CHAPTER XXIIIBACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN
“That’s the strangest thing I ever heard,” Jennie Bruce said, the first to break the silence. “Do you really suppose he was crying, Scorch—or was he laughing?”
“Say!” returned the red-haired youth, “Old Gordon never laughed in his life!”
“But why should he cry?” asked Nancy, much disturbed.
“Ask me an easier one,” answered Scorch. “It struck me all of a heap. I backed out and waited for him to show up. When he went out to lunch he looked no different from other times.”
“And I don’t see that what you’ve told us is a bit of good!” exclaimed Jennie, suddenly. “We don’t know who the gray man is.”
“You ain’t never seen him, Miss Nancy?” asked the boy, anxiously.
“Not that I know of,” replied the girl.
“Well! I tried to find out who he was, and nobody around the office seemed to know. He’d never been there before. But if he comes againI’m goin’ to get on his trail,” declared Scorch, nodding emphatically.
“How’ll you do that?” asked Jennie, quickly.
“I don’t know. But I’ll follow him out if I have to,” said Scorch. “And he’ll have to be pretty smart to loseme.”
“Don’t you do anything, Scorch, to get yourself into trouble,” admonished Nancy.
“Shucks!” ejaculated Scorch. “I won’t get into trouble. Don’t you fear. But that gray man won’t get away from me again.”
The girls remained a while longer, getting better acquainted with Norah, and with the brood of younger O’Briens. There was the livestock in the back yard to look over, too; and Norah made tea and cut a cake, doing the honors of the house because Mrs. O’Brien was not at home.
“She does her scrubbin’ at the offices Saturday afternoon instead of at night. Then we have her home Saturday evenings,” said Norah, proudly. “And Patrick Sarsfield does not go to school Saturday evenings.”
“Oh, say!” ejaculated the red-haired boy. “Call me ‘Scorch.’ ‘Patrick Sarsfield’ makes me feel top-heavy. I’d soon get round-shouldered carrying that around.”
John Bruce met the girls at the station, to which Scorch escorted them in time for the afternoontrain. Nancy shook hands with her champion warmly before they separated.
“You be a good boy and keep out of trouble,” she advised him. “Maybe Mr. Gordon isn’t as bad as—as you think. He never refuses me anything, and I feel ashamed to doubt him so.”
“Say! what did he ever give you but money?” demanded Scorch.
“But that, you once told me,” said Nancy, laughing, “was about the best thing in the world.”
“It’s good to have, just the same,” quoth Scorch. “But perhaps havin’ folks is better. And if Old Gordon has hidden you away from your folks, Miss Nancy, he’d oughter be made to give you up to them.”
“That’s anewidea, Scorch,” returned Nancy, reflectively. “Do you suppose that I might have been stolen from my people for some reason?”
“Maybe you were stolen by Gypsies!” cried Jennie.
“Old Gordon doesn’t look like a Gypsy,” said Scorch, slowly, “nor yet the gray man I was telling you about.”
“Come on and get aboard,” said John Bruce, smiling. “I wouldn’t worry my head about such things, if I were you, Nancy. We all like you quite as well as we should if you had a family as big as the Bruces’.”
That was not the only time the girls saw Scorch O’Brien that summer; and on one occasion the entire O’Brien family—from the fat, ruddy-faced Mother O’Brien, down to Aloysius Adolphus O’Brien, the baby—came clear out to Hollyburg on the train, where they were met by the Bruces’ man, and Nancy and Jennie, with a two-horse beach-wagon and transported to the lake for a picnic.
But Scorch—greatly to his disappointment—had nothing of moment to communicate to Nancy on that occasion, or on any other that summer. The “gray man” did not again appear at the offices and all he could say was that Mr. Gordon went on in his usual way.
“He lives in an old-fashioned hotel over on the West Side,” said Scorch, “and I’ve been in his rooms two or three times. But it don’t look to me as though he could hide the papers there anywhere.”
“Hide what papers?” demanded Nancy.
“Why, there’s always papers hidden away that would tell the heiress all she wants to know—if she could get at ’em,” declared Scorch, nodding.
