CHAPTER XCAROLS
A crystal star over the central entrance of the high school building, and within, gave evidence that the school, teachers and pupils, were making much of the season. It contained small electric bulbs of different colors, harmoniously selected, and gave beauty to the large square hall as well as a thrill to some of the pupils. The bulbs were glowing this last morning, and beneath their radiance, the boys and girls, visitors, parents and friends entered to see the play and the last assembly of the year; for before school met in session again a new year would be ushered in.
Betty had merely reported at her home room, for the dramatic director had urged every one to “hurry into costume,” as the play would begin at once. There was not a long wait. The older classes were admitted to the auditorium first. The rest and the junior high would see the second performance. No change of scenery hampered the stage directors, for the play was the effective “Why the Chimes Bang,” with the old but always beautiful motive of the stranger entertained who proved to be the Christ-child in disguise.
Carolyn had promised to tell Betty exactly “how everything went off” and sat with Kathryn and Mary Emma well toward the front and on the junior aisle nearest the middle of the auditorium. But Betty herself was peeping from the rear of the auditorium, or just outside one of the doors. The senior boy who took the part of the unselfish lad that gives up going to the cathedral, in order to welcome and care for the unexpected guest, Betty did not know very well, but she admired his playing of the part and was horrified when a laugh went over the audience at one moment.
“There! I knew they’d do that,” said a senior girl beside her. “It’s only because it’s so funny to have Jean almost faint in his arms. You see we know everybody! And those bowls they have the porridge in look too new!”
But the audience, who had, it must be said, been warned that they must be a part of the play, behaved most circumspectly when later the walls of the woodchopper’s hut parted to reveal a cathedral shrine or altar. From the rear of the auditorium, now supposed to be the cathedral, came the choir, chanting as the organ notes filled the room. Betty was one of the choir.
Up the aisle, up the steps made for the purpose, they went and stood in their places singing. One by one, unhurriedly, up the different aisles, past the quiet students and visitors, came rich man, rich woman, courtier, girl, sage and king, with gifts for the priest to offer. The medieval costumes were impressive. Then, from his place in the background, the lad, urged by the old woman, went forward with his small gift, all he had; and the fabled chimes that had rung for no other, rang for him, as the guest disappeared.
As the organ played the chimes and the lovely girl who was the angel spoke, Betty saw her mother’s handkerchief come out to clear misty eyes. There was the hush that meant the success of a message. In a few moments the curtains were drawn to again, and the audience was dismissed.
But as Betty went back to the rear again, to be in readiness for the choir’s entrance in the second and last performance, she noticed that her mother remained for that performance, too, though she had not expressed any such intention, and “lo and behold,” as her senior friend Lilian said to her, there entered her father, with Mr. Murchison and the countess. “Oh, Lucia, look!” cried Betty, leaning around a group of costumed players to speak to Lucia, who was in the group, as she added her youthful contralto to the choir.
Lucia smiled and nodded. “I knew they were coming,” she said.
Perhaps it was due to the inspiration or presence of Countess Coletti, but the second performance, according to Mrs. Lee, surpassed the first. Restless little junior high pupils appreciated the privilege of this assembly and were still at all the proper places. No wrongly timed giggles of laughter disturbed the play, which went through, without seeming hurried, in a shorter time. It was one of the things that one hated to have over, according to Betty, though she was glad that she did not have to pose as long as did the “angel.”
“What are you going to do tonight after the carols, Betty?” asked the countess, who had come back to see Lucia a moment after the play.
“Just go home,” replied Betty, simply. “It’s Christmas Eve, you know.”
“Indeed I do know, Betty,” returned the countess gravely. “It is going to be a little hard for Lucia tonight. It was last year. I thought I would ask your father and mother and the children over, if they did not think it would be too late. Will you have to trim your Christmas tree at the last minute, or something like that?”
“I don’t think so. We still hang up stockings, though chiefly for Amy Lou now! and this year we have just a little tree that she is to help trim after dinner tonight.”
The countess smiled. “I will ask your mother at least. Perhaps I ought not. What do you think, Betty?” The Countess Coletti, spoiled daughter and wife, but gifted and attractive woman, looked wistfully at Betty, whose heart was always warm enough to respond to some one’s need. In a moment she realized that for some reason the countess wanted them there.
“Why, of course, Countess Coletti—if Mother can manage it and you want us, she will come.”
“If the child should grow sleepy, she could rest as well with us and the car is warm—to take her home.”
The countess spoke reflectively, but now hurried away with a warm smile for Betty, not missed by several of the girls who were changing costumes for school dresses.
But there was no time for Betty to think of anything except the present. Joy of joys, the teachers did not have regular recitations. They played funny games and sang carols. Betty had missed some, but in Miss Heath’s class they sang Latin hymns and songs, theAdeste Fidelis, familiar to the Catholic girls in the Latin words, and even “Silent Night,” put into “not very good Latin” according to Miss Heath, but offered for their interest. The board was “covered with Latin poetry,” said Carolyn.
