THE ICE CARNIVAL
Beth entered her senior year in high feather and with her affairs at
full sea. She had saved more than enough money to pay for her full
year’s tuition. There would be less time during her senior course to
devote to the earning of money; but what she could accumulate these
coming nine months would go toward the payment of that supposed loan of
four hundred dollars that had always been a burden on her mind.
Beth had met Mrs. Euphemia Haven once the preceding summer, and all the
time the girl was in Mrs. Haven’s company, her cheeks burned as she
thought that she was beholden to Larry’s mother.
“If I ever owe anybody again, or use money borrowed from anybody,
no matter who,” Beth told Molly, who was her confidant; “it will be
because I am lame in both feet, like Jonathan’s son, because I have as
many boils as Job, and am as bald as Elijah must have been.”
“Goodness, Beth! don’t say such dreadful things,” begged Molly. “And
out of the Scriptures, too. It sounds irreverent.”
Beth’s standing in class naturally gave her a long lead for the
presidency of the seniors. Not that mere scholarship counts high for
that honored position; but Beth had been steadily growing in popularity
with the students in general of Rivercliff School, and with her own
classmates in particular.
Without Maude Grimshaw to form a cabal against her, there really was
little opposition to Beth when “J. Molly Granger,” as the jolly one
signed her name to the typewritten notice on the board, launched her
chum’s boom. Laura Hedden, Izola Pratt, Miss Rice, and several others
who had been Maude’s most faithful “Me toos,” failed to raise much of
a barrier against the rising flood of Beth’s popularity. Besides, they
could not settle upon an opposing candidate.
Therefore, six weeks after the term opened, Beth was elected to the
class presidency. The senior class entertained the other older pupils
in the drawing-rooms. There was music, and dancing, and----
“Real _men_ for partners!” sighed Molly, ecstatically. “Think of it! We
seniors may dance with the male visitors--if we are asked!”
Beth had a new dress--black and silver. Molly said it was “a dream.”
And certainly her brunette chum did look lovely in it. Although Beth
and Mrs. Baldwin had made it themselves, it was a gown with which any
professional dressmaker might have been satisfied.
There was just one thing missing. Beth had told Mrs. Baldwin
there would be when the frock was tried on before she left home.
Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals would have given just the touch needed
to make Beth, as Ella declared, “fairly splendiferous.”
But Mrs. Baldwin had not seemed to see it Beth’s way. The latter
felt that she was now old enough to wear the heirloom. She felt hurt
that her mother did not get it for her; but she contented herself
on the occasion of this first senior reception, by wearing a band
of coral-hued velvet about her throat. Her dusky shoulders gleamed
exquisitely under the black lace that a wealthy customer had given her;
her silver-figured, short-waisted gown hung gracefully about her as she
walked. She was all a-sparkle when, just as the music for the first
dance struck up, she appeared before Miss Hammersly, who, with several
of the teachers, was receiving.
“My dear Beth,” said the principal, tapping Beth’s bare arm with her
fan, “I have a partner for you. He has been begging the honor and I
cannot refuse--although his name may cause you an unpleasant thought.
But that is all over now, I hope.”
Beth looked startled for a moment. The very good looking young man
beside the principal was quite unknown to her.
“Mr. Severn,” said Miss Hammersly, “Miss Baldwin. Mr. Severn is Mrs.
Ricardo Severn’s nephew.”
“Oh! the nephew who renamed the parrot!” gasped the blushing Beth.
“Right!” cried the young fellow, his eyes twinkling. “Really, we, as a
family, are insufferably snobbish. So I determined to save Mr. Montague
from that sin.”
“Dennis Mudd!” laughed Beth. “Dear me! I think he hated me.”
“He does not love me,” confessed Mr. Severn, “though I did finish his
education.”
“And that foreign person----”
“You mean Saronie, the maid?”
“Yes; she seemed fairly to hate me. I wonder why?”
“We have much in common,” declared the young man, “you and I, Miss
Baldwin. Saronie does not fancy me. I think it is because Mrs. Ricardo,
when she shuffles off this mortal coil, will have much personal
property to give away.”
Beth found young Mr. Severn a very amusing person. She danced three
times with him, and then refused him as a partner for the rest of the
evening. “Why, you’re as bad as Mr. Montague,” she told him. “You want
everything and everybody your own way.”
