CHAPTER XVIIA RIFT IN THE CLOUDS
None of the other girls had taken part in this discussion; but they all chanced to be members of the party that had partaken of the famous spread in Number 30 when Nancy’s money paid for the goodies out of the enjoyment of which she had been crowded.
They were all, save Cora, paying the price, like Nancy, of being found out of their rooms after curfew by the principal of Pinewood Hall. All had suffered alike. Cora had been the only one to escape.
As it chanced, Cora hadnotbeen out of her room. The girls were not punished for eating ice cream and macaroons in secret, and none of them had been questioned about the incident save Nancy herself.
They had all, however, urged by Cora and Grace Montgomery, been sure that Nancy had “got even” by reporting them to the teachers. Maybe, if Cora had not so urged this—had not been so confident of Nancy’s crime, in fact—theother girls might have stopped to think thatshewas being punished equally with themselves, and that only Cora had escaped.
Just the same, some of them might on this evening have taken Nancy’s part had not Cora Rathmore made so much of the report upon Nancy’s character that Grace Montgomery had received from a friend in Malden.
Nobody had seen the letter (which came under cover for Grace from her sister at home, and was therefore not examined by Madame Schakael) save Grace herself and Cora. The latter had flown into a passion immediately, and had declared that she would no longer remain in the same room with a “charity foundling.”
Without stopping to think, these other girls were carried away by Cora’s eloquence. When Nancy turned to face them from the lower stair of the flight leading up to the West Side dormitories, she was like a sheep cornered by a pack of dogs.
The shrill voice of the angry Cora carried much farther than she had intended, however. Suddenly, at the top of the flight, appeared Corinne Pevay, captain of the West Side.
“What is the trouble,mes enfants?” she demanded. “Why all the outburst of variegated sounds, Cora? Is it a convention of the FreshmanCalliope Society; or merely a discussion of the question: Votes for Women?”
Cora had become silent instantly. Nancy was winking back her tears, and would not turn around. The other girls did not feel called upon to speak.
“‘Silence was her answer; Low she bowed her head!’” chanted Corinne, in a sing-song tone. “It sounded like a washerwomen’s convention, and now it has suddenly changed to a Quaker meeting. Come! what’s the trouble?” and she spoke more sharply as she began to descend the stairs.
“None of your business, Miss!” snapped the black-eyed girl, made even angrier at this interruption.
“Wrong Cora—wrong. Itismy business. Somebody will call me to account for it if you West Side infants raise ructions in the main hall. You know that. So, out with the difficulty.”
Cora still remained scornfully silent.
“It is about Nancy, here, again, I suppose,” said Corinne, finally reaching Nancy’s side, and resting one hand lightly on the latter’s shoulders. “You girls seem unable to annoy anybody else but Nancy Nelson. And if I were she”—she was coolly looking around the group and soon identified them as the party that had been punished with Nancy over Number 30’s spread,—“I never would stand it.
“She is too easy.... That is what is the matter with her. When Madame Schakael found her in Jennie’s room that night she ought to have told just how she had been crowded out of her own room—and after paying for all the goodies you girls stuffed yourselves with, too!
“Why, I’d be ashamed! She took her punishment and never said a word. Jennie can provethat. And all you little fools have laid your punishment toher. And after eating her spread——”
“That isn’t so!” snapped Cora, in a rage.
“What isn’t so?”
“She knows she’s going to be paid back for what she spent on the supper,” declared Cora.
“Good! I hope she will be paid back. But you can’t pay her back for the mean way you have treated her,” declared the senior, with some warmth.
“I don’t want to! I don’t want to!” almost screamed Cora. “Do you think I am going to have anything to do with a girl who doesn’t even know who sheis?”
“What do you mean, Cora?” asked Corinne, quickly.
“That girl,” cried Cora, pointing a quivering finger at the silent Nancy, “was just found bysomebody when she was a baby and was sent to a charity school—the Higbee Endowment School in Maiden, it’s called.
“She’s a foundling. Her parents deserted her—or they were sent to jail—and other people sent this girl to school. She knows it’s so! She daren’t say it isn’t!” continued the enraged Cora.
“She’s just a little Miss Nobody. If such girls as she, without family or friends, are going to come to Pinewood Hall, I am suremymother won’t want me to stay here. And one thing Iamvery sure of,” pursued Cora. “I willnotremain in Number 30 with this—this nameless girl that no one knows anything about.”
“Quite so, Miss Rathmore,” observed a quiet voice behind the excited Cora. “What you say is emphatic, at least; and it really seems to be in earnest. Therefore, it shall have my respectful consideration.”