School was dismissed at twelve-thirty, Carolyn and Betty saying an affectionate good-bye, for Carolyn was going away for the vacation. “It’s a shame you aren’t going toyourgrandmother’s,” said Carolyn. “I may get out to the carols tonight, Betty, but it’s more than likely that I can’t. I think we’ll start tonight. Mother wasn’t sure. Have a good time and don’t forget your old Carolyn. Merry Christmas!”
The girls exchanged their greetings thus and Betty slipped a small package into Carolyn’s hand. “Now don’t open it till Christmas, Carolyn—tomorrow morning! Oh, is it really here?”
“It doesn’t seem possible does it? But if we go tonight, mayn’t I open it? It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Sure enough. And lots of people have their gifts on Christmas Eve. Of course you may. But I have your pretty Christmasy package all tucked away, ready to open Christmas morning. I’m sorry to be so late with mine; but you see I just finished it.”
Carolyn laughed. “How you ever had time tomake anything, I don’t see, but I’ll appreciate it all the more.”
“It isn’t much, but I hope you’ll like it. Yes, we almost ought to be with Grandma tomorrow, but you see she is going away herself. She’s already gone. They’re packing her off to Florida for her own good, though some one is with her. Well, Merry Christmas, Carolyn, and I’llneverforget you. Couldn’t if I tried!”
Excited and hungry, the Lee children reached home for a late lunch together. Dick and Doris “gabbled” so fast Amy Lou couldn’t tell a thing, she said, and they had had such a beautiful Christmas morning at their school. Amy Lou almost felt hurt that her mother had gone to the high school instead, or that she could not have gone with her; but Mrs. Lee reminded her that she had visited her school when they had their “great Christmas program” and Amy Lou had “spoken a piece,” for that was what they called it in the old days whenshewas a little girl.
“Weread things,” importantly said Amy Lou, “or have a ‘number.’” After that she took her dolls into the front room to play school and stood up for half an hour singing all about “good Saint Nick” with an “Oh, oh, oh, who wouldn’t go?” and the rest of it, varied with “Jingle Bells,” “Holy Night,” and songs new and old, learned at school and Sunday school, where music made an especial appeal to little Amy Lou.
“She is entertained for the next hour,” said Mrs. Lee, as she and Betty cleared the table after lunch. The little maid, who had been baking and cooking all morning, was excused for the afternoon and evening, but would come to help with the Christmas dinner.
“And we have an invitation for the evening, Betty. The countess said she had spoken to you.”
“Yes’m. Are we going?”
“Yes. I scarcely thought at first that I could manage about Amy Lou, since Lena ought to have her evening this time; but the countess wanted us to bring her and thinks that she ‘will enjoy it.’ I was quite surprised, but the countess said that she would appreciate our coming, that it was not like a regular invitation to a party, just a sudden wanting to have good friends there. Grandma Ferris is not so well, Betty.”
“Oh! Will you mind, Mother?”
“No. If I am needed anywhere, that is where I want to be. But be sure not to worry, Betty. Christmas Eve must be a beautiful time and if Grandmother Ferris should slip away, it will only be a homecoming.”
“Funny she wantsyouMumsy, when she has so many older friends.” But Betty said this with an affectionate smile. It was not new that her mother should be wanted when people were in trouble. Well, Lucia wantedher; perhaps she could be like her mother some day! But oh, what a lovely time Christmas was. And wouldn’t Amy Lou love the doll they had for her! She was glad Amy Lou liked dolls. She still did herself, though she had stopped playing with them—oh, very long ago, it seemed.
The dinner was an oven dinner, already prepared for cooking and easy to watch while they did something else. The last packages were tied up in tissue paper of the newer gay sort, Mrs. Lee helping different ones as this one or that one must not see. Amy Lou was allowed to help Doris and Betty with packages for their father and mother. Dick as usual had disappeared, not to turn up till mealtime. But Mrs. Lee knew where he was, safely working on an aeroplane in the heated third floor attic of a boy friend. It would probably revolutionize aeronautics, Mr. Lee declared; but Dick good-humoredly took the teasing.
Then the little tree was brought in and it was decided to trim it then and there, instead or waiting till after dinner. Amy Lou was much excited when all the trimmings were brought out. But she sighed as she recognized some favorite decorations saved from the old days in the village. “And I used to think that Santa Claus brought them!” she said with some regret.
“Don’t you believe in Santa Claus now?” asked Doris.
“No. Do you?”
“Mother says Santa Claus is the ‘Spirit of Christmas,’” returned Doris.
“Yes. But it would have been so nice if he could have been just himself and really, you know, come down the chimneys.”
“Oh, well, we’ll keep on pretending, and hang up our stockings just the same.”
“Yes,” brightly Amy Lou answered. “It’s just as true as it ever was, I suppose.”
Mrs. Lee and Betty, who were listening, turned aside to hide their smiles at Amy Lou’s philosophy. “Poor little soul!” whispered Betty. “But she will be happy when she sees all we have for her!”
