CHAPTER VIISENIORS!
Could it be possible that the short summer was over? The Lee family had exchanged news and experiences and made ready for a busy school year. Dick, whose new name for the family was the “Foxy Five,” had changed most of all since his summer at camp. All at once Dick seemed to have grown up and to be as old as his twin, who had shown an earlier maturity. He was rather heady and important upon his first arrival, but had calmed down somewhat by the time of school’s opening. He and Doris rather took the house, to use their father’s expression, and regaled their parents with stories of camp life. They took a mild interest in Betty’s trips and spent some time together in arguing over camp matters, or comparing notes on canoeing, swimming and the like.
And now here they all were, in the same old scramble to get to school on time.
“It seems to me,” said Mr. Lee, “that Betty might be more simply dressed for school.”
He and Mrs. Lee were standing before the wide window of their front room to watch Betty, Doris and Dick start to school. Amy Lou’s active little figure had already disappeared around the corner as she hurried off to the grade school, near enough to be reached by walking. There Amy Lou would be in the advanced class and felt very old indeed.
The September morning was quite warm. Both girls wore cool, light frocks and had taken great pains with their toilets; and Betty, as Doris had told her, did not look as “schoolish” as usual.
The three were talking and laughing as they swung their books and walked with light, rapid steps toward the usual corner, where they would catch the street car. Mr. Lee sometimes drove them to school; but this morning he was working out something at home before going to his office. Betty carried a new, shining brown brief-case. Doris had a gay bag. Dick swung his books from a strap.
In spite of Mr. Lee’s critical remark, the paternal eyes that followed the three were fond and smiling. Mrs. Lee laughed a little, as she linked her arm in that of her husband and smiled up at him. “Betty is a little more dressed up than usual, Father, I will admit. But there is the first auditorium session this morning and Betty for the first time will sit in the senior section!”
“Ah!—I understand. No further explanation is necessary.”
“She can be a senior only once in this big school,” reflectively added Betty’s mother. “I hope the child will have a happy year.”
“And not kill herself with all she wants to do,” finished Mr. Lee, “but I insist on the honor roll.”
“Betty’s pride will keep her on that. We’ve talked things over, Betty and I; but by this time we have found out that there is no way of settling things beforehand. I’m not going to waste any time or energy in worry.”
“Good!” laughingly returned Mr. Lee. “See that you keep to that resolution. Doris is going to be more of a handful than Betty, for she has great ideas sometimes and is more impulsive—ready to try anything new. And Dick—I shall have to be a good father this year and keep an eye upon what companions he has, any new ones. Perhaps I can get out to some of the athletic events with him. I understand he’s going to try to get on some team or other.”
“Is that so?” queried Mrs. Lee, rather dismayed. “Get us an extra supply of liniment then!”
Meanwhile, Amy Lou had reached her school and her young friends. The other three were on a crowded street car, full of high school pupils, sitting and standing. Ignorant of their parents’ plans for oversight, they were naturally and properly filled with anticipations of the day or making their own plans for the interesting program of events and activities that lay ahead.
Betty was not a little excited and happy over her new dignity as a senior. Had she entered upon it unprepared, she might have been confused. But three years in the large and well-organized high school of which she was so proud and to which she was so loyal, had made her entirely at home there. Now their classes had the opportunity to lead and give tone to affairs. In some respects they must show what they could do. This morning, taking their places in the large, central senior section was the source of some thrills indeed. And boys and girls who had successfully passed through the first three years of high school had some reason to be proud. Senior complacency is another thing; but life has a great way of taking that out of all of us.
This morning, as the crowds of young people filled the doors and swarmed up the aisles of the assembly hall, Carolyn, who was ahead in Betty’s small group of friends, deliberately stepped back at the row of seats toward the front that was vacant, and gently pushed Betty in first. “This is all right for this morning, isn’t it?” she asked Kathryn, who was next. “We want to hear everything.”
Betty gasped a little, for she knew that if she went in first she would have to sit next to some boy coming in from the right hand aisle. It was understood that the boys had the right half of the senior section; the girls, the left. But the girls were pushing into the seats behind her, so with no choice she obeyed Carolyn. Gwen was there, too, and Kathryn was sending her in after Carolyn. It had happened, and Gwen was a conditional senior in Lyon High.
“You clever old skeezicks!—making me go in first!” Betty paused a little to say this in Carolyn’s ear.
But Carolyn only grinned, then had the grace to change expression as she said, “Betty, I’m sorry! Look who’s coming.”
Betty looked, glanced back at the crowd of girls following and sat down in a seat not quite midway, only to hop up again as she saw that the whole row must be filled. “Oh, it’s all right, Caro’. I’ll not mind.”
Nonchalant, as nattily dressed as ever, Ted Dorrance had appeared in his most effective suit, better looking than ever. Jack Huxley came toward Betty, stopped in the exact middle of the row and looked down at her from a somewhat superior height.
“’Lo, Betty,” said he in friendly fashion.
“Hello, Jack,” she responded. She sat down, tucked her books under the seat and rose again to wait till the principal was ready to lead in the salute to the flag, with which every assembly session began.
Carolyn, repentant, began to talk to her, but Gwen was asking questions on the other side of Carolyn. They were early. The room was not yet full.
“Have a good vacation, Betty?” asked Jack.
“Ever so nice,” replied Betty.
“You didn’t know that I saw you, did you in the East?”
“No—where?” Betty looked up wonderingly. It was pleasant to have Jack rather friendly, but the memory of that experience at his birthday party and of her necessary frankness to him about it later was not a happy one. And for him it had doubtless been more annoying. Well, she couldn’t help it.