A horrified silence fell upon the group of girls at the foot of the stairs.
“Miss Pevay,” said the Madame, calmly, “bring Nancy Nelson and Cora Rathmore to my office at once. What is that on the floor?”
The little lady pointed to Nancy’s coat and cap. Nancy, with dry lips, told her.
“Have you been out without permission at this hour, Nancy?” asked the Madame.
“No, Madame.”
“Bring the coat and cap. At once!” commanded the Madame, and led the way into her own suite of offices.
Like three prisoners bound for the stake, the three girls followed. Even Corinne felt that she had done wrong in allowing this squabble to continue in the public hall.
The other girls did not even dare whisper at first after the Madame and the three girls were behind the closed door of the Madame’s anteroom. It was seldom that the principal of Pinewood Hall took the punishment, or interrogation, of offenders into her own hands. When she did it was a solemn moment for all concerned.
And the girls gathered at the bottom of the West Side stairway felt this solemnity. They whispered together fearfully until suddenly Jennie Bruce burst in from outdoors.
“Hullo, girls! what’s gone wrong?” she demanded, swinging a small bag in her hand.
“You may well say ‘What’s gone wrong?’” declared Judy Craig, Belle Macdonald’s chum. “The Madame caught poor Cora in an awful stew——”
“Huh!” grunted Jennie. “Only Cora? Well! she can stand it, I guess.”
“Well, I don’t know but she’s right,” wheezedBelle, who was also of the party. “They ought not to let such girls into a school like Pinewood Hall.”
“Hul-lo!,” exclaimed Jennie, suddenly interested. “Who’s been treading onyourtootsies, Belle?”
“Why, it’s that Nelson girl,” snapped Judy.
“And what’s Nancy been doing?”
“Well, it’s what sheis,” exclaimed another, eagerly. “You are pretty thick with her, Jen. Do you know who she is?”
Jennie nodded.
“You don’t!”
“I know just as much about her as she knows about herself,” declared Jennie, with gravity.
“And that’s just nothing,” cried Judy, with a little laugh. “That’s what Cora says.”
“And who told Cora?” asked Jennie.
“Grace. And Grace knows!”
“And who told Chicken-Little-Ducky-Lucky-Goosy-Poosy-Montgomery that the sky had fallen?” demanded the sarcastic Jennie.
“Did you know that Nancy Nelson came here from a charity school, and that she has no folks?” asked Belle Macdonald, with considerable bitterness.
“Yes,” said Jennie, nodding.
“Well! what do you suppose your motherwould say if she knew you were familiar with such a girl?”
Jennie suddenly became grave. “She’d say,” declared the fun-loving girl, her voice shaking a little, “she’d say: ‘That’s a good girl, Jennie. She’s an orphan—be kind to her.’”
“Oh, rats!” cried Judy. “She doesn’t even know she’s an orphan. Cora says she believes Nancy’s parents are in jail.”
“Maybe Cora has a wider acquaintance among jails than the rest of us,” said Jennie airily, preparing to go upstairs.
“And what was Nancy doing with her hat and coat at this hour?” put in another girl, craftily. “The Madame noticed that right away.”
“The Madame!” gasped Jennie, stopping instantly.
“Oh, they’ve all gone into the office,” said Belle, eagerly.
“Who—all?”
“Corinne and Cora and Nancy.”
“They’ve caught Nancy because she was going to run away?” cried Jennie.
“Run away?” repeated the other girls in chorus.
The angry Jennie shook the bag in their faces.
“Do you know whatthisis?” she demanded.“Do you know what you girls by your meanness almost drove Nancy Nelson to?
“I’ll tell you! She knows you all dislike her—hate her, in fact. She is so unhappy here that she was going to run away from Pinewood Hall and get work somewhere—that is what she was going to do.
“She packed this bag and tossed it out of the window, and then she ran down to the door intending to slip away. But she remembered that she had been forbidden to leave the building at this time of day, and that Madame Schakael had trusted her.
“So Nance wouldn’t break her word, and I found her crying in the back hall there, and told her I would bring back her bag. That’s the truth! You girls have driven her to all that.
“And now,” continued the wrathful Jennie, “I’m going in there to tell Madame Schakael all about it. You girls don’t want to associate with Nancy because she is an orphan and has no home? Well,Idon’t want to associate withyoubecause you are all too mean to bother with! There now!”
And the excited Jennie came down the steps, strode across the hall and entered the anteroom of the principal’s office, closing the door with a bang.