They need not have pitied Amy Lou at all, for her sturdy little soul had met her first disillusionment at school, at the hands of some other little girls, before whom she would not have shown any deep disappointment over finding Santa a myth. She thought it all over and accepted it; for she could recall a number of facts that seemed to bear out the truth!
And happy they all were that night. No tragedy met them at the Murchison home, whither all except Betty drove after dinner and a reasonable interval. Betty met Lucia and the other girls, who were taking part in the carols, at the big “Y” building.
Lovely, lovely Christmas Eve! So thought Betty as they started in the machines for the different points at which they were to sing “especially,” though the voices rang out all along the way in the beautiful Christmas music. It was still snowing by fits and starts, though not enough to cover the ground as yet. The lights of the city, the soft flakes of snow, and a bright sky above, helped make the Christmas atmosphere; for there were only drifting clouds as yet and behind them, beyond them, or through them shone the starlight.
They stopped at one place where there was a sanitarium in the poorer part of the city. Windows came up a little to make the words and music more clear to the listeners, not only where invalids were lying in their cots, but in the houses nearby. Betty saw a light flash out from a first floor window and glancing in she could see a delicate hand manipulating a lamp, adjusting its wick to the proper height. No gas or electricity there!
The light outlined clearly the head and face of the young woman who was bending over a table, then turning to speak to someone, for whom, perhaps, the light was made. Black hair was gathered into a low knot. Large black eyes looked toward the window. A gay scarf or small shawl of some sort lay on the table. Catching up this, the girl came to the window, threw it up, tossed the scarf around her head and shoulders, drawing it tightly around her face, and looked out.
The glare from a street light fell upon her face for a moment. Sober, almost tragic, the big eyes looked out upon the singers.
They had been singing several short carols but were giving the Christmas hymn beginning,
“Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown When thou camest to earth for me.”
And now, as the girl from the rickety lower window of a tall tenement looked out, Betty thought how appropriate, some way, was the stanza they were singing then, here where the people had so little. Lucia’s rich contralto joined Betty’s sweet voice, as they were close to each other, and made the words as distinct as possible for a group to make them:
“The foxes found rest, and the bird their nestIn the shade of the forest tree;But thy couch was the sod, O thou Son of God,In the deserts of Galilee.O come to my heart, Lord Jesus!There is room in my heart for thee.”
“The foxes found rest, and the bird their nestIn the shade of the forest tree;But thy couch was the sod, O thou Son of God,In the deserts of Galilee.O come to my heart, Lord Jesus!There is room in my heart for thee.”
Betty felt that she was singing to that girl in the window and Lucia, too, was seeing her. But she listened only to the close of that stanza then put down the window; and before the young singers had finished, the light in the room had been extinguished.
“Did you see thattr-ragicface, Betty?” asked Lucia, rolling her “r” in the Italian way, as they were speeding along toward the Y. W. C. A. again. It was late and the carols were over.
“Yes. The girl that looked out of the first floor window, you mean?”
“Yes. She was beautiful, too, wasn’t she?” And as Betty assented, Lucia added, “Oh, Betty, I’m learning things!”
Lucia did not explain, but Betty knew that the sorrows of others meant more to Lucia than they ever had meant before. There was “room” in her heart, too! And to Betty the sordid poverty of a city was new. They had always “helped the poor” at home, but there were not so many. The distress could be met. Here it seemed endless Yet on this lovely night it seemed that there was hope for every one in the greatest of Gifts, of whom they had been singing.
The girls grew gay with the Christmas joy as they chatted with their friends. At the “Y” Lucia telephoned. Then they took a car to a certain corner where the Murchison car would meet them. Everything went as arranged and Betty soon found herself in the midst of the prettiest Christmas decoration she had known. A lighted Christmas tree with the gayest of colors stood outside under the stars, where a little more snow was adding itself to the more artificial burdens of the tree. Within were gay holly and mistletoe and bright poinsettia plants in bloom.
Mr. Murchison led both girls under the mistletoe which hung from a sparkling, old-fashioned chandelier, and laughingly saluted their cheeks. “There!” he cried. “For lack of younger cavaliers, I shall do my duty!”
Amy Lou had succumbed to sleep, though not without a strong effort to keep awake. The countess took Betty by the arm and led her to look at her small sister, peacefully sleeping on a divan in what Betty called the back parlor. She was covered with a gay steamer rug and clasped tightly in her arms a large doll.
“Oh, you gave that to her, Countess Coletti!” exclaimed Betty, though in a subdued tone.
“Yes. I never can resist a pretty doll, so I bought one for Amy Lou. She seemed to like it.”