“I was with a party at an inn on a little Maine lake. We were just leaving when you drove up. I knew some of your girls, but only the Dorrances and Larry Waite of the boys.”
“Oh—yes—I remember. But I didn’t see you at all. Of course I wasn’t looking for any one that I knew. I didn’t look at you and not speak, did I?”
“No. One of the boys was out and snapping a picture of you all in the car.”
“Oh, that was Archie Penrose! Funniest thing—we met the Penroses on the way East. I was with the Gwynnes, motoring. We all got acquainted, of course, and they said they were thinking of moving here. Then we were together in a lot of fun in Maine; Kathryn and I motored to Boston with them, and I never knew at all that Mr. Penrose was considering going into the same firm my father’s in, not until I was home and Father asked me ‘who are these Penroses you talk about? There’s a man by that name in the firm now!’”
“Probably Penrose was undecided and not talking about it,” Jack suggested.
“That was it—so Father supposed. And Father was awfully busy in New York, too full of his own affairs to listen to my babblings. And probably I didn’t babble to him much, either.”
Betty was babbling now and knew it. She had always tried to be as friendly to Jack in public as would ordinarily be natural.
Some thought of the sort seemed to occur to Jack. All at once he bent toward her and said, “You’re a peach, Betty Lee. I’ve forgiven you.” He said it with a laugh and turned to speak to the boy standing on his other side.
Betty sighed with relief and turned to Carolyn; but a hush fell over the assembly and all eyes were on the principal and the flag.
Busy, pushing hours followed. After all, there was something good about being at work. You were getting somewhere and there wasn’t any time going to waste!
After school some of the girls were playing hockey and a number were at the tennis court. There, tired after games, a group of the reunited seniors were gathered. On a grassy elevation, heels dug into the slight incline, Betty, Carolyn and Mary Emma Howland were recovering breath from their last effort.
“One thing,” Mary Emma was saying, “about playing hockey with seniors is that they know how to play by this time and you’re not in danger of having some girl swing her stick over her head and give you a side swipe!”
That amused Carolyn Gwynne. “Did I ever hit you when I was a freshman, Mary Emma?”
“Never, Carolyn.Youdon’t get excited when you’re learning anything. Who beat at tennis?”
“Betty beat, you might know,” laughed Carolyn, looking at her recent opponent. “But I don’t care. I can play tennis all right and I occasionally beat even Betty.”
Betty was too pre-occupied just now to do more than give Carolyn a smiling look. The two girls understood each other.
Kathryn Allen now strolled up with Gwen Penrose and Betty hopped up, saying that she forgot to tell Gwen to save a certain date for “something doing.” And as Betty moved toward the girls, near at hand, Mary Emma said softly to Carolyn, “Remember, Carolyn, that we simply must have Betty as President of the G. A. A. this year. I’ve got to talk to you about it. Mathilde has something started already about it and there is another girl that would like to be it.”
“Mathilde! Why, she couldn’t do it any more than a—rabbit!”
“Mathilde has some following, Carolyn, and she is a sorority girl. I doubt if Mathilde could get it herself, but she might fix it up so Betty couldn’t divide the vote and—you know—get a ‘second best’ girl in to keep Betty out, even if she couldn’t get it for herself.”
“Does she dislike Betty that much?”
“She has always been jealous of her.”
“By the way, does anybody know whether Lucia Coletti is coming back or not? Betty hadn’t heard at last accounts.”
“Well, Betty would be the first one. I wish she would come back. She and Peggy Pollard have a good deal of influence with the sorority girls. I sometimes think Betty should have gone in. She had the chance, I know, with the Kappa Upsilons.”
Carolyn did not reply to this, and Betty was turning back with the girls, who selected a grassy seat and dropped down to join their friends. “Can you realize it, girls?” queried Kathryn. “We’re actually seniors at last!”
“Let’s have a club,” suggested Betty. “I was thinking about that just before you and Gwen came up.”
“Another club?” asked Carolyn. “Seems to me Lyon High needs most anything more than any new organization.”
“I didn’t mean a big club. I mean a little club of our own, not a sorority and not exactly secret; but just to get together sometimes, for fun and to plan things if we want to.”
“A secret caucus!”
“That’s it, Kathryn,” laughed Betty, who had no such intention at all. “We could have it a hiking club or a swimming club or even a literary club—for collateral reading.”
“Now wouldn’tthatbe wonderful!” cried Carolyn, as sarcastically as generous Carolyn ever could manage. Betty giggled.
“Think of the time we’d save, reading together,” suggested Mary Emma, in pretended sincerity.
“No,” urged Betty, “but here we are together this year for the last, maybe. Carolyn’s going East to school, Mary Emma’s folks may move to California, I don’t knowwhatI’m going to do, and anyhow we’ve this grand senior year together. Besides, what’s the matter with taking a book along if we go on a picnic together and having—Carolyn, who is soso enthusiasticabout the literary idea—read us some famous poem, or whatever they give us this year? Somebody think up a name for it, though if you all don’t want it, I’m too lazy to urge it.”
“I think that the Hiking Hoodlums or some pretty name like that would be least revealing of our real object,” giggled Mary Emma.
“Lovely,” assented Betty. “We can consider that suggestion. By the way—I ought to get home before too late. I called up Mother at noon about something very important—a change in my schedule, and she told me that a letter from Lucia had come and was ‘waiting for me!’ I hope it is to tell me that she’s coming back to Lyon High, don’t you!”