“You ridiculous boy! You’ve got your head full of paper-covered story books!” exclaimed Nancy. “Did you ever hear his like, Jennie?”
“Maybe he’s right, just the same,” observed her chum, slowly. “Mr. Gordon isn’t likely to tell you anything himself. If you ever find out about your folks it will be in some such way as Scorch says.”
Bye and bye it was time to go back to Pinewood Hall again. Nancy had remained the whole summer with the Bruces, and she had enjoyed every day of that time. Yet she was glad, too, to go back to her studies.
“And so wouldIbe, if I had a chance of standing anywhere near you in classes,” agreed Jennie. “But I’m always falling down just when I think I’m perfect in a recitation.”
But there was much more dignity in the bearing of both Nancy and Jennie when they approached Pinewood Hall on this occasion. They were full-fledged sophomores, and they could not help looking down with amused tolerance on the “greenies” who were timidly coming to the school for the first time.
It was “great,” as Jennie confessed, to be able to tell “those children” where to go, and what to do, and to order them about, as was the soph. privilege.
But when Nancy found that certain of her class were hazing the new-comers in a serious way, she took the class to task for it. She called ameeting and reminded them that it would displease both the new captains of the school—Mary Miggs on the West Side and Polly Hyams on the East—as well as Madame Schakael herself, if hazing of the new girls continued.
“Let’s do unto others as we would have been glad to have others do to us when we came a year ago,” said Nancy.
“Well, the sophs. drilled us, all right!” cried Jennie, who was a bit obstreperous on this point, for she liked to play practical jokes on the younger girls.
“And so,” said Nancy, gravely, “we know how mean it was of them. This class wants to have a better record than the class above it—eh?”
“Talk for yourself, Miss Nancy!” snapped Cora Rathmore. “You’re taking too much upon yourself.”
“As usual, too,” agreed Grace Montgomery, with scorn. “Just because you happen to be class president——”
“And quite by a fluke,” interjected Cora.
“You needn’t suppose that you can boss us in every single particular. If I want to make one of these greenies ‘fag’ for me, I’m going to do it.”
“We have always agreed to be governed by the majority, you know,” observed Nancy, softly.“Let us put it to vote. If the bulk of the class believe it better and kinder to help these younger girls instead of making them miserable for the first few weeks they are at Pinewood, let us all agree to be governed accordingly.”
“Well, that’s fair,” said Jennie Bruce.
“Oh, she knows she’s got the majority with her,” snapped Cora, shrugging her shoulders. “The minority have no rights at all in this class.”
“I am glad—or would be so—if I believed I was so popular,” Nancy said, with some warmth. “But I believe with the majority of us girls my suggestion is popular. It isn’tI.”
Then she put the question and the Montgomeryites were in a very small minority.
Nevertheless, outside of class matters, Grace Montgomery was still something of a leader. She and Cora paid more attention to dress than other girls in the school. They spent more money on “orgies,” too, and had hampers arrive from home more frequently. They were even more popular among the juniors than they were in their own class.
And soon a certain number of the new girls at Pinewood Hall began to ape the manners and quote the sayings of Grace Montgomery. The present class of seniors paid little attention to Grace and her growing clique; but Nancy andJennie often spoke of the possibility of her having a large following before she was through her senior year.
“Unless she does something for which to be shown up before them all, the time will come when Grace Montgomery will divide the school. She’ll never have much influence in her own class,” said Jennie; “but in the school as a whole she will be a power if she can.”
In athletics that fall, however, neither Grace nor Cora cut much of a figure. Cora tried hard for the school crew, but Miss Etching turned her back to the second boat for another year.
To make Cora all the angrier, Nancy “made” Number 6 in the eight-oared shell. It was something for the sophomore class as a whole to be proud of; for it was seldom that one of their number got into the “varsity” crew.
But Cora did all she could to belittle Nancy’s triumph. She stood on the landing and sneered at the work of the crew, and especially at “Number 6” until one evening Jennie Bruce came up behind her, caught her by both elbows, and thrust her suddenly toward the edge of the float.
“Ouch! Don’t! You mean little thing!” cried Cora.