CHAPTER XVIIIBETTER TIMES
It was seldom that Madame Schakael seemed so stern as on this occasion. She perched herself upon her cushioned chair behind the desk table in her inner office, while the three girls—the senior and the two freshmen—lined up before her.
“Now, Corinne, tell me all about it,” was her command to the older girl.
“I am not sure that Icantell you all, Madame,” said Corinne, slowly. “For I did not hear it all.”
But the black-eyed Cora was getting back her courage now, and she suddenly burst out:
“Ican tell you, Madame!”
“Perhaps—as it was your voice which I first heard—you had better tell me your side of it, Miss Rathmore,” agreed the principal.
“There’s only one side to it, Madame!” exclaimed Cora. “I was just telling those girls—and Miss Pevay, who interfered——”
“Corinne is the captain of the West Side. You belong on the West Side. By no possibility couldyour captain have interfered if you chose the public hall for any discussion,” said the Madame, with sudden sharpness. “I want all you freshmen to understand that: The school captains must be respected and obeyed.”
“Well—I—I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” murmured Cora, suddenly abashed.
“Perhaps not. But, Miss Rathmore, I fancy you will have to watch yourself closely to correct a tendency in that direction,” observed the Madame, drily. “Now, you may continue your statement.”
Cora was quite put out for the moment. She had taken her first plunge into the matter, had been brought up short, and now scarcely knew how to carry on the attack on Nancy which had seemed so easy the minute before.
“Well—well—I—I——”
“Why do you stammer so, Miss Rathmore?” asked the principal. “Is it a fact that that which seemed so desirable to say just now appears to you in another light when you have taken time to think it over?”
Stung by this suggestion Cora threw all caution to the winds. Her black eyes flashed once more. She even stamped her foot as she pointed her finger at Nancy.
“I tell you what it is, Madame Schakael!” shecried. “I won’t stay in the same dormitory with that girl another day. If you make me I’ll write home to my mother.”
“And your reasons?” asked Madame Schakael, quite calmly.
“She is a perfect nobody!” gasped Cora. “She came here from a charity school. She’s never lived anywhere else but at that school. She doesn’t know a living thing about herself—who she is, what her folks were, why they abandoned her——”
Possibly Madame Schakael said something. But, if so, neither of the three heard what it was. Yet Cora suddenly stopped in her tirade—stricken dumb by the expression on the principal’s countenance.
The little lady’s face was ablaze with emotion. She raised a warning hand and it seemed as though, for a moment, she could not herself speak.
“Girl! Who has dared tell you such perfectly ridiculous things? What is the meaning of this wrangle in Pinewood Hall? I am amazed—perfectly amazed—that a girl under my charge should express herself so cruelly and rudely, as well as in so nonsensical a manner.
“To put you right, first of all, Miss Rathmore, Miss Nelson’s position in life is entirely different from what you seem to suspect. She is an orphan.I understand; but Mr. Henry Gordon has a careful oversight of her welfare, and he pays for her education out of funds in his hands for that purpose, and I am instructed to let her want for nothing. She is not at all the friendless object of charity that you have evidently been led to believe.
“The Higbee Endowment School in which Miss Nelson has been educated is by no means a charitable institution. It is a much better school than the one in which you were taught previous to coming to Pinewood, Miss Rathmore; I can accept pupils from Higbee into my freshman classes without any special preparation.
“I had no idea that girls under my charge would be so cruel as you seem to be toward Nancy Nelson. Corinne! what does it mean?”
“I’m afraid I have let it go too far, Madame,” responded the senior, gravely. “But you know, these freshmen have got to learn to fight their own battles.Ihad to when I came.”
“Yes, yes; that is all right,” said the principal, waving her hand. “But remember, Corinne, I mentioned to you when Nancy Nelson came that she was one of the sensitive kind.”
“And for that very reason the sensitive girls are hard to shake into their places,” declared the captain of the West Side. “And then, she roomedwith Cora, here, and I thought she was one of that crowd.”
“I guess my crowd is just as good as yours!” ejaculated Cora, plucking up the remnants of her courage.
“In my opinion, Madame Schakael,” continued Corinne, ignoring Cora, “I’d give this Rathmore girl another roommate. It would be a kindness to Nancy.”
At the moment Jennie Bruce entered with more abruptness than good manners. But Jennie was excited.
“Oh, Madame Schakael! don’t punish her any more!” she cried, running to Nancy and throwing her arms about her.
Necessarily she dropped the bag. The Madame pointed to it.
“What is this, Miss Bruce?” she demanded.