The assent was general and emphatic. “I was just talking to Carolyn about Lucia,” said Mary Emma. “Do call us all up and tell us the news after you have read it.”
“I will if I have time,” promised Betty. “Come on, seniors. Let’s make up a senior song of our own and sing it on the first hike of the Happy Hoodlums.”
“Oh, Betty!” cried Carolyn. “You wouldn’t really have such a name for a club, would you?”
“Unless you promise to read poetry to us,” threatened Betty.
“I don’t know which would be worse,” laughed Carolyn.
In high spirits the senior girls separated; but Mary Emma caught up with Betty before they left the grounds. “By the way, Betty,” said she, “wasn’t it terribly dramatic and wasn’t Ramon Balinsky simplythrilledto find out that his mother and sister were living?”
It was all Betty could do not to show her surprise and a certain dismay at this speech from Mary Emma. “Gwendolyn Penrose told meall about itthis noon at lunch,” Mary Emma added.
“Why no, Mary Emma,” said Betty. “You would expect it to be dramatic, I know. But you see Ramon was so nearly dead when the boys told him, partly to rouse him, Ted said; and when he finally took it in, he was by himself, I suppose, though the boys would never make a big story of it anyhow. But you must be careful, Mary Emma, not to tell about it, because Ramon had to go after that man, he said, and they might worry if they knew. So we’re not telling his mother and sister yet, because he asked us not to.”
“I think that’s all nonsense,” said Mary Emma, “but I won’t tell anyhow. I promised Gwen I wouldn’t. And isn’t Gwen Penrose an addition to the class and our crowd! Everybody that meets her likes her so far.”
“Gwen is nice, Mary Emma, and you must meet her brothers. One is a real artist already. They’re just getting settled now. And what do you think? We may move, the first of the month to a whole house instead of an apartment. Father and Mother are looking, to decide now. It is a terrible undertaking, but it will be wonderful to have more room. If we do, I’m going to have a party first thing!”
But Betty wondered, on her way home, how in the world, with all the people knowing about it that did, “the facts were to be kept from Mrs. Sevilla and Ramona Rose.” That was what Ramon had called his sister, Betty remembered.
CHAPTER VIIIONE OF THOSE A-D PARTIES
“It will probably not reach them very soon, Betty,” comfortably said Mrs. Lee when Betty expressed her concern over “the way Gwen was telling the girls” about Ramon. “Moreover, that is a risk that Ramon runs, not you, by his request and not sending them word himself. Other people can only try to be considerate. So far as I am concerned, I should prefer to know all about my children, to bear the trouble with them if necessary. Never keep anything frommewith the idea of sparing me, Betty!”
“All right, Mamma. We’ll probably need you too badly to do any stunts of the sort!”
Betty was soon in the midst of Lucia Coletti’s letter, running excitedly to find her mother again after she had finished reading it. “Why, Mother, sheiscoming! Isn’t that great? And moreover she said that she might get here before the letter.
“See—it’s mailed at Milan. They were in Switzerland for the hot weather, but when they decided to have Lucia come to finish her senior year at Lyon High, she and her mother ‘ran down to Milan’ to their ‘palazso’ for some things Lucia wanted and Lucia might just go right on and sail as soon as she was all packed up. It all depended on what reservations or accommodations or whatever you call it they could get on a steamer. That also made it uncertain what route she’s coming by, whether from Naples or Cherbourg or what. Here, read it Mother. It’s a short one. She has stacks of things to tell me, she says.”
Mrs. Lee smilingly read the brief letter, enclosed in a noticeable envelope, very elegant, Betty said, and having the “family crest” or some “Italian sign” on it. It amused Betty’s mother to hear her running comments as she read and she handed back the letter with the remark that Lucia had “not neglected to acquire some of the American vocabulary.”
“Certainly,” said senior Betty. “And she thinks about it when she writes tome!”
“I wonder what arrangements she will make here. I suppose she will stay at her uncle’s. If you like to invite her to be with you, Betty, part of the time or for any visit, we could manage it. We have just decided, your father and I, to take the house we looked at this afternoon. I’m almost sorry that it could not be the one out in the same suburb as the Gwynne’s your sake, or the one Mrs. Dorrance recommended, not very far from their fine place. But this seems suitable in every way. The only one of your friends that I know lives anywhere near is Marcella Waite—though our place is much more modest. Marcella is not in your class, of course, but I understand that she is to attend the university.”
“Yes, she is not to be away from her mother this year. And besides, Marcella does not want to leave the crowd that’s going to the university this year. Why, Mother, it does not matter about living near Carolyn. We see each other every day at school and at other times, too, though it would be convenient to be near. I am crazy to see the house. Did you just find it for the first or is it one you looked at?”
“Just discovered it. It is for sale, too, and after living in it a while to try it out, so to speak, we might buy it.”
“Oh, Mother! Then it wasn’t a mistake to come to the city?”
“Your father is doing very well now,” said Mrs. Lee with her customary reserved way of putting things.
This decision and the immediate prospect of change was even more exciting than the news from Lucia. Betty expected to call up her friends as she had almost promised, but not until more of her curiosity had been satisfied in regard to the new home. Would they sell the old home at Buxton? No, that was to be kept. It was well rented now. Would they have to have much new furniture? Very little. They would add good furniture as it seemed advisable.
“Our oldest things are the best, Betty, you know, the ‘antiques’ that Mrs. Dorrance admires so much. And I think I can persuade one of my friends in Buxton to let me have some that she has, at a fair price. I happened, too, to think of old Mrs. Buxton, for whose family the town was named—and she has no one to leave her things to—she has closed her house, I think, and has a tiny apartment in Columbus, with some one to take care of her.”