“Mean?” said Jennie, sharply. “If I was as mean as you are, Cora Rathmore, I’d be afraid togo to sleep without a light in the room. Just think of being left alone in the dark with anybody as mean asyouare!”
“Think you’re smart! Ouch! Let go of me!”
“You quit ragging Nance Nelson, or I’ll pitch you right into the river—now you see if I don’t!” threatened Jennie.
“I’ll tell Miss Etching on you!” threatened Cora, still struggling.
“Go ahead. And I’ll tell her the things you’ve said down here every time the school crew is out. You have a funny kind of loyalty; haven’t you, Cora? Pah!”
“Mind your own business!” snapped Cora, but rubbing her elbows where Jennie had held them like a vise.
She was a little afraid of Jennie’s muscles, as well as of her sharp tongue. Jennie was not a heavy girl, but she was wiry and strong.
This fall rowing was a particular fad of the Pinewood Hall girls. In the long evenings after dinner all but the freshman class were allowed to go out on the river until Mr. Pease blew the big horn at the boathouse to call the stragglers in.
Some of the girls owned their own boats, too, for of course they could not use the racing boats except in practice hours. Others, who did notown boats, hired them of a boatman below the estate, near the railroad bridge.
Jennie and Nancy pooled their pocket money and bought a light skiff—a flat-bottomed affair which was just the thing for them to paddle about in shallow water, and was “seaworthy.” No ordinary amount of rocking could turn the skiff over.
They often pulled into the still pools, or meadow ponds, opening into the river, and plucked water-lilies. Nancy never did this without remembering her adventures before she came to Pinewood Hall—the occasion when she had helped save Bob Endress from drowning.
Bob was now a lordly senior at Dr. Dudley’s Academy. Nancy had only seen him flashing past the girls’ boathouse in the Academy eight. Bob was stroke of his school’s first crew. Nancy often wondered if he had learned to swim yet.
One evening when the two chums from Number 30, West Side (they had held their old room for another term, as sophs often did at Pinewood Hall), arrived at the little dock where the private boats were kept, they saw that their own skiff was in the water.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Jennie. “Some of the girls have been using theBeauty. What do you know about that?”
They began to run. One girl popped up out of the boat, saw them, and immediately climbed out upon the dock. It was Grace Montgomery.
“Well, will you look who’s here!” ejaculated Jennie. “Who invitedyouto play in our yard, Miss?”
“Oh, never mind, Jennie!” begged Nancy, pulling at her chum’s sweater.
“I’m not going to have anybody take our boat without permission. Who is that other one? Why, it’s Cora, of course! Get out of that!” commanded Jennie, much more harshly than Nancy had ever heard her speak before.
“Dear me! I didn’t know it wasyourboat, Jennie,” said Grace, airily.
“Nor I,” chimed in Cora. “You can be sure I wouldn’t have got into the sloppy old thing, if I had.”
“Go ’long, chile!” spoke Jennie, scornfully. “It wouldn’t matter to you whose boat it was. Your appreciation of personal property is warped.”
“Nasty thing!” snapped Cora.
“Just so,” returned Jennie. “Come on, Nance. We’ll get a padlock for our boat-chain to-morrow.”
When they had pushed off and were out of hearing of the girls on the dock, Nancy said, admonishingly:
“Why say things to stir them up? It does no good.”
“Oh, fudge! What does it matter? Do you suppose that I care if Grace or Cora ‘have a mad on’ at me? Much!” and Jennie snapped her fingers.
They were pulling out into the river. The sun was already below the hills; but the light was lingering long in the sky and on the water. The chums had an objective point in a little cove across the river, where splendid lilies grew.
The evening boat from Clintondale down the river came in sight and the girls rested on their oars to let it pass. The little waves the small steamer threw off rocked their skiff gently.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Jennie, suddenly. “This skiff is all wet. My feet are soaked.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Nancy. “The water is overmyshoes, too.”
“I bet those girls slopped some into the boat when they launched her,” declared Jennie, angrily.
“Wish we had a bailer. Why, Jennie! the boat’s leaking!”