“Let me tell you!” cried Jennie. “That’s what I came in for, Madame. These horrid girls—Rathmore and her tribe—have just hounded Nancy so that she wanted to run away.”
“Run away?” gasped the principal. “From Pinewood?”
“Yes, Madame! But then she remembered she was on honor to stay indoors; so even after throwing her bag out of the window, she gave up the intention. And let me tell you,” added Jennie,storming with anger, “if this stuck-up, silly Cora Rathmore doesn’t want to room with Nancy, I do!”
The excited girl turned to the sobbing Nancy and took her in her arms again.
“Don’t you mind what the others say to you, Nance!” she cried. “I’ll stick to you, you bet! And maybe some time we can solve the mystery,” she added, in a whisper, “and find out who you are.Thenwe’ll make ’em all sorry they treated you so,” for it seemed to be a foregone conclusion with Jennie that Nancy would prove to be a very great person indeed if her identity were once discovered.
“Dear, dear me!” exclaimed Madame Schakael, softly. But she really smiled upon the excited Jennie. “I shall have to write to your mother, Miss Bruce, after all, that you seem hopeless. You neverwillbe able to restrain those over-abundant spirits of yours.
“But, my dear, I shall never have to tell that you are unkind. You have solved this little problem, I believe. It would be undeserved punishment to keep Miss Nelson in the room with Miss Rathmore any longer. In fact, I believe that the punishment meted out to Miss Nelson already, and by myself, has been too heavy.
“Two things shall be changed; Nancy Nelsonis released from the order to remain indoors in recreation hours. Furthermore, she shall have a new roommate.”
She turned suddenly to the sullen Cora.
“Miss Rathmore! You have revealed yourself to us all in a light which, to say the least, is not a happy one. I will remove you from Number 30, West Side. Indeed, it would be an imposition upon Miss Nelson to keep you there. How do you suppose your present chum in Number 40 would welcome Miss Rathmore, Jennie?” she added.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Jennie, her eyes twinkling. “Sally is one of Cora’s crowd; but I haven’t anything against Sally, so I wouldn’t wish Cora on her.”
“That will do! that will do, Jennie! I did not ask you to be quite so frank,” said the Madame, quickly. “What do you say, Corinne?”
“It’s a good idea, Madame,” returned the captain, with a sigh.
“Very well, then; because Miss Nelson deserves a more pleasant and agreeable roommate, you may change places with Jennie Bruce, Miss Rathmore.”
“I don’t care how you put it, Madame!” exclaimed Cora, with a toss of her head. “I am glad to get out of Number 30. And, howeveryou may put it, Nancy Nelsonisa nobody——”
“You will loseyourrecreation hours until the Christmas holiday, Miss Rathmore,” declared the Madame, rapping on her desk with a pencil. “And don’t let me hear any more of this back-biting and unkindness in the freshman class. Understand? You are all four excused.”
They obeyed the little woman who—by turns—could be so stern and yet so kind. Cora Rathmore flashed out in the lead and, crying with shame and anger, ran upstairs without speaking to her chums at the foot of the flight.
Corinne came out of the anteroom with an arm around the waist of each of the smaller girls. Quite a number of the West Side girls were either coming down the stairs, or had already gathered to wait for the doors to open into the dining room.
“I want you girlies to know,” said the captain, cheerfully, “that we’ve got two perfect little bricks in this class of greenies at Pinewood Hall. And one of ’em’s named Jennie Bruce and the other’s named Nancy Nelson.
“I prophesy, too,” pursued the beauty of the school, “that Jennie and Nancy are going to be the most notorious female Damon-and-Pythias combination we have ever had at Pinewood.
“Now, run along, you two children,” she added, giving Jennie and Nancy a little shoveeach, “and get your eyes cooled off and wash your dirty little hands for supper. Hurry up!”
And did Nancy and Jennie care what the girls said to them now? Not a bit of it!
They went up the stairs and through the long corridor with their arms around each other. And Jennie insisted upon taking Nancy to her room to fix up for supper.
“We’ll only run across Cora in Number 30—and I don’t want to have to slap her face!” declared the still wrathful Jennie.
“Then I’ll help you pack up your things to bring to Number 30,” said Nancy.
“Oh, not before supper, Nance!” cried Jennie, in horror. “I could go out and bite a piece off the stone step, and swallow it right down, I’m so hungry.”
For the first time since she had come to Pinewood Hall, Nancy Nelson went down to supper with her arm around another girl’s waist, and another girl’s arm around hers.