Smilingly Countess Coletti looked down upon the pretty, sleeping child. The countess herself was lovely tonight in a plainly cut black velvet evening dress. A diamond clasp was her only ornament in the way of jewels, but she wore a few crimson roses that became her well. Mrs. Lee did not wear an evening dress, but Betty thought that “Mamma” was very pretty in her “stylish” silk frock. Some other friends had called up, the countess said, and were coming over. In a short time the main drawing room was full of guests and presently a delicious light supper was served. It seemed the easiest thing in the world in this house for little tables to be arranged and everything lovely to appear as if by magic. But when Betty said as much to her mother afterward, her mother smiled. “It is good planning, Betty, but also competent help, trained to service,” she said.
Amy Lou woke up and behaved like an angel, according to Doris, who did not realize that Amy Lou was now a properly trained little school girl, not a baby any longer. Doris, very much impressed with her surroundings, had been quietly engaged with some books during the first part of the evening. Then the arrival of a friend of the countess, with a girl of about the same age and a boy a little older than Dick, had put the finishing touch to the visit. There had been music and games, while Lucia and Betty had been carolling.
Countess Coletti explained to Mrs. Lee, as Betty learned on the way home. “She told me, Betty, that she had felt the need of us as well as liking to entertain us on Christmas Eve, but that when she found her fears about Mrs. Ferris were unnecessary—she was so much better—she decided to make it a gayer occasion than it might have been. Friends called up and she took the opportunity to invite them in, adding a few others also. It was a very delightful evening for everybody, I think.”
“Don’t you believe, Mother,” said Doris, “that Mr. Murchison is interested in that pretty widow—I’ve forgotten her name?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised, Doris; but we must not say anything, you know.”
“Oh, not for worlds!” cried Doris. “With Father’s being in the business and our knowing them so well——.” Doris trailed off her sentence unfinished, but was probably taking satisfaction in thought induced by that last expression of hers. Betty wanted to laugh, but bless her “dear old Doris,” she would not.
“I have no doubt that the countess and Lucia are missing the count at this season,” said Mr. Lee. “I hope that that family will be together another Christmas.”
It had been a very unusual Christmas Eve for the Lee family, and it was followed by an unusual Christmas morning, for Amy Lou announced that she “might not get up” as early as usual on Christmas. She wanted “to see everything just as much,” but she was afraid she might sleep too late.
That suggestion was welcomed most heartily by the rest of the family. “I’ll put your stocking by your bed, dear,” said her mother, “and everything else; so if you do wake up, you can have them.”
Thus it happened that everything was different, but just as happy. The turkey had been prepared and went into the oven promptly as soon as Mrs. Lee wakened. Breakfast was very, very light, not to spoil the dinner which would be on time. Presents were “just what they wanted” and the little tree shone with its electric lights, gay decorations and little Christmas angel, which Amy Lou and the other children remembered from earliest years. Christmas cards and gifts from absent friends, including “Grandma,” made their hearts warm. And that they were all together, well, sheltered, blessed and happy, Mr. Lee gave thanks before he carved the turkey.
CHAPTER XIGIVING UP A PLEASANT HONOR
The delightful but irregular and rather upsetting vacation of the Christmas holidays soon became a memory. It must be said that Mrs. Lee drew a sigh of relief when the children were all back in school and hours became regular again without the parties and entertainments, glad as she was to have her children enjoy them. They went through these carefree and youthful days but once. If she could guide and guard them it was enough.
Betty declared to Lucia that the face at the window haunted her. She had “half a notion” to call there and see who was so unhappy. But Mrs. Lee was doubtful of the wisdom of such a call and advised Betty to find out something about the handsome girl from some social worker of the neighborhood. And Betty thought she would take her mother’s suggestion. Yet when was there “time for anything?”
“Mid-years,” the semester examinations, were approaching. Betty was glad that she had studied her lessons at the proper time. She followed the reviews and “crammed” a little on the side, on lines where she was not as sure; but she did not worry as some more nervous girls seemed to do. Peggy Pollard said that she was sitting up nights on Math, and Mathilde Finn looked worried, which was something for Mathilde to do over lessons. Several of the “very nicest” junior girls were being tutored and Miss Heath sacrificed her time and strength to hold a review class after school for some of her pupils who were “shaky,” as Miss Heath told Betty.
“Oh, I’d love to come in, Miss Heath, to review. Could I?” asked Betty.
“You do not need it, Betty, and you would be wasting time. Besides, it is not in Cicero.”
That settled the class question. Betty did need time, though there was little to do now in the girl reserve work, for the committees handled the programs and Betty had little to do except to preside at the meetings. Orchestra practice was interesting, if exacting, and Betty was “crazy about” the Dramatic Club. Basketball practice was going on, but Mr. Lee had asked Betty not to be on the team which played the competitive class games.
It was a disappointment to Betty and she argued at some length, though respectfully, with her father. Her father was “such a dear” and “always let you say anything you wanted to onyourside,” she told Carolyn Gwynne.
“Here I like athletics almost better than anything,” said Betty, “and want to get honors, and Father won’t let me play! It was getting hurt that time, Carolyn, that did it. I told him that it was only a practice game and that I might get hurt just playing—anything. He acknowledged that what I said was so, but I know he thinks I won’t play so often if I can’t be on the regular teams. He tells me to continue being his little fish in swimming and when I said that I didn’t like the expression, he said ‘Be a mermaid, then—a siren, and lure your cruel father to the rocks.’”