But Jennie had already found that out. And she foundwhereit was leaking.
“The plug’s been pulled, Nance!” she exclaimed. “See that bunch of rags floating? That’s what Cora Rathmore stuffed into the holewhen she pulled out the plug. She knew the water would soon work them out.”
“But where’s the plug?” asked Nancy.
“They took it away with them. It’s a mean trick!” gasped her chum. “Why, Nancy! The water is gaining fast. Here we are in the middle of the river and the skiff will sink under us before we can row to shore!”
CHAPTER XXIVTHE THANKSGIVING MASQUE
Of course, both Jennie and Nancy could swim; but swimming with one’s clothes on, from the middle of Clinton River to the shore, would be no small feat.
And there wasn’t time to throw off much of their clothing, for the skiff was sinking under them. Once the bunch of rags had been forced out of the hole where the plug had been, the water spurted in like a miniature fountain.
The boat began to swing in the current, too. They had both drawn their oars inboard and the craft drifted at the mercy of the river.
“Whatshallwe do?” gasped Jennie, again. “We’re go-ing-right-do-own!”
“Not yet!” cried her chum, tearing off the little coat she wore.
In a moment Nancy doubled up the sleeve and thrust it into the hole in the bottom of the boat. She forced it in tightly, and as it became wet and more plastic, she rammed it home hard.
“But that won’t last long,” objected Jennie.
“The water’ll force it out again. And what will we do with the water that is already in here?”
Indeed, the girls were barely out of the wash of the water, and their feet and ankles were soaking wet.
They dared not move suddenly, either; the gunwales of the boat were so low that, if it pitched at all, the river would flow over the sides.
“Why! it will sink any minute and leave us sitting here in the water!” groaned Jennie, again.
“Take off one of your shoes—careful, now,” commanded Nancy. “We can bail with them,” putting into practice her own advice.
They managed each to remove one of the low, rubber-soled shoes they wore. But these took up so small an amount of water, although they bailed vigorously, that Jennie began to chuckle:
“Might as well try to dip the sea out with a pail, Nance! What a ridiculous position we’re in!”
But it was really more serious than that. It was fast growing dark, and no matter how loudly they shouted, their voices would not reach to the landing. The wind was against them.
On the other side of Clinton River, opposite the scene of their accident, were open fields and woods. Few people lived within sight; indeed, only two twinkling lights from house windows could theynow see on that side, and both of those were far away.
“Do you suppose we could slip overboard without swamping the boat, and so lighten it?” demanded Nancy.
“What good would that do?”
“Then it wouldn’t sink and we could cling to the gunwales. It would keep us afloat.”
“Oh, that plug’s come out!” gasped Jennie.
It had. Nancy stooped and forced the cloth into the hole again; but her motion rocked the boat dangerously. A ripple came along and lapped right in, and the girls were almost waist deep!
“Oh, dear me!” wailed Jennie. “We might just as well be drowned as be like this. Wearedrowned from our waists down.”
“Nev—er—say—die!” gasped Nancy, struggling with the jacket-sleeve to make it stay in the hole.
“We’ve got to get out!” cried Jennie. “This is where we get off—even if itisa wet landing. If we’re out of the boat, it will only sink so that the gunwales are level with the water. Isn’t that so?”
“I believe so,” admitted Nancy.
“Then out we go,” said Jennie, working her way toward the bow.
“What you going to do?”
“Lighten the boat. You slide out over the stern. We’ve got to do it, Nance.”
“I guess that’s so,” admitted her chum. “Do be careful, Jennie. And if the boatdoessink, don’t lose your head. We can swim.”
“Well, I can’t swim to shore in all these clothes. I wish I had loosened my skirts at the start. Oh, dear!”
The daylight had drifted out of the sky and there was no moon. The stars shone palely and it seemed as though a mist had suddenly been drawn over the surface of the river.
The lights of the steamboat had long since disappeared around the bend. There didn’t seem to be another pleasure boat on the river this evening. And yet there must have been a lot of the girls out, somewhere.
