Betty Gordon at Boarding School/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
A SATURDAY RACE
Ada had been watching the others with a contempt she made little attempt to conceal. When her name was called she walked to the platform and faced the leader defiantly.
"What can you do best, Ada?" came the familiar question.
Ada smiled patronizingly.
"Spend money," she said briefly.
"Do that," said the young leader calmly.
"How can I spend money here?" demanded Ada angrily. "There's nothing to buy. I call that silly."
"Then you admit you can't spend money?"
"No such thing!" Ada stamped her foot, furious at such stupidity. "I say I can't spend it here where there is nothing to buy. You let me go to Edentown, and I'll show you whether I can spend money or not."
"The order of the first degree of the Mysterious Four is that the candidate must do what she can do best," repeated the veiled figure insistently. "What can you do best?"
"Sing," said Ada sullenly.
"Then do that."
And now the watching girls had what Bobby later admitted was "the surprise of their lives."
The girl at the piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music by a composer with a spark of genius.
"I picked a rose in my garden fair——" sang Ada.
She sang without affectation. Her voice was a charming contralto, evidently partially trained, and promising with coming years to be worth consideration.
"But it withered in a day——" went on the lovely voice.
The girls were absolutely mute. When she had finished the song, and she gave it all, they burst into a spontaneous storm of applause.
Ada barely acknowledged the hand-clapping. Her face had instantly slipped back into the old sullen lines.
"When she can sing like that, shouldn't you think she would be perfectly happy?" sighed Betty. "I'd give anything if I had a voice!"
As a matter of fact Betty had a clear little contralto of her own and she sang as naturally as a bird. But there was no denying that Ada's voice was exceptional.
After the last girl had had her turn the veiled leader mounted the platform and threw back her swathing net.
"She's the president of the senior class, Mabel Waters," whispered a girl near Betty.
"I have the honor to welcome you all as members in good standing of the novice class, first-degree, Mysterious For," announced Miss Waters. "That's all there is to the name, girls—when we decided to form a new society here in school some one asked 'What's It for?' So our organization became the Mysterious F-O-R, and you'll find out as time goes on what the answer is. I might say, though, that happiness and good fellowship and a little spice of sisterliness are what we try to incorporate in the unwritten by-laws. And now I think Aunt Nancy has some cake and ice-cream for us."
Saturday was a busy day for the one hundred and sixty odd girls who were enrolled at Shadyside. Penance and pleasure had a way of marking off the hours. Those who were good were allowed to go twice a month to Edentown, chaperoned by a teacher, for shopping, moving picture treats, and such other simple pleasures as the small city afforded. There were always a number of girls sentenced to "within bounds," which were the spacious school grounds, for minor sins of omission and commission. Bobby Littell was usually among these. She was impulsive and heedless, and got herself into hot water with amazing regularity.
"Bobby," announced Betty, one Saturday morning not long after the initiation into the Mysterious For, "don't you think you could manage to have a good record this coming week? We want to go nutting a week from to-day, and if you have to stay in bounds it will spoil all the fun."
"I'll try my best," promised Bobby solemnly. "I never mean to do a thing, Betty. Trouble is, I think afterward. I did want to go to Edentown to-day, too, but Libbie and Frances have promised to get the wool for my sweater. Want to come down to the gym? I'm going to drill my squad this morning."
In the gymnasium they found Ada Nansen, also in charge of a squad.
"She flunked twice in French and was impudent to Madame," whispered Bobby, who knew all the school gossip. "Mrs. Eustice canceled her Edentown permit."
Ada frankly scowled at the newcomers. She had found the Littell girls slow to overtures of friendship, and they persisted in displaying an annoying fancy for the society of Betty and the Guerin girls, who, for all Ada knew, might be what she described to her mother as "perfect nobodies." So Ada and Ruth Royal gradually formed a circle of their own to which gravitated the more snobbish girls, those who fought, openly or covertly, the rule for simple dressing, and those who found In Ada's characteristics of petty meanness, worship of money, and social aspirations a response to similar urgings of their own natures.
