The one word "adventure" was enough to make the girls all interest at
once. Caroline Brant wedged herself into a square inch of space on the
bed between Connie and the bedpost, and as Rose Belser came in at that
moment the girls motioned her to join them.
"What's up?" asked Rose, flinging off her cap and scarf as she came.
"Billie been getting into mischief again? Or is it only trouble this
time?"
"Trouble, I guess," said Billie, and then she told them the astonishing
tale of what had happened that afternoon. But instead of being
interested as she had expected them to be, the girls actually seemed
disappointed.
"Well, was that all you had to tell us?" asked Connie, when she had
finished. "I'm surprised at you, Billie. I thought you had really done
something exciting."
"Yes," added Rose, in her aggravating little drawl, as she rose to get
ready for dinner, "it was awfully good of you to rescue those three
annoying little brats and return them to their distracted mother and all
that. But I don't see anything dreadfully hair-raising about it."
Rose read books that were too old for her and ran with girls who were
too old for her and so she herself contrived to seem much older than she
was. And sometimes Billie found this manner extremely irritating, in
spite of the fact that she and Rose were friends--now.
"I suppose it doesn't seem very exciting to you," she said, as she
pulled off her cap and unwound the muffler from about her neck. "But I
presume you would be a little bit more interested if it was _you_ who
didn't have enough to eat."
"Don't be mad at us, Billie," Connie begged, patting Billie's hand
soothingly. "Of course we all feel sorry for the poor little kiddies and
their mother and we want to help them all we can. But you can't blame us
for being disappointed when you said you had had an adventure."
"I wonder if you would call it an adventure," mused Billie, more to
herself than to them, "if one of us should find that stolen invention
and claim the twenty thousand dollars reward for it!"
Her classmates stopped what they were doing and stared at her.
"Wh--what did you say?" demanded Connie.
"You heard me," said Billie, with a grin.
"But, Billie, you know that's absurd," said Rose, in her best drawl.
"How could we possibly hope to find a thing that has been missing for a
couple of years?"
"It may be absurd," said Billie good-naturedly, pulling the ribbon from
her curls and brushing them vigorously. "I think it sounds foolish
myself. But while there's life, there's hope. Hand me that comb, will
you, Vi?"
A few minutes later the big gong sounded through the halls, announcing
gratefully to the hungry girls that dinner was ready. And now that the
vinegary Misses Dill had gone, delight reigned supreme in the dining
hall.
The girls had all they could possibly eat of good satisfying food and
they were allowed to chatter as much as they would as long as they did
not become too noisy.
But although they had chicken for dinner and cranberry sauce and creamed
cauliflower, things all of which she especially liked, Billie enjoyed it
less than any meal she had ever eaten.
Again and again before her eyes arose the reproachful images of the
three little Haddons, undersized, undernourished, half-starved.
She could hardly wait until dessert had been served, and then, with a
murmured word to Laura and Vi, she excused herself from the table and
went in search of Miss Walters.
She found that lady in the act of drinking her after-dinner coffee in
the privacy of her own little domain.
Miss Walters had a suite of three rooms all to herself: a bedroom, a
dressing-room and a sitting-room, and all three of the rooms were fitted
up in a manner that befitted a queen.
The sitting-room was done in mahogany and blue. An exquisite Persian rug
of dull blue covered the floor and the rich mahogany furniture was all
upholstered in blue velour. The curtain draperies were all of this same
rich blue over cream-colored lace. In the center of the room was a huge
mahogany library table upon which stood a handsome reading lamp with a
blue silk shade.
Billie, who had never been in this sanctum before and who had seen Miss
Walters only in her office, was amazed when, in reply to her timid
knock, the principal invited her to enter.
For a moment she stood dumbly staring, while Miss Walters set down her
cup and looked up with a smile. The smile changed to a look of surprise
and then to annoyance as the principal saw who the intruder was.