The reception was an unqualified success, and Beth was established in
the popularity of her class. Even the wealthiest and dressiest girls
had to admit that “Baldwin shines with the best.”
Beth was destined to see more of Roland Severn. Usually young men did
not ruffle the sheltered waters of Rivercliff School life. They were
looked upon by Miss Hammersly and the madam as pirate craft, and were
warned off the shoals quite gallantly by the whole faculty of the
school.
But this was the winter that the Nessing River froze over so solidly
that all navigation as high up as Rivercliff ceased before the first
day of December. There was no snow, and the surface of the broad stream
was like glass. The girls of Rivercliff School were on the ice every
hour they could spare from their studies.
The bend, between the landing and the point on this side of the river,
was free of ice boats at all times, for in rounding the point sailing
in either direction, the scooters and larger craft had to make a wide
detour.
This bend proved to be the best stretch of ice on the river, and
Jackson City people came down, strung colored electric lamps along the
shore, erected booths and shelters, and on moonlight evenings the scene
at the foot of the bluff on which Rivercliff School stood was a gay
one, indeed.
The ice carnival lasted several weeks, and attracted visitors from far
and near. Miss Hammersly was very careful about allowing the girls,
even the seniors, to go on the ice in the evening; never allowing
more than ten to go together, and always with one of the teachers for
chaperon.
It was on these occasions that Beth met Roland Severn. Beth always had
Molly with her. The latter began to write her name with the letters F.
W. after it.
“For pity’s sake, Molly Granger! what do they mean?” asked somebody in
Beth’s hearing.
“Fifth Wheel,” announced Molly, gravely.
“‘Fifth Wheel?’”
“Yes. Don’t you see how much use I am when we go skating? Mr. Severn
looks at me, sometimes, as though I were something the cat had brought
in.”
But who could have carried tales of Roland Severn’s attentions to Beth
as far as Hudsonvale? After about a fortnight of this sport at the ice
carnival a tall young man with light hair, a fur cap and huge gloves,
who could skate almost as well as the professional teacher who gave
exhibitions each evening after nine o’clock, appeared.
“Larry Haven!” cried Beth, fairly falling into his arms to save herself
from a tumble, she was so surprised.
Questions and answers volleyed from each. Larry claimed to have come up
to Jackson City “on a case.” Every one was well. He was going to stay
at a hotel for several days and expected to have each evening free.
Molly Granger tapped Mr. Severn softly on the sleeve. “Come away,
little Roland,” she whispered. “That is a sure-enough lawyer-man who
used to pull Beth to school on his sled. You and I are still school
children. Come away from here--and I will weep with you.”
Beth bore Larry off to Miss Carroll, who chanced to be with the party
on this evening; and the young lawyer came to Rivercliff School by
appointment, was welcomed by the madam, who graciously remembered him,
and was introduced to Miss Hammersly herself.
Larry remained much in evidence until the school broke up for the
Christmas and New Year holidays. But it cannot be said that Beth
bestowed any great amount of attention upon him, after all. The other
girls pronounced him “just dear.”
Beth was in training for the skating races that the skating committee,
with the help of Miss Crossleigh, of the school had arranged for.
Skating had always been popular at Rivercliff; and now that it had
gained such general approval there was not much else talked about
outside of study hours and the classroom.
Beth, in her first winter at Rivercliff, had shown her superiority
in skating over many of her classmates; but now she had a number of
rivals. Both the long distance and short distance races were going to
be hotly contested. As for the exhibitions of fancy skating, Beth did
not participate in them at all. She saved her strength, skill and wind
for the real work on the races.
Miss Hammersly lent her support to the affair, as she did to everything
in the way of athletics that was of physical benefit to her girls.
The races were at night, for it was then that there could be the most
brilliant display upon the ice. A thousand electric lamps, the power
supplied from the trolley company’s plant up the river, aided a cold
and brilliant December moon in illuminating the icefield that night.
Other races had been held before, and hockey games and other sports;
but nothing previously arranged drew so great a crowd as the Rivercliff
School ice sports. The school was the most popular establishment in
that part of the State, and the largest. The sports drew the friends
of the school for many miles around, as well as hundreds from Jackson
City, and practically all of the hamlet at Rivercliff landing that
could get to the riverside without the aid of crutches.