In great enthusiasm Betty called up Carolyn first. Good news was always shared first with her, though Kathryn was “a close second.”
“Yes, Lucia is actually coming! Isn’t that wonderful? I can scarcely wait to hear all about it,” said Betty at the telephone, outlining Lucia’s letter after this burst of rejoicing. “And we’re moving, and I haven’t yet seen the place! Mother and Father just found the house they want.”
Carolyn naturally wanted street and number and the conversation was so prolonged that some one who wanted the line impatiently took a receiver off and replaced it several times, till Betty realized the situation. “Somebody wants the line, Carolyn, so I’ll have to ring off. So long.”
After dinner that evening, Mr. Lee, who had a key to the recently rented house, drove his interested family around to it. Betty was secretly not particularly sorry to have the new home in the suburb that held the Waite home. She had always liked Marcella very much, even if she were not intimate and had not joined the sorority to which Marcella belonged. Then, to be sure, there was Larry! But Betty did not mention him when Doris on the way was saying that with Chet “so attentive to Betty” it would be better for him if they had taken “that house Mrs. Dorrance wanted us to have.” Doris had seen that.
“I fancy that if Chet wants to see me he will be able to find us,” demurely said Betty to Doris. “And, you know what pretty trees and big yards they have out near Marcella.”
Doris nodded assent and approval began to increase as Mr. Lee drove into a comparatively quiet street and drew up before an attractive place in the middle of the square or block. “We’ll be more peaceful in the center of things,” said he. “Our yard is wide and fairly deep and you see that pretty little wooded ravine at its end? There aresomeadvantages about a city with hills. There is room enough for Amy Lou to slide down hill in winter, though the land does not all belong to this place. It is shared by the various owners.”
It was fascinating to go into the house with its vacant and echoing rooms and halls. It was modern, comparatively new, and with enough bedrooms! Dick said that it would be pretty foxy to have a “real room” of his own instead of the “den.” Doris and Betty could now have separate rooms and Amy Lou was to have a small room perhaps intended only as a dressing room. But she was happy over it. “What shall we do when Amy Lou grows up?” asked Doris, though executing a lively dance with Betty about the empty room that was to be hers.
“I think we need not worry about that,” replied Mr. Lee. “From present indications I should say that if we keep both our older girls till that happens we shall do well.”
“Father!” cried Betty, giving Doris a whirl and stopping the evolutions.
“I think I’d like Betty’s room,” soberly said Amy Lou, “when she marries Ch——”
But Betty had clapped a hand over that pretty and mischievous mouth of her small sister. “Amy Lou, your imagination works overtime!”
Amy Lou struggled, but laughed. “Doris says that the girl Kathryn calls ‘Finny’ and Jack Huxley got engaged this summer. Senior girls do!”
“Not if they have any sense,” said Betty, but her mother shook her head at her. “What, Mother—doyouapprove? Is the world coming to an end?”
“I do not approve for you, Betty, or Doris,” said Mrs. Lee, much amused by the whole incident, “but I should not say that it is out of place forallgirls to marry early.”
“I shall remember that, Mrs. Lee,” said Doris, walking off with quite an air while Mr. Lee who had heard from the next room, came in to add his last contribution to the affair.
“See what you have done, Mother! But we’re going to have such a pretty home of it here that I defy any lad to carry off one of my girls for a while! Now come on into this other room for a moment, Mother, and tell me what furniture we need for it.”
“Silly!” Dick was saying to Doris. “Beforeyoulike anybody too much just let your old twin pick him out. I’m likely to know more than you do about the kids.”
Doris gave Dick a rather impertinent glance, then brightened, replying, “All right, provided you let me do the same for you!”
Betty, going into the upstairs room which would be hers, stood there alone, deciding where the furniture should be placed, but she thought of what Amy Lou had said. Amy Lou dashed after her to say that she thought Betty’s room was the best bedroom of all because it overlooked the ravine at the rear. “I meant it, Betty,” she said earnestly, “but you mustn’t think that I want it for—oh, thelongesttime!”
Betty stooped, took the pretty face between her palms and kissed it. “That is all right, Amy Lou! Just please don’t pick out whom I’m going to marry yet, will you?”
Eyes as blue as Betty’s looked up and a golden mop of almost as bright as Betty’s hair was shaken back. “Yes, of course. You might change your mind, mightn’t you?”
“And perhaps I’ve never made it up at all,” whispered Betty.
Amy Lou nodded and went away, satisfied that she had had a confidence from that big sister of hers. Chet needn’t think Betty wondered where her sister had heard about “Finny.” But if there were anything in the report she would soon hear at school.
Long they tarried in the empty house and about the yard. There were flowers and shrubs and some pretty trees, beside those of the ravine, with its thickets and the one long track or path to the bottom. “May I have a party right away?” asked Betty, looking around at the large front room whose hall was almost a part of it, and the room which Doris said should be a library widely opening behind it. Doris and Amy Lou immediately asked the same question, till Mrs. Lee suggested that they move in first.
“Yes,” said she. “That is one pleasure for us in this roomy house. I plan some entertaining myself. You shall have your turn all of you, Dick, too.”
It was dark when at last the Lees reached home; and Betty, though called by lessons to prepare, remembered one more responsibility and ran to call up Marcella Waite.