Jennie Bruce boldly sat beside her, too, although she belonged at another table. And they whispered together, and giggled, and were even reproved by one of the teachers—which was likewise a new experience for Nancy, and perhaps did her no particular harm.
“Ah-ha, Miss Mousie!” said Corinne, pausingby the new chums as she made her tour of inspection, and pinching Nancy’s ear; “I see now I shall have both you and Bruce to watch. But don’t you two go too far.”
Really, a brand new existence had opened for Nancy. Jennie’s ready championship of her did much to influence the opinion of the other girls; and the story Grace Montgomery and Cora Rathmore spread regarding Nancy fell rather flat.
The Montgomery clique, after all, embraced only a very few of the freshman class and some half dozen or more sophs. The latter had no influence at all in Nancy’s class for, naturally, it was “war to the knife” between the freshies and the class immediately above them in the school.
Corinne, too, after the grand explosion in which the Madame herself had taken part, saw to it more particularly that the Montgomery crowd did not “pick on” Nancy. If Jennie was about, however, that was sufficient. Jennie Bruce would fight for her friend at the least provocation.
Yet, after all, Nancy was not entirely easy in her mind. That the story of her being a “mere nobody” had failed to make her ostracised by the better class of Pinewood Hall girls, was a delightful fact.
Yet the story was true. Nancywasnobody; as the Montgomery and Cora said, her parentsmightbe people of no morals nor breeding. Theremightbe some great shame connected with herself and her family.
The mystery of it all made Nancy very unhappy at times; but not so unhappy as before. Now she had a close friend with whom she could discuss the secret; and Jennie Bruce was just as deeply interested in Nancy’s affairs as was Nancy herself.
“Some day it will come all right, Nance,” the former assured her roommate. “Maybe you and I will find out the truth. Perhaps that O’Brien boy will help. I have great faith in Scorch, and I want to meet him.”
“Oh! do you suppose you and I could go to Cincinnati together!” gasped Nancy.
“Goody! It would be great!”
“And then you could see Scorch.”
“And I want to see that Mr. Gordon. I bet that lawyer knows more about you than he is willing to tell.”
“But perhaps he is doing his best for me, after all,” concluded Nancy, with a sigh.
Number 30, West Side, began to get a new reputation after Jennie came to it. In the first place, Jennie was one of those girls who bring from home to boarding school countless mementoes of their home life and of their family and friends.
Jennie’s photographs and funny pictures, and pennants, and all the other “litter” that a schoolgirl loves spilled over from her own bureau to Nancy’s, and not only was Jennie’s side of the den decorated, but there was plenty to decorate Nancy’s side.
No longer was Nancy’s dressing-case the most plainly furnished in the school. There were bows of ribbon, and bright calendar pictures, and photo-frames, and numberless other little keepsakes tacked to the wall on Nancy’s side.
Jessie Pease put her head into Number 30 a day or two after Jennie’s arrival, and exclaimed with delight:
“Ah-ha! now the dear bairn’s got a homey looking room, thanks be! It’s made my heart ache to see how barren the walls were. You’re a good girl, Janie Bruce, if youdomake me a world of trouble.”
“Trouble! Trouble!” shouted Jennie. “How dare you say such a thing?” and then she danced around the good soul, clapping her hands and singing:
“Pease Porridge hot—pease porridge cold—Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old!Some like it hot—some like it cold—But Jessie Pease of Pinewood never will be old!”
“Bless ye, Janie,” said the good Scotchwoman, “I hope I’ll never be any older than the youngest bairn who comes here to school.”
“Sure! you’re a regular kid!” declared Jennie, hugging her.
“My usefulness here will be all forbye when I can’t be a lassie wi’ other lassies,” declared the lodgekeeper’s wife, kissing both Jennie and Nancy and then going her way.
The pleasure of having Jennie Bruce in Number 30 instead of Cora Rathmore was no small thing to Nancy. In Jennie’s society she began to expand. She became, indeed, quite a different creature from the quiet, almost speechless girl who had heretofore crept about Pinewood Hall.
Girls of her own class, who had scarcely noticed Nancy before, suddenly found that she was a bright and cheerful body when once she was included in a group of her mates.
She had made a splendid mark in classes, and stood equally high in such athletics as Miss Etching encouraged. And on the ice she had shown herself to be the equal of many of the older girls.
Now, with the ban lifted from her recreation hours, Nancy could go on the river again. And skating was one of her favorite sports.
The weather had remained cold all this timeand, when it snowed at all, there had been a high wind which blew the snow (for the most part) off the ice and so did not put a veto on skating.