"Well, Bobby, I'm glad to see you and your 'men,'" said Miss Anderson briskly. "I was just saying to Ada that to-day is too beautiful to waste indoors. I want you all to come out on the campus and we'll have a race."
Bobby's squad included Betty—who had refused to leave her chum—the Guerin girls (who refused to go to Edentown because it was almost impossible to avoid spending money for little luxuries and for treats), Constance Howard and Dora Estabrooke, a fat girl who was good-nature itself.
"We'll have to use elimination," said the teacher when she had her pupils out on the green level that was back of the gymnasium and walled in by tall Lombardy poplars planted closely. Let's see, twelve of you" (for Ada's squad numbered the same). "I think we'll number off first."
The odd numbers in each squad fell out and were matched, and the even numbers were paired similarly. Betty's rival was a near-sighted girl who delayed the next step because Miss Anderson discovered that she was wearing high-heeled shoes.
"I don't care for those flat things," volunteered Violet Canby, as she departed lockerward at Miss Anderson's stern insistence. "I have a very high instep, and they hurt me."
Nevertheless, she had to wear them, and the physical instructor put the others through a rigid inspection, but bloomers and sneakers were all properly donned.
"Now," said Miss Anderson when Violet had returned minus her pumps, "try to remember that it's just like a spelling match, girls; gradually we'll narrow down to the two best runners."
The trial "heats" resulted in leaving Betty, Bobby and Norma of the one squad, and Ada, Ruth and a girl named Edith Harrison, of the other.
Norma was paired with Ruth Royal, and at the signal they got away nicely. Norma was an excellent runner, and she reached the tape fully three yards ahead of Ruth. Something in her glowing, happy face, prompted Ruth to resentment.
"Oh, well," she remarked disdainfully, taking care that her words should carry clearly, "I suppose a farmer's daughter does a good deal of running after cows—they ought to be in training."
Norma flushed scarlet.
"My father is a doctor," she said hotly. "I'm not a farmer's daughter, but I know splendid girls who are—girls too well-bred to say a thing like that."
Ruth walked away—she was out of the finals now—and Norma went back to the starting place. She had not recovered her poise when the time came for her to race Bobby, and that young person won easily only to be outdistanced by Betty.
Rather to the latter's regret, she found herself the opponent of Ada for the deciding race.
"Go it, Betty—beat her!" whispered Bobby, proud of her chum. "She and Ruth Royal have dispositions like vinegar barrels!"
Betty had often raced with Bob, and she ran like a boy herself—head down, elbows held in. She was running that way, against Ada, when something suddenly shunted her off sideways. She fell, landing in a little heap. High and sharp rose the shrill whistle of the starter.
"Are you hurt, Betty?" demanded Miss Anderson, running up to the dazed girl and lifting her to her feet. "Ada Nansen that was absolutely the most unsportsmanlike trick I ever saw. You've lost the race on a foul. Betty was clearly winning when you tripped her."
"I didn't," muttered Ada, but she refused to meet her teacher's eyes.
"I don't want a race on a foul," argued Betty pluckliy, for her skinned elbow was smarting madly. "Let's begin over."
She had her way, too, and this time won without interference, though Ada was so furious that Bobby was seriously concerned.
"She looks mad enough to put something in your soup," she told Betty, as they went in to dress and have Betty's elbow attended to. "What is it, Caroline?"
"Two young gentlemen to see you, Miss Bobby and Miss Betty," announced the maid importantly. "They is waiting in the parlor. Mrs. Eustice says you all should go right up."
In the parlor the girls found two slim, uniformed young figures who rose like well-set-up ramrods at their entrance.
"Bob!" ejaculated Betty, her voice betraying her pleasure. "Bob, you look splendid!"
Tommy Tucker glanced hopefully at Bobby.
"Don't I look splendid, too?" he asked.
"You're overshadowed by Bob," said Bobby mischievously. "However, when not compared with him, I dare say you look rather well."