“Oh, but I’m glad to have found you in, Marcella. Why, they’ve made me chairman of the committee for the A-D party, Marcella, and I thought I’d better ask you what you did. I missed the party when I was a freshman myself and now that we give it, I ought to know a few details. I asked one of the teachers about it after assembly this morning, and she said, ‘Oh, yes, one of those A-D parties,’ withsucha bored air that I thought I’d better ask somebody who might have a speck of enthusiasm. I suppose they do get tired of some things, though.”
Betty could hear Marcella’s low laugh. Then her friends briefly outlined the usual A-D program and wound up her remarks by saying that Larry would make a flying visit home before ‘college began.’ “I’ll have him drive over for you and bring you over for dinner,” said Marcella, “and then we can discuss A-D parties and other things. Will you come?”
“Will I? How soon does the university start, Marcella? All right. It will seem good to see Larry. What fun we all had this summer! ’Bye.”
CHAPTER IXTHE SENIORS ENTERTAIN
The A-D party was probably the first “official” senior duty, or pleasure, said Betty. It was the entertainment of the D class, or freshmen, by the A class, or seniors. By long custom it was celebrated at the beginning of the year and constituted a sort of initiation or adoption of the freshman class into Lyon High. There was nothing difficult about it and much that was sheer fun, including the refreshments. Oh, yes, it might be mentioned that it was confined entirely to the senior and freshman girls. No masculine member of the freshman class was ever asked to dress in more or less infantile fashion and so appear, at a party and even in some fashion that marked them, at least, during the day at school which preceded the party.
One morning, as Betty was getting her locker open, a shy, attractive little freshman girl came up to her. “Please, Miss—Betty Lee, are you too busy to tell me something?”
“Always ready to impart knowledge,” jokingly Betty replied, putting a book on the shelf of her locker and taking another out. “What can I do for you, Eileen? Did you get my invitation to the A-D party?”
“Yes—that’s it. Thank you so much for asking me to be your ‘little sister.’ I’ve felt better ever since to have a girl like you ask me.” The slight girl looked at Betty and continued.
“I thought I’d better ask you about it because I’ve heard so many things about what the freshman girls have to do, dressing up like babies and going around all day at school that way. And must we lookcrazy?”
“No,” laughed Betty, “just ‘cute,’ and while you are supposed to have some badge of childhood all day, you needn’t be dressed that way at classes. Bring whatever you are going to dress up in to school and put it in your locker. You have such nice hair—why don’t you have long curls and tie them with a ribbon. You would lookdarling!”
The rather worried face brightened. “Why, I used to have curls! I’ll just do it, Betty Lee. Thanks awfully.”
“You’ll make a hit in classes,” said Betty. “Excuse me, I’ll have to run. See me again if you have any doubts about anything.”
“That is Betty Lee,” explained Eileen to the freshman girl she joined on leaving the vicinity of Betty’s locker. “I justadoreher! She’s going to take me to the A-D party.”
“Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s averyprominent senior and wins swimming matches and everything.”
It was a pity that Betty could not hear this sincere freshman tribute, but as it was she was likely to be spoiled enough, if Betty could be spoiled, before her senior year was over.
“Girls,” Betty, chairman of the A-D entertainment committee, said that day after school, to an assembled few whom she had asked to stay, “there absolutely isn’t time to get up a real play or anything we have tolearn. How are we going to entertain the freshmen? Speak up, ladies, or else ‘forever after,’ and so forth.”
“Are we supposed to be the ‘cast?’” asked Mary Jane Andrews.
“You are.”
“Then I speak for a pantomime.”
This statement met with a general giggle from the seniors as well as some applause.
“What pantomime do youknow, Mary Jane?” severely asked Betty, rapping for order and pretending to glare at Mary Jane.
“Well—I don’t just think of one right now!”
“Why not give the Tragedy of the Lighthouse Keeper?” Selma Rardon suggested.
“Has that been given lately?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Who does know?”
“I know positively,” said Dotty Bradshaw, “what the seniors have done since we were freshmen ourselves. It’s always written up in theLyon Roar, you know. What they did back in the ages doesn’t concern us, you know.”
“Is it as old as that?” asked Carolyn.
“I’m sure I don’t know how old it is, but the freshmen could stand it if they’ve heard it before—I mean,seenit. It’s all in the funny costumes and acting anyhow and with the presentcastanything could be done.”
“Yes,” laughed Betty, “I’m afraid of that!”
At that the girls all claimed to be desperately offended and Kathryn said she was sure she could not act after such an implication.
“I take it all back. It was too good an opportunity to lose, Dotty. You are always getting things off on us. Well, now, shall we decide to take Selma’s suggestion? I’m just swamped with work and with Mary Jane and Mary Emma saying that they will see to ordering the refreshments and getting somebody to bring the ice-cream over to the gym, that is one load off. Now if we decide on this, one practice will be enough, just to know when to do what. Dotty, will you be director?”
“You don’t need a director, Betty. I’d rather be the villain. I have a lovely pirate costume of my brother’s.”
“Good. You’ll make a beautiful villain, then. Be sure your knife is made of pasteboard.”
“What else?” laughed Dotty.
“Do you think, Betty, that our freshman children ought to see such a pantomime?”
“We might change it, Carolyn, and have the lighthouse keeper only slightly injured and the villain caught. Carolyn,yoube director!”
“All right. I’d rather do that than act in that dizzy thing.”
Plans were at last all made, parts assigned, the time for the one practice in the gym set. Betty knew that she could count on these girls and went off to the next thing on hand as school girls do, dismissing all immediate responsibility.