“And what do you think Mother put in? She was listening to our argument and hadn’t said a word, but now she said, ‘financial rocks, Father!’ And that was because we had been talking about the clothes Doris and I need for spring.”
Carolyn laughed and asked when Betty was hurt. “I don’t seem to remember it, Betty.”
“It wasn’tanything! I got knocked down and twisted something or other, sort of a sprain, and hobbled around for a week or so. The worst was over a week-end and Father had a doctor to look at my ankle.”
“Oh, yes. I do seem to remember your limping a little one time. Well, the girls will be disappointed and I know they’re worrying for fear Mathilde will be captain.”
“How can she, if they don’t want her?”
“Mathilde is an awfully good player now and stands in with the teacher that has charge this year and she’ll work it some way—she has influence with some of the girls.”
“Yes,” thoughtfully Betty returned. “That makes me feel better about it, though. I’ve been too rushed to pay much attention to ‘politics.’ And I thought a different girl wanted it.”
“How in the world does that make you feel better, Betty?”
“Because I wouldn’t want to fight to be captain or anything. Some of the girls took it for granted that I would be captain, and I was silly enough to believe that perhaps I could be. You noticed what the school paper said, didn’t you?”
“Yes. You got quite a puff on your athletics, Betty. ‘With Betty Lee at the head of the junior team, that unusual class is likely to carry off the honors in basketball this year.’ Aha! No wonder you felt like arguing the matter with your father! Can’t you persuade him? It isn’t too late yet.”
“Perhaps I could get his consent, Carolyn; but I know that it will worry him and after all, itisa strain, though so awfully exciting and jolly. If Mathilde wants it, let her have it. The only thing about Mathilde is that she isn’t fair and will take any advantage that she can. We could easily lose games that way, Carolyn, even if she is a good player.”
“We certainly could, andcrede mihi, Betty, I’m going to see if we can’t get somebody else for captain.”
“Fine! I’ll support you, Carolyn, in anything you start, only I can’t play on the team myself.”
“Worse luck!” But Carolyn laughed. “I ’spect you’re safer to do what your father wants you to do, and you can’t do everything,crede mihi!”
“‘Crede mihi’—I can’t,” laughed Betty. “Do you suppose‘mihi’ought to come before‘crede’? Oh, yes, imperative first!”
“‘O tempora, o mores!’” replied Carolyn, grinning. “Yes, don’t you remember we looked it up in the vocabulary, after we found it somewhere and then couldn’t find it again? If ‘take my word for it’ isn’t enough like ‘believeme’ then I can’t read Cicero!”
This conversation took place long before “mid-years,” as may be gathered from the fact that basketball was in the early stages. Betty’s special friends had been looking up a few Latin phrases to take the place of slang expressions which their English teacher was urging her pupils to drop, telling them that they would soon think in no other terms. Home influences, however, kept Betty and most of these girl from taking on the coarser expressions which they heard from some of their acquaintances.
Started in this way, it became fun to take out of Cicero, orations or elsewhere, little phrases likeubi est?orQuid loquor?
Quid agis?—O miserabile me!—horribile dictu—age vero—da operam, and other expressions all had possibilities, though sometimes, it must be said that the old Romans would not have recognized some of the uses to which their language was applied. But it was all a part of the very active and happy life led by Betty Lee junior at Lyon High.
Mr. Lee had not asked Betty to curtail any of her pleasures without good reason. Betty’s parents had noted certain effects in the previous year which did not seem good, chief of which was a temporary suffering of Betty’s work during the basketball season and her being more or less nervous and under a strain. Then, as Mrs. Lee watched several games, she saw the possibility of accident in the fast playing, and as Betty thought, the small injury was the final argument.
But this curtailment left Betty more free for other lines of work and her time was too full for many regrets. It was rather pleasant, to be sure, to have certain girls exclaim over her defection and prophesy dire results to the team. And Betty was big enough at heart to be honestly glad when the juniors under Mathilde played well, winning over all the classes except the seniors. There at last came their Waterloo. For the seniors had previous defeat to wipe out. They had the best team that they had ever had in basketball. The girls of that class had never been particularly noted in athletic lines, but as Kathryn declared, they had concentrated on basketball “to beatus.” And beat the juniors they did.
The school paper came out with big headlines over the result. The seniors chortled. Chet at first avoided any comment when with Betty, but his eyes twinkled when she congratulated him as a member of the class. “The girls have been very sure they would win over your class ever since you refused to be captain, Betty.”
“Nice suggestion, Chet, but I didn’t refuse to be captain and perhaps I couldn’t have been even if I hadn’t dropped out of the games. Besides, Mathilde is as good as I am.”