Larry had remained for this event. Indeed, it being but two days to
the closing of the term, he had planned a surprise for Beth--and that
surprise had been confided only to Miss Hammersly, for her permission
had to be obtained.
First came the races, however; and that glorious night would long be
remembered in the annals of Rivercliff School. “It will be sung in song
and story,” Molly Granger proclaimed, afterward.
“How can it be ‘sung in story,’ Granger?” demanded one carping critic.
“In recitative,” responded Molly, quickly.
Molly herself was a contestant in several of the events of the evening.
She was not a very rapid skater; but she was sure on her skates, and
she had learned many fancy strokes. One of her best feats was when she
and Stella Price waltzed very prettily together on the ice.
It was the fifty and the one hundred yard dashes, and the two-mile race
around a measured oval on the ice, that held the deepest attention of
the throng that had come to view these trials of speed. The dashes
were from a flying start, of course. In the fifty yard Beth was second;
in the hundred yard she was first--by a good lead. Later, when the
contestants for the two-mile race were started, she was one of the
favorites.
There were twenty starters, and they were all good skaters. The little,
dark, ugly girl, Laura Hedden, who had been such a friend of Maude
Grimshaw, was next to Beth in the line.
Spitefulness breeds spitefulness. Laura could not have told why she
“hated that Baldwin girl;” but she had been so well taught by the
absent Maude that she considered Beth her particular enemy now.
As they got off, Laura’s left skate clashed with Beth’s right. Both
girls might have been thrown; but Beth recovered herself instantly on
the other foot and darted off--only a stroke behind the best of the
starters. Laura began to shriek:
“Foul! Foul! Baldwin fouled me! ’Tisn’t fair!”
As it chanced, Miss Crossleigh and one of the official starters had
seen the accident.
“You are the one who fouled, Miss Hedden,” said the instructor, tartly.
“You may race or not as you please. I do not think it was intentional
on your part.”
But Laura had wasted so much time calling aloud that she was injured,
it was useless for her to attempt the race. Most of the skaters were
already half a lap away. But Laura found friends among the other girls
and some in the crowd of spectators, to hold up her contention that she
had been fouled by Beth Baldwin.
Luckily, Beth knew nothing about this at the time. In her short,
close-fitting sweater and cap, with her scant skirt, her gloved hands
clenched, she had shot away in the immediate wake of the other girls,
scarcely noticing her clash of skates with Laura.
At the far turn on the first lap she “crossed the bows” of several of
the other contestants, and took the inside of the course. She knew
enough about fancy skating to take short turns without faltering, and
in such a brief race as two miles she believed the struggle would be
close all the way.
And it was. At the second turn (it was two laps to the mile), Beth was
among the leaders--seven of the best skaters in the school. Every girl
tried to do her best.
The end of the first mile saw Beth and Miss Rice elbow to elbow. There
were others near; but the race was really between these two from this
point to the end.
[Illustration: THERE WAS A WHITE LINE BEFORE HER! IT WAS THE TAPE.
Page 269.]
Sometimes Beth would forge a foot or two ahead; sometimes Miss Rice
would make a spurt.
It was grilling work. Beth could not shake off her rival and began to
feel her own strength waning. She had to arouse all her energy and
determination when she came into the home stretch, the last half lap of
the two miles, for she was well spent.
The cheering and encouragement came to her ears faintly. Luckily, she
could not hear what Laura Hedden and her supporters were saying.
It seemed to Beth as though all her strength had gone--as though her
limbs below her knees were merely wooden props which she could barely
push on.
She lost sight of the crowd; and the lights around the course, which
were strung on iron pikes driven into the ice, seemed to stand still.
She heard heavy breathing--seemingly at her very ear. Was it Rice? Or
was another contestant overtaking her?
Then she realized that it was her own breathing she heard. Her lungs
were pumping savagely. Only a well-trained body, untrammeled by
improper dress, could have stood that strain.
There was a white line before her! It was the tape.
Where was Rice? Where----
She dashed against the tape, and the next moment Molly and Miss
Crossleigh caught her. Miss Rice was six yards behind!