Clinton River was frozen nearly a foot in depth. The ice harvest had begun, and it was not yet Christmas. But where the men cut for the huge icebarns was beyond Dr. Dudley’s Academy, and so did not trouble the girls of Pinewood Hall who desired to skate. Nor did it trouble the boys from the Academy, either; they were all glad to move up river for their ice sports.
Hockey was a favorite game of the boys, and Nancy one afternoon watched a match game between the crack team of the Academy and one made up of lads from Clintondale. Bob Endress captained the school team and, Nancy thought, covered himself with glory.
To Nancy’s secret disappointment Bob only bowed to her. He never skated with her again, although she saw him with Grace Montgomery and her friends.
Nancy wasn’t particularly enamored of boys; Jennie liked them better than Nancy did, and was frank to say so, for Jennie was somewhat of a tomboy and always played with her brothers and their friends when she was at home.
Bob Endress, however, had seemed to Nancy to be a particularly nice boy. And they had hada secret understanding together before Grace and Cora had found out about Higbee School.
Nancy said nothing to Jennie about it; but she wondered if Bob felt as the Montgomery clique did about her—that she was a mere nobody and was really beneath his notice.
Of course, Nancy was only a young girl—in her first year at Pinewood Hall; and Bob Endress was quite three years her senior. Even Corinne Pevay and Carrie Littlefield showed interest in Bob, although he was only a junior at Dr. Dudley’s school.
The girls had so many interests among themselves on the ice, however, that they did not seek the boys’ society. Besides, this was not altogether approved. Miss Etching was usually with the girls in the afternoon, while one of the instructors from the Academy skated with the boys.
Grace Montgomery made a great matter of Bob’s being her cousin. It was known to Miss Etching that the Senator and his wife approved of the intimacy of their daughter with the boy. Naturally Grace’s friends attracted Bob’s friends—and there you have it!
The many girls of Pinewood Hall, however, who found delight in skating for the sake of the sport itself, welcomed Nancy as one of their own. They found she could skate splendidly with apartner, that she could cut figure eights, could do the “long roll,” and otherwise give a good account of herself on the ice.
So when it was suggested that there should be a skating contest on the river one evening just previous to the Christmas holidays, Nancy was urged to participate. Of course, the older girls expected to carry off the palm. Corinne Pevay came from Canada, and one or two other girls lived well up toward the line. So their winters were long and they were proficient in every winter sport before they came to Pinewood.
But Jennie urged Nancy to do her best in the long races.
“That’s where you will have ’em, Nance,” she declared. “Half of these big girls lose their breath after a little run.”
So Nancy entered for the two-mile race, which was the “big number” on the hastily-made-up program. The boys had helped them set stakes, the distance being ten laps around the course.
Although the moon was small, the stars were brilliant and on the ice everything was as plain as day. Miss Maybrick and Miss Meader helped the physical instructor; and those girls who did not take part in the “ice carnival,” as they laughingly called it, came down to the river to see the races.
Each class rooted for their own champions. Corinne and Carrie were of course favorites of the seniors; but the juniors were sure they had a champion in one of their number, and even the sophs shouted for Judy Craig and were willing to back her even against the Canadian senior who had, as Jennie Bruce declared, “been born on skates.”
“But just the same,” said Nancy’s roommate, “you stand a good chance in the straightaway races and in the two-mile. Don’t you lose courage, Nance. I’ve watched you and I say that the freshies can afford to cheer for you, just as the sophs are rooting for Judy.”
So Nancy went down to the ice that evening very much encouraged—and more excited than she had ever been since coming to Pinewood Hall.
CHAPTER XIXTHE RACES
The straightaway races came first. Corinne, in her cherry-colored sweater and black cap and black, short skirt, looked startlingly pretty. And how she could skate—for a little way!
Between posts the Canadian senior carried off all honors—beating every other girl easily.
And she could do fancy “stunts” like a boy—whirling on one skate after a running start, cutting the double-eight, spinning like a top—oh, a whole lot of things that Nancy, or any other younger girl, had never attempted.
Yet when they lined up for the second race—one lap around the course—Nancy, who chanced to stand next to Corinne, knew that the captain of the West Side was breathing too heavily for a girl just entering a trial of speed.
“She’s not going to win this time,” thought Nancy, and looked down the line of contestants. Cora Rathmore was near the far end. “I hopeshewon’t be the lucky one,” thought Nancy.
Nancy was scarcely ready at the start. She“got off” badly. But to her surprise she found herself keeping well up with the bigger girls. And she did not have to exert herself much, either.