“You go too far to be honest, Betty. Sure I know all about that; but it’s more than likely that you would have led your girls to victory. Our girls had a lot of confidence, besides having practiced like mad. Your girls played well, but they lacked that punch to put it over when they had a little bad luck. And they didn’t trust Mathilde as they would have trusted you. It’s funny, but there is a lot in the psychology of a game. It isn’t just good playing.”
“My, Chet! Where do you get ‘psychology?’ Is Ted taking it at the University?” Betty was laughing.
“I reckon! But I get it out of the athletics in the paper. I read the reports of the big games, you see.”
“I suppose so. I only look to see which teams beat. Dick’s the one at our house who reads the sport page.”
CHAPTER XIICOULD BETTY BE STUBBORN?
The independent girl who likes to follow her own opinions and draw her own conclusions is likely to make a few errors of judgment. These come largely from lack of experience; and that lack of experience is the chief reason for the safety to young people in following the direction of their elders in important matters.
On the other hand, as girls and boys grow older, they must be thrown upon their own responsibility in many matters and learn wisdom thereby. The holding of high ideals and the testing of action, conduct and people by them is the greatest safeguard a girl or boy can have. And when it comes to people, most important relation of all, while friendliness and confidence are fine, indeed, and a suspicious attitude to be deeply deplored, when it comes to being led by others, or to being drawn from those high ideals or even minor convictions, a fine reserve is very necessary. Sometimes it is best to withdraw altogether from a friendship rather than be drawn into what is either doubtful or wrong.
Betty Lee’s independence was not of the aggressive variety, but she did like to come to her own conclusions, for which she always thought she had grounds in the facts. Betty was a keen little observer and thought about many things, a very good habit. It was usually quite safe to be “easy-going” and friendly, and as Betty had the background of a safe home life and a circle of friends of her own sort, there was very little in social relations to trouble her, and oh, what good times there were! These were connected with the school affairs or with her friends and were sandwiched in between much hard study and her fondness for athletics, with its varied interests.
The friendship which had so distressed Doris had been adjusted without much difficulty, Doris finally taking her mother into her confidence. As Betty had suggested, Stacia was invited for a visit and made much of, with the friendliness, if dignified, which was characteristic of that home. If Stacia found the entertainment dull, she showed no evidence of it and told Doris privately that she thought her mother and father “wonderful.”
But as there was no real community of interests between the girls, by spring Stacia’s devotion to Doris had waned. Another girl received Stacia’s confidences, to the great relief of Doris, who meanwhile had been adding other friends to her list. And it had all come about naturally without any necessity for any coolness or unkindness on the part of Doris.
Doris herself was taking on little grown-up airs and was very fussy at this stage about what she wore and how she looked. Dick’s still careless boyishness annoyed her and her remarks about his table manners or general state of oblivion about the state of his collar or tie were having more effect than any reminders on the part of his mother. Dick cared what his twin thought; and if Doris, too, thought he must spruce up, he supposed he’d have to. All this was not lost on Betty and her mother, but aside from some natural amusement over remarks exchanged by the twins; they gave no sign of their interest.
Betty, it was true, was almost too full of her own affairs to think much about her family except at mealtime. Every evening there were lessons, whatever could not be managed in the school study hours. Time after school was taken with meetings or practice or some athletic line. Betty usually put in one half-hour of violin practice before the evening dinner, for the orchestra was working on the big things for their great concert, given by all the musical organizations.
Life was very interesting just now. The birds were singing again. Hikes had begun. And a new member of the junior class was very much interested in Betty. Just at this time senior affairs were absorbing Chet and some of the other boys that Betty knew best and meanwhile this new lad was introduced to Betty by Lucia Coletti one day after class.
“Betty,” said Lucia, “I want you to know our new classmate, Jack Huxley. You heard him recite in Latin and Math, didn’t you?”
“I’m glad to meet you,” murmured Betty, as Jack courteously said “Miss Lee” and bowed. “Yes, Lucia; I noticed that. Are you finishing the junior year with us?”
“Yes. My parents have recently moved here. I have been to school in the East, but that is too far away, my mother thinks, since we came here.”
Betty moved along between Lucia and Jack for a few moments of conversation; then they separated. This was the beginning of the acquaintance. Jack was a fine-looking boy with dark eyes, a pleasant mouth, a quantity of very dark brown hair which he wore in the prevailing style back from his forehead. Betty was rather impressed by his courteous manners, though Carolyn did not fancy him and said that he was too sure of himself. But he was a good student and Betty found herself defending him to several of the girls who were a little critical after a time. But perhaps that was because he made no effort to be friendly. Betty did not know. The boy with whom he seemed to chum was “wild,” Mary Emma Howland said.
Lucia, in telling how she came to know him, said that his mother used to be a friend of her mother’s at school. “They are being invited everywhere,” said Lucia, “and Jack is, too. They live in a hotel now, but are moving soon into one of those fine houses that are being finished.”