“One of the fastest two miles ever skated on this river, bar none, Miss
Baldwin,” the official scorer, the sporting editor of the Jackson City
_Daily Mail_, announced. “That last half lap you made was a wonder.”
But Beth’s abundant success could not completely smother the objections
of the small part of the school that was opposed to her. It was not the
last spiteful exhibition of prejudice against Beth that ever raised its
head at Rivercliff.
Now that she was breathing easily again and the pulse had stopped
pounding in her ears, Beth could hear something besides applause. The
congratulations of her friends did not entirely quench the criticisms
of those who sided with Laura Hedden.
The latter was furious. The fact that Miss Crossleigh would pay no
attention to her announcement of unjust treatment urged the stubborn
and ill-natured girl to claim still greater injury than she had in the
first place. Indeed, the grievance that she herself had manufactured
against Beth had grown to mountainous proportions.
All the way up to the school, after the carnival broke up, Beth heard
hints and innuendoes regarding the unfairness shown in the conduct
of the two-mile race. At first she did not understand it; she only
realized that, despite her high standing in her class and with most
of the girls and the teachers, there were still those who considered
her little less than the “forward pauper” that Maude Grimshaw had once
called her.
Although Maude had left Rivercliff, her spirit had not been quenched
among certain of the older girls. “The ill men do lives after them,”
is a trite and true saying. The bad influence Miss Grimshaw had gained
over her “Me toos” still existed, and hatred of Beth was fostered by
Laura Hedden and girls of her type.
In this incident of the race the little, dark, unpleasant girl had a
personal reason for being angry with Beth. She was really a very good
skater; and had she not stopped at the beginning of the race to wrangle
over the “foul,” she would have stood just as good a chance of winning
as Beth.
“But who could win _anything_ at this school when all the teachers are
prejudiced in the favor of just one person?” Laura demanded loudly, as
the crowd climbed the hilly street to the school.
“You are quite right, Laura,” agreed another girl, who thought she had
some cause for enmity to the president of the senior class.
“Oh, you can’t beat that Beth Baldwin!” laughed a third, nastily. “What
do you say, Rice? Was that race fairly won?”
Miss Rice thought she had reason for disliking Beth, too. It dated back
to the time when she had so hurt and insulted the girl from Hudsonvale
by refusing to trust her handkerchiefs in Beth’s possession. Of course,
when one has ill-treated another, unless one acknowledges his fault,
the ill-feeling remains. Miss Rice had never owned up to her wrong
attitude toward Beth.
And now that she had been beaten by her in this very close race, she
was thoroughly disappointed and angry.
“You can’t expect Miss Crossleigh to be fair when Miss Hammersly’s pet
is involved, can you?” scoffed Miss Rice. “Twice Beth Baldwin skated
right in front of me. It would have been called a foul on the part of
any other contestant.”
Beth, who was within earshot, said nothing. She was thankful that Larry
and the other boys had not been allowed to walk up from the ice with
the Rivercliff girls.
Miss Crossleigh and the other teachers were well out of hearing, but
Molly Granger was at hand.
“Cracky-me!” she blurted out. “What ever are you talking about, Rice?
Don’t you know that every knock is a boost? You were beaten fairly
enough, and you’ll only make yourself the laughing stock of the whole
school if you say such things. Of course Beth skated in front of you.
Especially at the end of the race.”
This caused some of the other girls to laugh; and, naturally, the
“knockers” were not pleased.
“No matter what Beth Baldwin did, Molly Granger, _you’d_ back her up,”
said Laura Hedden, spitefully.
“You bet I would!” cried the slangy Molly. “I’m one good little backer,
_I_ am! I’d back up Nero if I heard _you_ running him down. I’d know
for sure that there had been a mistake made in history.”
“‘R-r-rebecca! don’dt fight!’” sing-songed Mamie Dunn, through her
nose. “You’re as bad as the rest of them, Molly. Let it drop.”
But Laura Hedden and her personal friends, as well as Miss Rice and her
chums, had no intention of giving up their point of view.
There was a well-defined “party of the opposition” to the senior class
president and to her supporters, organized during these few final days
of the term. Beth Baldwin went home with the feeling that on her return
she would have to face the active enmity of a not inconsiderable number
of her classmates.