The freshmen naturally took the event more seriously than their senior entertainers, for they were the ones who had to make themselves conspicuous all day at school. They blossomed forth in childish arrangement of hair as far as possible, if it were nothing more than wearing a hair ribbon, and that whether the children of the period wore hair ribbons or not. Bibs or wide collars were the order of the day. Sashes decorated otherwise ordinary dresses, though lockers were full of childish outfits.
As the freshmen girls much outnumbered the seniors, it was necessary for a senior girl to escort more than one freshman. And to the relief of the freshmen, they remained in the home room until called for, each senior doing her best to make her freshmen girls feel at ease and happy over the fun.
“We might call it a ‘tea dance,’” said Betty, as she escorted her two freshmen over to the girls’ gymnasium. “First we’ll have a bit of a program, a sort of welcome to the freshmen. Then there will be a silly little play; and then we’ll dance, and have refreshments. It’s easy gym dancing, you know. You look just lovely, girls! How in the world did I happen to pick two long-haired freshmen?”
Betty’s “baby sisters” did happen to have a taking arrangement of their hair. Eileen had long black curls, caught back at the proper places by ribbons, and the other, known as Ann, wore her hair in two tight brown braids. Although her hair was drawn straight back from her face, oddly enough the effect was becoming.
The first event was announced as the “Freshman Initiation” and little “ohs,” and “oh dear, how awful!” ran through the assembled freshmen. But the initiation turned out to be only a “Baby Parade” in which the freshmen marched in time to music and rather enjoyed showing off themselves and their funny costumes. There was also a ridiculous pledge read by one of the senior girls with great sobriety, hard to maintain amid the giggles and occasional shrieks of laughter from the freshmen who listened. All the ridiculous things that Dotty Bradshaw could think of were included in this freshman pledge, such as sweeping curtseys to the senior girls whenever they met them in the halls or on the street. But by some “oversight,” as Betty announced later, Dotty forgot to have the pledge passed to be signed.
Whether or not any of the freshmen had seen or taken part in a “Tragedy of the Lighthouse Keeper” did not appear to matter, for they laughed as heartily as could be desired. First appeared Selma as the lighthouse keeper, wearing a long coat and an ancient vest over her own dress. True, her pretty silk hose and low shoes looked a bit incongruous, but Betty had announced that imagination had a good deal to do with this pantomime.
The lighthouse keeper picked up his lantern and began to go around before the audience in large circles, gradually narrowing. His steps began to grow slower as he was supposed to ascend the circular stair to the light. And now, what was that figure that stealthily entered the outer circles, crept round and round and within the narrower circles gradually approaching the lighthouse keeper? Dotty, in full pirate costume, velvet knee breeches, sash and large pasteboard knife, painted red, was received with shrieks of delight, though Eileen said to Ann that it almost made her nervous to see them going round and round.
But every one’s imagination could picture the ascending circular stairs to the top of the lighthouse. Presently the dramatic moment came; the pirate pounced, and the lighthouse keeper lay stretched in the middle of the inner circles. Round and round, down the imaginary stairs, ran the pirate, with comical and shifty glances here and there and glaring eyes turned upon the audience—such expression as only Dotty could give. The pirate disappeared, presumably having satisfied a revenge “or something.”
Next came three happy children, hand in hand at first. These were the two Marys, Mary Emma Howland and Mary Jane Andrews, with Kathryn Allen, all dressed in extreme childish costume. They danced and cavorted before the audience and finally started upon the circles. Naturally, after climbing, with the usual change of gait as they rose higher and higher, they came upon the tragic figure of their father. With silent grief and much expressive action, the children performed their part, rapidly going “down” the circles once more.
More action. Another senior girl appeared, dressed in a disreputable old house dress. She hears the news, rather sees it in pantomime and starts up the stairs. Tragic action again. Down from the dizzy height in dizzy circles, whirling in her haste. The telephone, the doctor with his case, the ascent. Gwen Penrose made a good doctor and had great difficulty, puffing and panting, in making the “ascent.” Between them the wife and the doctor had to carry down the lighthouse keeper, the most difficult feat of all, and one which, shocking to relate, aroused neither sympathy nor sorrow in their audience. It was too ridiculous. And with this the pantomime suddenly ended, as it is supposed to end, though one freshman in front said, “Well, what next? How does it turn out?”
But Gwen, whisking off her cotton wrapper because it was too hot, overheard and laughingly replied, “It doesn’t turn out at all. That’s the end and the rest is left to the imagination.”
They were just serving the sandwiches when some one came, to stand in the door of the gym and look in. There was a rustle among those near the door and Betty Lee almost dropped the plate she was passing when she looked to see an easily poised, well-dressed figure in the door and recognized the black eyes and smiling face of—Lucia Coletti!
“Lucia!” cried several of the girls and in a moment Lucia was surrounded.
“I heard that you seniors were up to something, so we drove around and I came over here,” Lucia explained, to answer the “who, where and what” expressed and unexpressed by her friends. Then Betty insisted that she must meet all of the freshmen and clapped her hands for order. “I want you all to know one of our finest senior girls, Lucia Coletti, from Milan, Italy. Don’t forget how to pronounce her name, Loo-shee-a! And that you may appreciate your school all the more, let me tell you that her father and mother, Count and Countess Coletti, are letting her come to finish her high school course here because she wants a Lyon High diploma! Let’s give her a Lyon High cheer!”
Even the experienced Lucia was almost overcome at this, as in feminine treble seniors, and freshmen cheered. “Lucia, rah! Lucia, rah! Rah-rah—Lucia!”