Jennie and Nancy got their feet over the ends of the boat and slid carefully down into the water. Their skirts buoyed them up a bit; but they knew that once the garments were saturated, they would bear them down instead.
“Are—are you all—all right, Nance?” gasped Jennie, from the bow, as the water rose about her. “Oh, oh! Isn’t it wet?”
“Cling to the boat, Jen!” begged Nancy, from the stern. “I—I don’t believe it will sink.”
And even as she spoke the skiff, lurching first one side and then the other, sank slowly down into the depths of the river.
Both girls screamed. They came together with a shock and clung to each other in something like panic. And, so struggling, both dipped under water for a moment.
But when they came up, Nancy held her chum off, and cried:
“Don’t do that again, Jennie! If you have to dip, hold your nose. Let’s not lose our heads about this. We’ve got to swim for it!”
“Swim!” gasped Jennie Bruce. “I feel as if there was a ton of lead around my legs. I can’t kick any more than the mule could with his legs tied!”
“Get rid of the skirts,” said Nancy, struggling to unfasten her own. “You can do it—if you try. There! mine’s gone.”
“Oh, my—blub! blub! blub!” came from poor Jennie, as she went under.
Nancy reached and caught her by the hair. Both their caps had floated away. She dragged her chum to the surface and held her until she got her breath again.
Meanwhile Nancy was trying to undo the fastenings of Jennie’s clothes; and she succeeded after a time.
“Oh, dear, me!” she gasped. “I never wished to be a boy so much before.”
“Well, even a boy would find himself somewhat mussed up here in the middle of the river,” sobbed Jennie.
“But he’d have a knife in his pocket, and could cut his clothing off,” returned Nancy, with some vigor.
In these few moments that they had been out of the boat the current, of course, had carried them down stream. But now, partially relieved of their clinging garments, they wanted to strike out for shore. But which shore?
“I believe we’re nearer the westerly side,” said Jennie.
“If we swim over there we won’t know where to go to dry off and get clothes. And there’ll be an awful time at the school,” said Nancy.
Just then the horn at the boathouse sounded mournfully across the water. It was first call for the scattered boats to return—half-past eight. If all the girls were not in by nine they had to explain the reason to Miss Etching.
“Well, then, shall it be the boathouse?” queried Jennie.
“We’ve drifted a long way below it. See! there’s the bend,” said Nancy, rising to look. “Let’s make for the nearest point on that side.”
“Come on, then!” said Jennie, and side by side, but heavily, the two girls struck out.
Neither was quite sure that she could swim that far under the present conditions. Yet they were too plucky to say so to each other.
For at least five minutes they plugged away and then Nancy, rising up again, uttered a startled exclamation.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Jennie.
“Why! we’rebelowthe point!”
“The current’s taking us down stream!”
“That’s it!”
“Goodness me!” exclaimed Jennie. “We’ll land somewhere about at the Academy, if we don’t look out.”
At that instant they both heard the swish of oars, or a paddle. In unison they raised their voices in a shout:
“Help! This way!”
They could not see the craft approaching, for the mist on the river had been growing thicker and thicker, all this time. But there was an answering cry:
“I’m coming! Holler again!”
“Oh, it’s a man!” gasped Jennie.
“It’s a boy!” declared Nancy.
“Shout again!” cried the voice in the mist.
“Well, I’m going to be saved if I’mnotdressedfor company,” declared Jennie, and she raised her voice again:
“This way! We’re in the water!”
“Coming!”
Then into sight flashed a ghostly craft, which came straight for them.
“Oh! it’s only a canoe!” wailed Jennie. “We can’t climb into a canoe.”
“My goodness! It’s two girls!” ejaculated the person paddling the canoe.
“Mr. Endress!” exclaimed Nancy, recognizing the boy from Dr. Dudley’s Academy.
“What?” shouted Bob Endress. “Is it Nancy Nelson?”
“And Jennie Bruce. We lost our boat. It sank,” explained Nancy, breathlessly.
“Each of you grab the gunwale of my canoe. Easy, now!” admonished Bob.
They did so, one on either side, astern.
“Now I can paddle you to shore. Just let your bodies float right out. It’s lucky I came along. The current’s so strong around this bend.”
