When the rain stopped, Bobby went around to the other entrance and
reported herself to Miss Carrington. That teacher always doubted Bobby's
excuses, and this time she shook her head over the girl's tardiness.
"You told me you had plenty of time to do your errand within the limit
of the recess, Miss Hargrew," said Gee Gee. "Do better next time,
please."
"She always acts as though she thought I had an India rubber
imagination," muttered Bobby, to her nearest seatmate, "and that I was
always stretching it."
"Miss Hargrew, please refrain from communicating in lesson time!"
snapped the ever-watchful teacher.
"Dear me!" murmured Bobby. "She's got me again. I _do_ have the worst
luck."
And then she wondered what Miss Carrington knew about the strange Gypsy
girl, or what Margit knew about Gee Gee.
"I'd like to get better acquainted with that girl," thought Bobby.
"There is a mystery about her--and Gee Gee is in it."
But she said nothing to any of the other juniors, judging it best to
keep her own counsel. Meanwhile she kept a keen lookout for the girl to
appear about the school building again. Several days passed, however,
and Bobby saw nothing of her.
Meanwhile the girls who were earnest in the work of putting Central High
ahead in the inter-school athletic competition worked hard on the field
and under Mrs. Case's eye in the gymnasium.
Bobby was really doing her best on the track. Never had she settled down
to such thorough work in any branch of athletics as she had in this
effort to make a record for the quarter-mile. Central High needed the
points that a champion sprinter could win, just as the school needed the
points putting the shot, and the broad jump, would add to its record.
Bobby, the year before, had acted as coxswain of the eight-oared crew;
and she had played all season on the big basketball team--the champion
nine. But this running was different work.
Now she had no teammates to encourage her, or to keep her up to the
mark. It was just what she could do for the school by herself.
"Just by your lonesome, Bobby," Laura Belding told her. "To win the
quarter-mile will mean two whole points in June. Think of that! And you
can do it."
"I don't know," returned the other girl, in some despondency. "Gee
Gee'll likely get something on me before the June meet, and then
where'll we be?"
"But you don't _have_ to do things to make Miss Carrington give you
demerits."
"Bah! I don't have to do anything at all to get demerits. She's just
expecting me to do something all the time, and she 'jumps' me without
giving me a chance. Any other girl in the school can cut up much worse
than I do and never get a sour look; but I--oh, dear!"
"You see what it is to have a reputation for mischief," said Laura, half
inclined to laugh. "Can't you cut out the frolic for this one term? Cure
yourself of practical joking and 'joshing' poor Miss Carrington."
"Great Caesar!" ejaculated Bobby. "How could I ever do it?"
Nevertheless, with all her reckless talk, she was really trying her very
best to keep out of difficulties in school, and on the other hand to
make the best time possible on the cinder track.
Mrs. Case began to try her out now and then, and held the watch on her.
Bobby wanted to know how fast she made the quarter; but the instructor
put up her watch with a smile and a head-shake.
"That I sha'n't tell you, Miss Hargrew. Not yet. You do your best;
that's what you are to do. If you fall back, or I see you losing form,
you'll hear about it soon enough."
One morning before school-time Bobby heard Mrs. Ballister scolding at
the back door. The old housekeeper did not often scold the maid, for she
was a dear old lady and, as Bobby herself said, "as mild-tempered as a
lamb." But she heard her say:
"Be off with you! We've nothing for you. Scalawags like you shouldn't
prosper--filling a girl's silly head full of more silliness. Go on at
once!"
Somehow Bobby had a premonition of what the trouble was about. She ran
out upon the side porch and saw two Gypsy women coming around the path
from the fear of the house. They were the two who had been at Queen
Grace Varey's camp that day on the ridge when the girls of Central High
had had their adventure.
"Here is a little lady," whined the old woman. "She will buy of us,"
lifting up her baskets.
"No, no," said Bobby, shaking her head vigorously.
The other woman recognized her and touched the arm of her companion
warningly.
"Surely the little lady will not be unkind to the poor Romany," she
whined. "She does not forget what Queen Grace told her?"
"I want to forget it," declared Bobby, with flushed face. "I have
nothing for you. Go away--do!"
"Ah-ha, little lady!" chuckled the woman, with a leer. "You are mistress
here now--and you can send us away. But remember! Your father will bring
home another mistress before mid-summer."
The two women laughed harshly, and turned away, going slowly out of the
yard. Bobby remained upon the porch until she had winked back the
tears--and bitter tears they were, indeed--and so went slowly in to
breakfast.
"Those horrid 'Gyptians," Mrs. Ballister was saying. "I caught them out
there trying to tell Sally's fortune. They'd make her believe she was
going to fall heir to a fortune, or get a husband, or something, and
then we'd lose the best kitchen girl we ever had."
But Bobby felt too serious to smile at the old lady's sputtering.
Despite what Laura Belding said, there _must_ be something in the
fortunes the Gypsy queen told! How did she know so much about _her?_
Bobby asked herself.