From this Betty concluded that the Huxleys moved in what was known as “society” and her first social meeting with Jack was at a little party at Lucia’s, one quite “informal” and hastily planned, Lucia said. There Jack paid rather particular attention to Betty and after that she met him so often at school, when he would fall in beside her after class, or be at the entrance of the grounds to accompany her to the door; or join her after school, that she knew it was no accident.
Once Chet dashed out of the auditorium door after practice of the junior and senior orchestras together, to find Jack and Betty in conversation just outside in the hall. “Say, Betty, I have to see you,” began Chet. “Oh, excuse me. I don’t want to interrupt, but I have a message.” Chet looked at Jack and Jack looked at him. What in the world was that new junior doing? Was he hanging around Betty? “Hello, Jack,” Chet finished.
“There is nothing important, Chet,” sweetly replied Betty, turning in friendly fashion to Chet. She was quite aware of the instant antagonism between the boys. But Chet needn’t think that he owned her! ShelikedJack.
“I’ll be waiting outside, Betty,” said Jack with cool politeness in his attitude. “The message may be private.”
“What’s that chap around for?” queried Chet looking after Jack, who was sauntering toward the entrance door. “He doesn’t belong to either orchestra, band or glee club.”
As no reply could be expected, Betty said nothing but continued to look pleasantly at Chet and wait. He lost no time but went on at once to explain.
“Say, Betty, it’s Mother that wants you to help her out. There’s going to be doings at our church, some sort of a spring festival or something, and Mother says she hadn’t any more sense than to say she’d be responsible for a booth. So she’s hunting up a few pretty girls she knows—that’s Mother’s expression, not mine—and wanted me to ask you if you would help her out. It won’t be hard, just to dress up in some sort of a costume, I guess.”
“That’s terribly clear, Chet,” laughingly said Betty, “but tell your mother that I’ll do anything she wants me too.”
“Good for you. I knew you would, and she wants you to come out for dinner tomorrow. Of course I’ll hate that a lot! We’ll drive around after you, Ted and I, most likely. Is that O.K.?”
“Yes. I’ll get my lessons ahead, so I can spare the time.”
“Count on the whole evening, Betty. We’ll do something or other. Now have you a regular date with that chap? I rather expected to put you on the car myself.”
“I haven’t any date at all, Chet, but it would be awkward, wouldn’t it, since Jack said he was waiting?”
“I suppose it would. So long, then Betty. Say, Betty——,” Chet turned back hesitatingly. “I’d go a little slow with Jack Huxley. What little I know about him isn’t so good.”
“What is it, Chet? He’s smart and a perfect gentleman whenever I see him.”
“Oh, I don’t suppose there’s much out of the way. He runs with a pretty wild crowd, though, and he hasn’t been here long.”
“Well, I scarcely think that he would be invited by the countess to a party for Lucia if he weren’t all right.” Betty spoke with some decision and Chet looked at her soberly.
“Don’t you think so? Maybe not. Did you meet him there?”
“Yes. Good-bye, Chet. I’ll be ready tomorrow night and tell your mother that I’d love to dress up and be in a booth.”
Betty, who rather regretted a bit of steel that she had put into her tone before, made this farewell as friendly as possible. But Chet’s answering smile could scarcely be called one and he hurried down the hall to another exit, in order to avoid Jack, Betty supposed. Oh, well, she couldn’t help it. Jackmustbe all right! Why, he was a perfect dear, as Mathilde called him. Not that Mathilde’s opinion of any one would be a recommendation, however. He did have some different ideas of things and they had had a few discussions, not about anything very important, but about social life and kinds of girls and boys and the “puritanic ideas” of some parents. That was Jack’s expression, and Betty had wondered if her own parentscouldbe a little too strict sometimes.
Anyhow, Jack was a nice friend. He had invited her to his birthday party at the Huxley new home and she certainly was going with him when he invited her. Chet need not think that he could tell her what society to choose. She had been to things with Budd and Brad and Chauncey through the year and she simply was not going to let Chet take her to every party the way it had been for a while. This would be an interesting party, for Jack had just told her that he was not inviting many from the high school. “It will be mostly from the old families that Mother knows,” he had said, “and you will receive a note from her. But I wanted you to be sure to save the date.”
Jack was waiting for her on the steps and joined her with a touch of his cap and that attentive way of bending over her that was so nice. Jack seemed to be considerably older than some of the junior boys. He must be all right! That story about his having been dismissed from the eastern school was all nonsense. Of course his mother wanted him near her!
Betty was so put out that when Jack asked her, as he had before, if she couldn’t ride down town with him and have something good, she recklessly told him “she’d love to,” though she knew that her mother was expecting her home at a certain time, or at least expecting to know where she was. Itwasnonsense. She would go home when she got ready. But shewouldtelephone her mother from wherever they went.
“All right, Jack, I feel in the humor to do something. I can’t telephone Mother from here now, but I can down town, can’t I?”
“Of course, if you want to. But it’s foolish in my opinion. My mother doesn’t expect to keep track of me.”
“Oh, well, my father says it’s safer nowadays. If I don’t turn up, they want to know where to start looking for me, you know.”