“I never saw a boy so welcome before!” gasped Jennie, getting back her courage immediately.
“And now I can return your compliment, Nancy,” said Bob, laughing. “You saved me from drowning, and if you hang on long enough I’ll manage to save you, I guess.”
He could not paddle the canoe very swiftly with the weight of the two girls dragging it down; but in ten minutes they were in shore and knew that they were safe.
“We could wade in,” said Nancy, gasping a little for breath.
“Wait,” commanded the boy. “Hadn’t I better take you right up to the landing?”
“Oh, mercy! no!” cried Jennie. “We want to run right home across the fields. The back door won’t be locked.”
“We’d better go to the gym. first and get skirts,” said Nancy, the practical. “Maybe we can slip in then without anybody being the wiser.”
“How under the sun did you manage to sink that skiff of yours?” Bob demanded, showing thereby that he knew more about Nancy and her chum than Nancy had supposed.
“The plug came out,” said Nancy, shortly.
“Why didn’t you put it back?”
“It wasn’t an accident!” exclaimed Jennie. “One of the girls drew the plug and just stuffed the hole with rags. We didn’t know it. Of course, the water forced the rags out when we got half-way across the river.”
“Why, that was criminal!” cried Bob, angrily. “That was no joke.”
“Well, we didn’t laugh ourselves to death about it,” agreed Jennie.
“What girl did it?”
“I’d hate to tell you,” snapped Jennie. “There were two of them in the trick, I’m sure. But I certainly will pay them off!”
“They ought to be punished. You might have been drowned,” declared Bob.
But Nancy said nothing. She did not propose to discuss Grace Montgomery’s shortcomings with her cousin.
The two girls got ashore in the semi-darkness, and thanked their rescuer again.
“I’ll ask after you to-morrow over the ’phone,” declared Bob. “I hope you won’t get cold.”
“Oh, goodness me! don’t ask,” cried Jennie. “Then we will have to explain the whole business. And I don’t want to go before the Madame.”
“That’s right, Jennie,” agreed her chum. “Please don’t ask after us, Mr. Endress.”
“Then let me know how you get along through Grace. I see her a lot,” said Bob. “But you girls are never with her.”
“Aw—well,” drawled Jennie, coming to Nancy’s rescue. “You know, we girls go in bunches. Nancy and I chum together, and it’s a close corporation. We don’t often go about with other girls.”
Then they said “Good-night!” and ran off through the bushes. Their wet garments hampered them somewhat in running; but they came at last breathless to the gym. and Samuel had not yet locked up for the night.
So they got into gym. togs—both blouses and skirts,—and managed to enter the Hall by the rear door of their wing and get up to Number 30 without being caught by any teacher, or the Side captain.
The wet clothes were flung out of the window and, very early in the morning, Nancy arose, slipped out of the house, and carried the garments to the drying yard.
So they got over this adventure without the teachers being the wiser. There was a hue and cry about the lost skiff, however.
“What are we going to say?” demanded Jennie, of her chum. “You won’t let me go at Grace and Cora and make ’em pay for it. What’ll we do?”
“Let folks think the skiff floated away from the landing. What do we care if they say we didn’t tie it?” returned Nancy. “It’s our loss; isn’t it?”
“But those girls ought to be made to pay for the skiff.”
“How would you make them pay? Cora neverhas any money, anyway,” said Nancy, remembering the sum that her ex-roommate already owed her from the year before. “And they’d both deny touching the plug, anyway. We can’t prove it.”
“Well, I don’t care! I hate to have those girls get the best of us. I’ll think up some trick by which we can pay them back.”
“Nonsense, Jennie!” reproved Nancy. “You wouldn’t be mean just becausetheyare mean.”
“I don’t know but I would—if it wasn’t for you,” admitted her chum, sighing.
But in the end nothing was done about the skiff and the girls’ adventure. The matter blew over. There was so much going on at Pinewood Hall that fall, and the sophomores were so very busy, that the loss of the boat soon ceased to be a topic of conversation—saving between the owners and, possibly, the two other girls who knew all about the incident.