She knew that Bobby had no mother and that she was sure to get into
trouble with her teachers. And now the prophecy she had made that her
father would bring home a new wife before mid-summer rankled in Bobby
Hargrew's mind like a barbed arrow.
For Bobby loved her father very dearly, and had been for years his
confidante. It had long been agreed between them that she was going to
be his partner in the grocery business, just as though she had been born
a boy. And as soon as the little girls were big enough they were to go
away to boarding school, Mrs. Ballister should be relieved of the
responsibility of the house, and Bobby was going to be the real mistress
of the Hargrew home.
And suppose, instead of all these things Father Tom should bring home a
new mother to reign over them? The thought was ever in Bobby's mind
these days. Not that she had any reason to fear the coming of a
step-mother. The only girl at Central High whom she knew that had a
step-mother loved her very dearly and made as much of her as though she
had been two real mothers. Sue Blakesley had been without a mother long
enough to appreciate even a substitute.
But Bobby and Mr. Hargrew had been such close friends and comrades that
the girl was jealous of such a possibility as anybody coming into her
father's life who could take her place in any degree. She worried over
the Gypsy's prophecy continually; she wet her pillow at night with
bitter tears because of it, and it sobered and changed her to her
schoolmates, as we have seen.
It was a very serious and imminent trouble indeed to the warm-hearted,
impulsive girl.
On her way to school that morning she chanced to turn the corner into
Whiffle Street just as a dark-browed, shuffling fellow crossed from the
other side and trailed along ahead of her toward the schoolhouse. Bobby
knew that black face, and the huge gold hoops in his ears, at once. It
was the husband of the Gypsy queen.
"Oh, I wonder if the whole encampment is in town hunting for that poor
girl, Margit?" thought Bobby. "They are such strange, wicked folk. And
look at him--why, that's Gee Gee!"
The lady ahead on the walk, behind whom the Gypsy was walking so
stealthily, was none other than Miss Carrington herself. Instantly
Bobby's thought flashed to the mysterious inquiries of the girl, Margit
Salgo, about the teacher at Central High.
Bobby involuntarily quickened her steps. She was afraid of these
Gypsies; but she was curious, too. The whole block was deserted, it
seemed, save for herself, Gee Gee, and the man.
Suddenly he hastened his long stride and overtook the teacher. Bobby
knew that the fellow accosted Miss Carrington. The lady halted, and
shrank a little. But she did not scream, or otherwise betray fear.
"No, lady. Ah'm no beggar. Ma nyme's Jim Varey an' ah'm honest man, so I
be. Ah come out o' Leeds, in Yorkshire, an' we be travelin', me an'
mine. Wait, lady! Ah've summat tae show ye."
He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a card. He held this card so
that Miss Carrington could read what was printed, or written, on it. And
she did so, as was evident to Bobby, for she started back a little and
uttered a murmured exclamation.
"Ah sees ye knaw ye'r awn nyme, lidy," said Jim Varey, shrewdly. "Yer
the lady we're lookin' for, mayhap. 'Tis private business----"
"I can have no business with you, man," exclaimed Miss Carrington. "Why,
you're a Gypsy!"
"Aye. I'm Gypsy. An' so was ma fawther an' mither, an' their fawthers
an' mithers before 'em. We'm proud of the Romany blood. An' more'n 'us,
lady, has mixed with the Romany--an' in other climes aside Yorkshire.
But all Romany is one, wherever vound. Ye knaw that, lidy."
"I don't know what you mean! I don't know what you are talking about!
What do you want of me?" cried Miss Carrington, quite wildly.
The man drew closer. Bobby was really frightened, too. She opened her
own mouth to shriek for help. But the Gypsy did not touch the teacher.
Instead, he said in a low, but perfectly clear, voice, so that Bobby
heard it plainly:
"I would speak to you, lidy, of the child of Belas Salgo."
Miss Carrington uttered a stifled shriek. Bobby sprang forward, finding
her own voice now, and using it to good purpose, too. A door banged, and
a gentleman ran out of his house and down to the gate, where the Gypsy
had stopped Miss Carrington.
It chanced to be Franklin Sharp, the principal of Central High. Jim
Varey saw him coming, glanced swiftly around, evidently considered the
time and place unfavorable for further troubling the teacher, and so
broke into a run and disappeared.
Mr. Sharp caught Gee Gee before she fell. But she did not utterly lose
consciousness. Bobby had caught her hand and clung to it. The girl heard
Gee Gee murmur:
"There was no child! There was no child! Oh! Poor Anne! Poor Anne!"
"Let us take her into the house," said Mr. Sharp, kindly. "That ruffian
has scared her, I believe. Could you identify him, do you think, Miss
Hargrew?"
"Yes, sir," declared Bobby, tremblingly.
But Miss Carrington cried: "Oh, no! Oh, no! Don't go after him--do
nothing to him."
And she continued to cry and moan while they took her into the house and
put her in the care of Mrs. Sharp. That forenoon Gee Gee did not appear
before her classes at Central High. But she was present at the afternoon
session and Bobby thought her quite as stern and hard as ever. Nor did
the teacher say a word to the girl about the Gypsy, or mention the
occasion in any way.