Betty laughed and so did Jack, taking with light hearts the conditions that we are now providing for the younger generations. Jack said something about turning out the police or calling up the hospitals and conducted Betty to where, on a side street, he had parked a small but shining little roadster. “Isn’t this a dandy now?” asked Jack as he helped Betty into the car. “It’s a new one. I’m not supposed to take it to school much, but I was going to get you into it if I could!”
“Are you a safe driver?” laughed Betty, settling back. She was glad that she did not have her books along this time.
“I’m a wonder,” said Jack, in the same light tone. “I’m also old enough to drive. What would you do, Betty? I’d like to get into business pretty soon, as my education has been more or less—um—interrupted. Yet college would be fun. I didn’t like that preparatory school and the old fellow at the head of it didn’t like me much, either. I’ll put in another year in high school, then decide.”
“If you can go to the university or to some college, Jack, I think you’d be almost foolish not to do it. It isn’t as if you were a poor student. You’ve brains.”
“Thanks, Betty.” Jack went a little faster than Betty really enjoyed, but he seemed to have perfect control of his machine and was skilful in traffic. “Are you going to the university?”
“I don’t know. Mother talks about sending me away for a year or two, to give me the experience, but that is only talk so far. Perhaps they can’t do it.”
“Go to the university and then I will. I’ll show you some good times.” Then Jack gave an impatient exclamation and shot around a car that was impeding progress. “See me get through that, Betty?”
“I think you took a chance, Jack.”
“A good driver can afford to take chances, and what’s life without a few chances?”
Betty felt exhilarated in the present but she knew that Jack’s philosophy was not a good one, and none of the boys she knew would have used in her presence the exclamation which Jack had employed. He did not apologize for it, either.
But Betty and Jack had much in common after all, for both were gifted mentally and there was much in school life to discuss. Jack took her to one of the most attractive tea rooms in the city and there Betty met another boy and girl whom Jack knew. They sat at the same table and had all sorts of delectable things of a variety that only school boys and girls, hungry from their last mental efforts, would choose. There was no good opportunity to telephone. Betty decided to let it go. Probably her mother would not worry, since she knew of the orchestra practice and other things that sometimes detained Betty.
She felt hesitant about ordering at Jack’s expense, but Jack insisted on a certain choice of the different possibilities. An immense club sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate “went to the spot,” the other girl said and Betty agreed with her, though she was more reserved in her speech. Only with Carolyn and her girl friends did Betty speak impulsively. But this girl was as free with both the boys and kept them all laughing with bright if not altogether refined speeches. Yet she was quite evidently from a home of wealth and intelligence, from the correct language she used, as well as from her gay dress.
“No, I’m out of school right now,” said Mabel Randall in answer to a polite question from Betty. “Yes, Tommy, angel that you are, I could eat another sandwich with you, very small, you know. I’ll have a Swiss chocolate sundae for dessert. That is pos-i-tive-ly all!”
Both boys bought a box of candy each as they escorted the girls to their respective machines. Tommy gave his immediately to Mabel, who carelessly murmured thanks, but Jack kept his under his arm till Betty was in the roadster, when he tossed it into her lap with a “There now, how’s that for a nibble or two? I’m going to give you a whirl through the parks before I take you home.”
“Oh, that would be lovely, Jack,” said Betty. “Everything is so pretty now; but really I can’t this time. Look at your watch and see how near dinner time it is, and Motherwillbe worried if I am late for that. I tell you what you do, Jack. I think Father will be ready to start home about now. Suppose you take me around to his office and drop me there.” Betty was thinking that she really preferred not to go through the late afternoon traffic with Jack, at the rate he drove. This was a great idea.
Jack demurred, but said that if she really wanted to go to the office he would take her there. “But I’ll not leave you unless your dad is actually there.”
That was a nice bit of thoughtfulness, Betty told him; and when they reached the office building after finding a convenient place to park, Jack took the elevator with her and in a few minutes was introduced to Betty’s father. That Jack made a good impression upon him was quite evident, though it was Mr. Lee’s custom to be cordial to Betty’s friends.
“If it isn’t according to rules for Betty not to report at home right after school, Mr. Lee, blame me. I persuaded her that she was tired enough of school and practice to take a ride down town in my new roadster. She couldn’t resist it when she saw it—could you, Betty?”
“It is certainly a little beauty, and I did want to get away from books and everything. I left my violin at school, Father. We have another practice, right in the middle of schooltime!”
“I am glad to meet you,” said Mr. Lee to Jack, “and I thank you for taking care of my girl and delivering her safely. I hope to see you again.”
Jack, who was standing with his cap in his hand, gave Mr. Lee a comical smile. “I suspect you’ll be seeing a good deal of me sooner or later, sir.”
Then the lad left the office after shaking hands again with the older man who had offered his hand. “Now what, I wonder, did your friend mean by that!” queried Mr. Lee of Betty in a teasing pretense of not understanding.