"It must be something very important to bring you here at this hour,
Beatrice," said Miss Walters, while poor Billie began to wish herself
back in the security of dormitory C. She was too frightened to explain
her presence, and yet she knew that Miss Walters expected an
explanation. "What is it you wish?" asked the latter, impatiently.
"I--I'm sorry," said Billie at last, backing away toward the door. "I
shouldn't have come--but I thought--that is, I thought it was
important." She was half through the door by this time, and Miss
Walters, her annoyance changing to amusement, took pity on her.
"What was important?" she asked, adding, as Billie still continued to
back away: "Come in here, Billie Bradley, and shut that door. There's a
draft in the hall."
Relieved at the use of the familiar name Billie, the girl obeyed,
shutting the door softly, then turned imploringly to the teacher.
"Sit down," commanded the latter, pointing to one of the blue velour
armchairs near by. "Now tell me the 'important thing' you came about
while I finish my coffee."
Billie made poor work of her story at first, for she was still wondering
how she had ever had the courage to approach Miss Walters in the privacy
of her sanctum sanctorum, but as she went on she became less
self-conscious and was encouraged by Miss Walters' unfeigned interest.
And when, at the end of the recital, Miss Walters reached over and
patted her hand and told her she had been quite right in coming to her
as she had, Billie was in the seventh heaven of delight.
"With poverty behind them, fortune and comfort ahead, and then again,
desolation!" Miss Walters mused, talking more to herself than Billie.
"How the human mind can stand up under the strain is a mystery to me.
Poor, starving little mites and pitiful, noble mother, fighting for her
young with the only weapons she has. Lucky mother to have come to the
notice of a girl like you, Billie Bradley," she added, turning upon
Billie so warm and bright a smile that the girl's heart swelled with
pride and adoration.
"Then you will let us help the Haddons?" she asked breathlessly.
"More than that," smiled Miss Walters. "I will _help_ you to help them.
I think it is too late to follow out your plan of taking them something
to-night." But she added as she saw Billie's bright face fall: "But we
will pack a basket full to the brim with good things early to-morrow
morning and you and Laura and Violet may take them to the cottage after
breakfast. Only, you must walk around the lake. I could not take the
chance of your skating after what happened this afternoon."
Billie stammered out some incoherent words of thanks, Miss Walters
patted her cheek, and in another moment she found herself standing
outside in the hall in a sort of happy daze.
A girl passed her, eyed her curiously, went on a few steps and then came
back. It was Eliza Dilks.
"In Miss Walters' room at night," said the sneering voice that Billie
knew only too well. "No wonder you get away with everything--teacher's
pet."
Billie started to retort angrily, but knowing that silence was the very
worst punishment one could inflict upon Eliza she merely shrugged her
shoulders, turned up her straight little nose as far as it would go and
walked off, leaving Eliza fuming helplessly.
When Billie reached the dormitory she found the girls waiting for her in
an agitated group. There was not one of them who would have dared to
approach Miss Walters after school hours unless it had been about a
matter of life and death importance, and they had more than half
expected that Billie would be carried back on a stretcher.
When they found out what had really happened they welcomed Billie as a
hero should be welcomed. They lifted her on their shoulders and carried
her round the dormitory, chanting school songs till a warning hiss from
one of the girls near the door sent them scuttling. By the time Miss
Arbuckle reached the dormitory, they were bent decorously over their
text-books, seeking what knowledge they might discover!
Next morning, true to her word, Miss Walters herself superintended the
packing of an immense basket with all the dainties at her command. There
were chicken and roast beef sandwiches, half of a leg of lamb, two or
three different kinds of jelly, some rice pudding left over from the
night before, a big slab of cake, two quarts of fresh milk, and some
beef tea made especially for the Haddons.
And the girls, feeling more important than they had ever felt before in
their lives, marched off after breakfast, during school hours--Miss
Walters having personally excused them from class--joyfully bent upon
playing the good Samaritan.
"I never knew," said Laura, as if she were making a great discovery,
"that it could make you so happy to be kind to somebody else!"