“Oh, you Betty!” said Lucia, her face flushed; but she smiled at everybody and carried it off as best she could.
“Speech!” cried Dotty, her face full of mischief. “Speech! Speech!”
“All right,” said Lucia. “I might as well say something first as last, I suppose, Dotty. I am ever so glad to meet you freshmen and I am sorry that I could not get here in time for the whole entertainment. I almost wish I were a freshman, too, to have all the good times over again. Yes, Idowant a Lyon High diploma, and besides that I have made friends here that I can never give up in my whole life. I am pretty well torn to pieces between loving my own country and this one, too, but I believe that one can have—opportunities and friends everywhere!”
This was quite a long speech for Lucia. “If I had thought I’d have to say anything, I probably wouldn’t have come; but I just stepped right into Lyon High atmosphere, didn’t I? and it seemed natural.” So she told Betty presently. Lucia’s bit of Italian accent was a little more pronounced since having talked in her own tongue all summer, and it made quite an impression. She was new for most of the freshmen, but Eileen explained to Ann that she was Mr. Murchison’s niece and that she had been in America with her mother “for some reason or other” at the Murchison place and had attended Lyon High till the Count came for them.
“I imagine that Betty Lee knows her terribly well, or she wouldn’t have introduced her like that.”
Meanwhile Lucia’s special friends were making a fuss over her with which her father’s title had nothing to do. Mathilde, to be sure, was assiduous in her attentions.
“You’re here in time for ice-cream, Lucia,” said Dotty. “Mary Emma, hurry a plate of it around. Lucia is almost melted, but I hope the ice-cream isn’t.”
“The ice-cream is just right, Dotty,” firmly said Mary Emma and Lucia added, “Like every other senior attempt.”
“Good for you, Lucia. You are always loyal. How does it seem to be a senior?”
“Glorious! It may seem better after I get my work made up, though. What do you think, Betty? Mother and Father came over, too, deciding at the last minute and they are going to take an ‘all-American’ tour this fall, be here for Christmas, go to Florida, sail for South America, come back to see me graduate and take me home. That is, all that isplanned.”
The Murchison chauffeur, who came back to the school for Lucia, took a full load of girls to their different homes. Betty was the last to be delivered and Lucia had whispered to her, in the retirement of the back seat, “It’s just like one continuous honeymoon with them now, Betty, and I am the very happiest girl you ever knew. A lot of it is due to your good advice, Betty.”
“Nonsense!” said Betty. “You would have seen what to do anyway.”
“I’m not so sure.”
CHAPTER XTHE COVETED HONOR
Being President of the Girls’ Athletic Association, or “G. A. A.” would be no light undertaking; but there was not a girl of those particularly interested in some athletic line who would not consider it a great honor to be chosen for the post. At times some girl would be openly “out for it.” Others waited to be suggested by their friends.
This year the election of a president was likely to be accompanied by some “lobbying.” Betty Lee was not the only outstanding girl in the association, and then there were a few who would have been quite willing to accept the honor while not likely to offer their best service. Of these the most noticeable was Mathilde Finn, always desiring first place, of a certain ability, but selfish and unstable.
In her heart Betty Lee knew that she would be happy to have her friends elect her. She had plans for the G. A. A., yet she was modest enough to concede that at least two other girls might do as well for the association. Then it would be a relief not to carry such responsibility, to have only her regular work with what she wanted to “get in” this last senior year.
To Betty the swimming, as usual, was of first importance, and all the more so since her summer with its opportunities at the shore and at camp, where her prowess made quite an impression. She was pleased to think that both Dick and Doris were now excelling in that line, too.
Riding was a comparatively new ambition. At least she could “stick on” a horse as she had on her grandmother’s farm and more recently at camp. But she was meaning to ride properly by the end of this year, and her intention was strengthened, it must be said, by Larry Waite’s having suggested that they must ride together “next summer.” Lucia, also was a fine horsewoman. If she ever did have the opportunity, as Lucia insisted, of a visit to her in Italy, she would want to know how to manage a horse and how to ride with grace.
She could play all the games, but she preferred to do it as she liked and to keep off a regular class team this year. But perhaps she could not refuse altogether. They were after her to lead the team in field hockey. Basketball was taboo as last year, by parental request.
None of the girls’ games ever became as professional as the boys’ football and basketball with their inter-school games. Yet there was great effort and much rivalry between classes as well as a great deal of fun. If Bettyshouldaccept the probable opportunity of leading the team in hockey, the senior team shouldbeat, she thought to herself!
To have her own room was going to be a great help in her lessons. With the school study halls and regular hours at home, she could handle her schedule of senior studies, for Betty was quick at her lessons. The new home would be nearer Lyon High, too, as it happened. Not so much time to be wasted on street cars.Couldshe keep up being in the orchestra, too? Oh, shemustdo that!
Most of these problems she talked over with Carolyn and Kathryn, for they, too, had their own problems. But they did not take them too seriously. It would all come along some way!
“I expect to be at school till four or five o’clock practicing something or other most days, Mother,” she informed Mrs. Lee. “So don’t worry. If I do get home it’s so much gained. I imagine it’s a good thing Chet’s in the university now. There won’t be anybody to dawdle around with between times.”
Mrs. Lee did not look much impressed with this statement, for it was quite likely that there would be some one yet to take an interest in Betty Lee. “Most of your hikes and picnics will be on Saturday, I suppose,” she suggested and Betty assented.
“We girls, the ‘Happy Hoodlums,’ or something like that,” she said, “are having a hike right away, and the G. A. A. is to have a big picnic again very soon.”