Corinne began to laugh, and Nancy passed her.
“Go on, Nancy, for the honor of our side!” gasped the Canadian. “I’m out of this race.”
Spurred by her words Nancy “let out a link,” as Jennie Bruce would have said. She found that there were other contestants that she could easily pass. When they turned the stake only Cora, Carrie Littlefield, Judy Craig, and one or two others were ahead.
To skate rapidly one should not use a “rolling” stroke; and Nancy saw that Carrie, the biggest girl ahead, was striking out too widely. She dashed from side to side of the course, taking up more than her just share, indeed, and covering more ice than was necessary.
Nancy took short, quick strokes. Her method was a bit jerky, perhaps, and lacked grace; but she was going straight down the stretch to the “home” stake, and before they had covered half the distance Nancy passed Carrie, and then Judy Craig.
But there was Cora Rathmore, her oldtime roommate and enemy, right ahead. Cora seemed to deliberately block her way, for occasionally shethrew a glance behind her, and changed her course as Nancy tried to slip by.
The race was not between Cora and Nancy. There were two older girls ahead and it would have been hardly possible, at this stage of the contest, for either of the freshmen to overtake the leaders.
But it was evident that the Rathmore girl did not intend to let Nancy pass her. Once again the latter tried to turn out; and then, seeing that Cora flung herself that way, Nancy struck into a wide curve that should have taken her completely around Cora.
But as Nancy struck her left skate upon the ice again, something clashed with it, checked her course abruptly and, if she had not flung herself sideways upon the ice, and slid, she might have wrenched her foot badly.
“Oh! oh!” shrieked Jennie. “Nancy’s been thrown!”
But her friend picked herself up at once, and with a laugh skated on after the other contestants. One of the first-class girls won.
“How did you come to fall?” demanded Jennie, with lively interest.
“Oh, it must have been a twig sticking up in the ice,” declared Cora, before Nancy could reply. “You can’t see them at night.”
“Was that it, Nance?” demanded Jennie, suspiciously.
“It—it must have been,” admitted Nancy. But in her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she had stumbled over the toe of Cora Rathmore’s skate. The girl had deliberately thrown her.
It made no difference in the result of the race. Nancy could not have won, she knew. But it warned her to look out for Cora Rathmore if she raced again with her.
Nancy rested after that, refusing to enter any of the minor contests until the long race—thepièce de résistanceof the evening—was called.
This was the endurance test that Miss Etching was anxious to have go off well. The physical instructor of Pinewood Hall had an object in putting her girls against a two-mile skate. More than Jennie Bruce had noted the fact that many of the best skaters among the juniors and seniors lacked “wind.”
It was hard for the instructor to watch all the girls closely enough to be sure that they dressed properly even in the gym work. She had warned them to dress loosely under their warm sweaters for the ice, too; for in skating every muscle in the body needs free play.
But certain girls, like Grace Montgomery among the freshmen, and the dressier girls of theolder classes, gabbled a deal more than was good for them about their “figures,” and studied the fashion-plates too much.
But there were the warm dressing rooms in the boathouse for the girls to change in, and those who entered for the ten-lap race took advantage of these rooms to lay aside any garment that trammeled their movements. They all realized that it was an endurance test.
Thirty-eight girls were called by Miss Etching to line up for the long race. Some of them, of course, didn’t have a ghost of a show for honors in the trial of speed and endurance; but they wanted to show what they could do.
Jennie Bruce herself was one of the contestants; but, as she told Nancy, she didn’t expect to go half the distance. Some of the seniors who were in earnest remarked that they didn’t see the use in letting the “greenies” clutter up the ice. But Miss Etching had announced it as a free-for-all race and the big girls could not freeze out the contestants from the younger classes.
Indeed, the classes were each backing their own champions. The seniors were strongly for Corinne Pevay, who had recovered her breath and promised to bring home the prize. Carrie Littlefield was a favorite with the class that would graduate the next June from Pinewood Hall, too.
The juniors had half a dozen girls who all believed they could bear off the palm. Judy Craig was being “rooted” for by the sophomores. Of course, none of the three upper classes believed that a freshman had a chance; but Grace Montgomery had reserved herself all the evening for this contest, and now her friends were noisily declaring that she could win “if she tried.”
“She’d better try, then,” observed Jennie, with a laugh. “And try mighty hard, too. Some of those big girls have raced before and they have trained several terms under Miss Etching.”
“You’re not loyal to the class,” declared Cora Rathmore, sharply.
“I should worry! I’d like to see a freshman win; but Grace hasn’t a chance.”