The seniors and juniors promised the school a very lively social season this winter. And of course the sophs. were “in on it,” as Jennie said, to a degree.
As early as October the big girls got permission to plan a dance, with the Academy boys invited, for Thanksgiving Eve. It was to be a masquerade, too, and that gave the girls a delightful timechoosing costumes and—in some cases—making them at odd hours themselves.
Those who would, might gather, twice a week, with Jessie Pease and learn to sew. Nancy and Jennie were faithful to this “extra” and both made their own costumes under Jessie’s sharp eye.
Jennie was going to be dressed as an owl, and wear huge spectacles and carry an open book.
“I’d never look wise at any other time,” giggled the irrepressible. “So I will do so now.”
And in her fluffy gray and white garments, with the skirts drawn close around her feet and slit only a little way so that she could barely walk and dance, Jennie reallydidlook too cute for anything.
Nancy was costumed as a “drummer girl”—a brilliant uniform with knee skirt, long boots, a little, round, “Tommy Atkins” cap with chin-strap, and a little snare-drum at her hip that she really learned to beat.
The big hall was cleared for dancing and decorated by the girls themselves with the loot of the autumn woods. No more brilliant affair, everybody declared, had been arranged since Pinewood Hall had become a preparatory school.
Dr. Dudley’s boys marched over at eight o’clock, every one of them fancifully attired. Despite the fact that the tastes of the boys ran a good deal to costumes denoting the Soldier of ’76and Blackbeard, the Pirate, the novelty and variety shown by the girls made the scene a delightful one.
Nancy Nelson and her mates of the sophomore class were not likely to be wall-flowers this year, or to lack for partners. The former’s striking costume marked her out, too, and after the grand march, she was sought out by Bob Endress.
“Oh, I’m afraid I don’t dance well enough, Mr. Endress,” the girl said in a whisper, and blushing deeply.
“You do everything well, I believe,” declared he. “Now, don’t disappoint me. I’ve been trying ever since that night I found you and your chum in the river, to get a talk with you. But you’re so shy.”
“I—I’m always busy,” replied Nancy. “And—and you know the Madame is very strict about us talking with any of you boys.”
“Wow! we won’t bite you,” laughed Bob. “Besides, I meet Grace and Cora Rathmore often. I tried to pump them about your accident; but they declared they knew nothing about it. I guess you warned them not to tell.”
Nancy had nothing to say to this, but she could, not refuse to go on the floor with Bob, although she saw Grace, dressed to represent a gaudy tulip, glaring at them with blazing eyes from across the room.
CHAPTER XXVGETTING ON
Jennie Bruce did not go home that Christmas. Instead, she remained at Pinewood Hall with Nancy and was “coached” for the after-New Year exams. So she was able to send home better reports for her first half-year’s work than she had had before.
Nancy took to study naturally; it was a “grind” for Jennie, and she was frank to admit it.
Nancy stuck to her books just as closely after Thanksgiving as she had before; but as a sophomore she had more freedom than was usually granted to the freshies. Therefore she was able, if she wished, to enter more fully into the social gayeties of her classmates.
And after the very successful masque on Thanksgiving Eve, she could not escape Bob Endress altogether. Hewasa nice boy, and Nancy liked him. Besides, there were two topics that drew the two together.
Bob never got over talking about that August afternoon, that seemed so long ago, when Nancyhad helped to rescue him from the millrace. On the other hand, Nancy was quite as grateful to him for saving her and Jennie from the river.
So, as well as might be, Bob and Nancy were very good friends. Bob would be graduated in June, and at that same time Nancy would become a full-fledged junior. Bob was going to Cornell; but that was not too far away, as he often told her, for him to come back to Clintondale to see both the girls and boys there.
The only thing that troubled Nancy about this semi-intimacy between herself and the Academy boy was the fact that Grace Montgomery was so angry. She seemed to have an idea that the only person who had any right to speak to her cousin was herself.
Nancy was not so afraid to demand her rights as she once had been. If Grace and Cora scowled at her, and belittled her behind her back, Nancy had learned to go serenely on her way and pay no attention to them.
