown
poplin dress and threw it into a corner.
"Ugly--horrid--hideous--old--thing! I _hate_ it!" It was not, of course,
the brown poplin alone she hated! The offending shoes followed the brown
dress. "I hate _everything_ about me! I wish--I wish--to-morrow would
never come! I wish----" Jerry threw herself face downward upon her bed.
"I wish I--was--home!"