“She’ll show you,” cried Sally, Jennie’s former roommate. “Grace Montgomery is a splendid skater. And you’ve never seen her really let herself out.”
“Say! she ‘lets herself out’ every time she speaks,” growled Jennie. “We all know what she is—bluff and bluster!”
“Is that so, Miss Smartie!” exclaimed Cora Rathmore, standing up for the girl she toadied to. “Let me tell you that Grace is the most popular girl in our class. Wait till we have election for class president.”
“I’m waiting,” remarked Jennie, calmly. “But what willthathave to do with Grace Montgomery?”
“You’ll find out then how popular she is.”
“I will, and so will she,” chuckled Jennie, suddenly all a-smile.
“You don’t believe she will have the most votes?”
“Not, unless she puts them all in herself,” laughed Jennie. “Why! if Grace had a chance to be class president I’d go into sackcloth and ashes during the rest of the year.”
“You wait and see!” snapped Cora.
In her heart Jennie believed that the only girl among the freshmen entries who had the least chance to win the long race was Nancy. But she knew that this wasn’t the time to begin “rooting” for her friend.
Indeed, the best way to do was to cheer for all the freshies entered until they showed—within the first few laps—what they could do. And to this method Jennie,—a leader among the younger girls,—clung.
At the starting shot—for Miss Etching was not afraid of a pistol and used it to start the race—the thirty-eight girls got away from the line without much confusion. The best skaters were quickly in the lead, so that there was little entanglementat the first stake. By that time the girls were strung out for some yards.
Rounding the home stake for the first time, the seniors and juniors, with Judy Craig and—to Jennie’s surprise—Grace Montgomery and Cora, were in the lead. Nancy was trailing them easily, but it worried Jennie.
The latter lost her head and did all her best work—put out every bit of strength she had—in the second lap. She passed Nancy and many of the other girls belonging to the freshies and sophs; but she could not reach Grace and Cora. Judy Craig fell back, however.
At the beginning of the third lap more than half the girls dropped out. The leaders were so far ahead it was useless for them to continue. And their dropping out cleared the course for the real contestants.
Jennie fell back in that third lap, and Nancy passed her, still skating easily, and about half a lap behind the leaders.
“Oh, dear, Nance! Do hurry up and beat them,” gasped Jennie. “I’d hate to see Grace—or Cora—carry off the glory for our class.”
Nancy did not speak; she only smiled. She saved her breath—as Jennie might better have done.
For, at the beginning of the fourth lap, bothof the girls who called themselves leaders of the freshmen class began to fall back, although they still struggled. The race was not half over and only ten girls remained in it. Jennie fairly fell to the ice, and sat there, panting. But she cheered Nancy when her chum passed her on the next—the fifth—round.
“Go it, old ‘slow but sure!’” she cried. “You’re going to make your mark, I see.”
It was only a few minutes later that Nancy, without increasing her speed, was right on the heels of Grace and Cora.
Ahead of these two freshmen were only two seniors, four juniors, and one soph. The leading girls—three of them—were more than half a lap ahead of Nancy; the others were strung out along the course.
Grace and Cora saw Nancy creeping up on them. They were losing ground steadily, and there was no “spurt” in them. Cora, indeed, was crying with vexation and nervousness.
“She’s going to pass us, Grace—the nasty thing!” she panted.
“Keep up, Cora!” begged her friend, and deliberately crossed in front of Nancy at the post, to keep her back.
Nancy lost stroke a little. They came down the course toward the home stake on this—the fifth—lap. Miss Etchingskated slowly forward to eye the line of struggling girls. She had personally taken several of the younger contestants out of the race because she saw that they were doing too much.
Nancy tried to shoot ahead of her two classmates again. Grace and Cora almost collided in their attempt to balk Nancy.
But the physical instructor saw them.
“Miss Montgomery! Miss Rathmore! Out of the race!” she commanded, in a tone that was heard by most of the spectators gathered near.
“And just as I was getting my second wind!” cried Grace, angrily, as she came down to her waiting friends.
“I put you out for fouling,” declared Miss Etching, firmly. “Miss Rathmore, too. You are traitors to your class. Miss Nelson has a chance to make a record for you and you deliberately tried to keep her back. She is the freshest girl on the ice at this moment,” declared the teacher, with enthusiasm.
But Nancy did not hear this. She had rounded the stake in the wake of the older girls, and kept “plugging along” as though tireless. She was doing her part as usual—faithfully but not brilliantly—and had no idea that she was in danger of making a record for the freshman class.