What if theydidsay she was a “nobody?” Nancy knew that she was popular enough with her classmates to win the high position of class president twice in succession.
“Let the little dogs howl and snarl,” Jennie said. “What dowecare?”
Yet the slur upon her identity could alwayshurt Nancy Nelson. Many a night, after Jennie was sound asleep in her bed, Nancy bedewed her pillow with tears.
She reviewed at these times all the important incidents in her short life.
The few brief notes that Mr. Gordon had sent to her she treasured carefully. She could not admire that peculiar gentleman; yet he was the one link that seemed to bind her to her mysterious fortune.
She received characteristic notes from Scorch O’Brien, now and then; they got past the Madame’s desk unopened because they were addressed on the typewriter, and purported to come from the office of Ambrose, Necker & Boles.
So the weeks sped. Spring came and then the budding summer, and again the long line of white-robed girls walked the winding paths of Pinewood Hall. The school year seemed to have fairly flown and Nancy and her mates found themselves facing the fact that they were no longer sophomores, but juniors!
The Montgomery clique “got busy” again and tried to balk the election of Nancy for a third time to the office of president of the class. To be president in junior year was just as good as an appointment to the captaincy of a Side in senior year.
But Nancy had kept on the even tenor of herway. Her marks were just as good as ever, and she stood at the head of most of her classes. The teachers liked her and most of her own class considered her a bright and particular star. So there was little chance of Grace and Cora accomplishing their ends.
The graduating exercises at Pinewood occurred the day before that same ceremony at Dr. Dudley’s school. The older boys of the Academy were usually invited guests at the exercises of the Hall; and some of the first and second-class girls remained over a day after graduation to see their friends in the boys’ school graduated.
Nancy and Jennie received each an engraved card requesting “the honor of their presence” at Clinton Academy, with Bob Endress’s name written with a flourish in the lower corner.
So, although Nancy was going home with Jennie for the summer once more, they begged the Madame’s permission to remain over for the boys’ graduation.
And how angry Grace Montgomery was when she learned that Bob had invited Nancy and her chum! Bob had stood well in his class—was quite the cock of the walk, indeed—and Grace wanted to show him off to the older girls as her especial property. She worked the cousinly relationship to the limit.
And after the exercises, when Bob came down from the platform particularly to lead Nancy and Jennie to his parents and introduce them, Grace and Cora went away in anything but a sweet frame of mind.
Mr. and Mrs. Endress spoke very kindly to Nancy. Bob, it seemed, had often spoken of the girl whose quick wit had saved him from the millrace almost two years before.
“And you are in Grace Montgomery’s class?” observed Mrs. Endress. “It is odd we have never heard Grace speak of you, Nancy. And where will you spend your summer?”
Nancy told her how kind the Bruces were to invite her for the long vacation.
“I hope we shall see you both,” said Mrs. Endress, nodding kindly to Jennie, too, “before fall. We are not so very far from Holleyburg, you know. Ah! here come Grace and the Senator.”
Nancy and her chum fell back. A tall man dressed in a gray frock coat and broad-brimmed hat—the garments so often affected by the Western politician—was pacing slowly up the aisle with Grace and Cora.
He was in gray all over, from hat to spats, save that his tie had a crimson spot in it—a very beautiful ruby pin.
“My goodness me, Nance! The Man in Gray!” whispered Jennie, chuckling.
“What’s that?” gasped Nancy.
“Why, you remember the man Scorch told us of?”
“What man?”
“The man in gray who came to see your guardian, Mr. Gordon?”
“Oh! Well,” and Nancy recovered her composure. “I guess Grace Montgomery’s father has nothing to do withme. But I have seen him before.”
“You have?” returned Jennie, in turn surprised.
“Yes. Last year just about this time. He came to the Hall to see Grace. I wonder——”
She did not finish. She wondered if the Senator would remember her. He did. But to Nancy’s confusion he scowled at her as he passed, and did not speak.
“My!” murmured Jennie in her chum’s ear. “He’s just as unpleasant as his daughter; isn’t he? I guess Grace comes byhermean disposition honestly enough!”