While the G. A. A. election was still to take place and discussions and suggestions and urgent appeals for candidates were rife, the almost greater excitement of the exodus and “in-o-dus,” a word of Dick’s coining, occurred. They all thought it “terrible” that it had to happen in school time, but Mrs. Lee, good manager that she was, told them not to get upset about it. She gave them cartons, in which they could pack the odds and ends and various treasures, and told them to be sure that they had the books they wanted in their lockers at school. “Now goodbye, kiddies mine,” she said on Friday morning. “When you come home this afternoon—come to the new address!”
“Gee, Mom—I bet I forget,” said Dick.
“It was wonderful,” Betty told the girls on the hiking club expedition Saturday afternoon. “We did walk on almost bare floors for several days, because Mother sent the big rugs to the cleaners; but there, we left everything almost as usual, and after a while regular spiffy movers came, and when we went after school to the new place, there were the big rugs all down and all our furniture and things in place and Mother, with a woman to help, arranging the ‘pots and pans!’ It was all newly decorated anyhow, and Mother had had a man and a woman get the new place ready first before the move. Then Father left the car for her and a lot of the best china and ornaments and things went over that way, though they could have gone by truck, of course.
“I’ve worked all morning, getting my books in my own little book-case in my new room, and unpacking my trunk, and hanging my clothes in my own big closet. Oh, I’m crazy about it, and Mother says I may have the first party. You are all invited. I’ll have it after the G. A. A. picnic.”
Lucia, swinging the same alpenstock which had so interested Mathilde in times past, was an interested listener. “Betty,” she said, “you can make the most uninteresting things sound funny! Now I should think moving would be the last thing on earth!”
“Oh, but it is such fun to fix things,” cried Betty. “Mother and Father had the responsibility, of course, but Mother had plenty of help, so it could get done quickly, and I think she is just as excited as I am over it all. You see, Lucia, we may buy this place and have it for our very own.”
“Well, that is different, I suppose,” said Lucia, thinking of the oldpalaszoin Milan, that had belonged to the Coletti’s for ages. But here in America they moved as casually as anything, first to this apartment, then to that, or some of their friends did!
It was due to Betty’s morning at home that the hike had been put off till afternoon. In consequence they did not go far. On the banks of a little stream not far from a bus line which could take them home, they found a lovely spot for their little picnic supper. There they sat and told each other all about summer days, not forgetting great plans for their senior year. Kathryn was already the president of Lyon “Y” and made all the girls promise to do anything on a program they were asked to do.
“Just not too often, Gypsy,” suggested Betty, “but I’ll be at the meetings. We almost never have orchestra practice on that day and other things can be put off.”
“I’ll excuse you any time, Betty, for you’re going to be president of something else,” promptly returned Kathryn. “See if you aren’t!”
Betty knew what Kathryn meant and would not pretend that she did not, but she smiled and shook her head. “It is a great uncertainty, Kathryn, and anyhow I’m not sure that I can do it.”
“What do you mean, Betty?” hastily asked Mary Emma Howland. “You’ll run, won’t you if you are put up for G. A. A. president?”
“Yes, Mary Emma, and I think it is a compliment to have you girls want me to be it. But I hate it a little and I think that the result is very uncertain.”
“Oh, as far as that is concerned, you never can tell,” said Mary Emma. “We know that being Betty, you won’t work for yourself, but as for spreading ‘propaganda’——”
Mary Emma left her sentence unfinished to make a comical gesture, toward herself first, then including the entire group.
Lucia’s dark eyes sparkled. “Betty is the reliable head of anything,” said she, “besides being the prettiest swimmer in the school and having all sorts of honors to her credit. Where can I do the most good, Mary Emma?”
Mary Emma, delighted, clapped her hands. “Everywhere, Lucia, and particularly, I should say, with any new members among the freshmen. After that jolly speech of yours at the A-D party, Lucia, those nice little girls will lend an ear to anything you say.”
“Oh, girls, this sounds like—politics!” exclaimed Betty.
“Betty Lee, every one of us thinks that you will make the best G. A. A. president the school could possibly have. Why not show a little sense, then, and try to get you in?”
Betty was silenced more effectively by a large chocolate held to her lips by Mary Jane Andrews, and Gwen Penrose remarked, “I haven’t joined the G. A. A. yet. How do you do it? I forgot?”
“Mercy on me, Gwen,” cried Kathryn. “I forgot that you hadn’t seen to that. You can’t vote if you’re not a member! That will certainly have to be fixed at once. See me Monday, Gwen.”
Names like Happy Hoodlums, or Horrible H-Examples (suggested by Dotty Bradshaw) did not seem quite suitable for dignified seniors and were dismissed from their consideration. “We’ll be just a little G. A. A. hiking club, why not?” suggested Carolyn, to the satisfaction of everybody concerned.
Over this week-end Betty and Doris gloated over their respective rooms and arranged them to a least temporary satisfaction. It did seem so funny to take a different street car home, at times when some one did not give them a lift in a “real car.”
“I need pictures,” said Betty, looking at her walls; and as if in answer to her wish, there was a ring at the bell Sunday afternoon, late, and Mrs. Lee came to the foot of the stairs to call Betty.
“Lucia is here, Betty. Shall I tell her to come up?”
“Oh, please, Mother,” but Betty came halfway down the stairs to meet her friend.
Lucia was carrying a rectangular package and straightway handed it to Betty. “This is a contribution to your new room, Betty,” said she with a smile. “I thought about it this morning in church. It is only a print, Betty, in color, such as they sell at the galleries in Milan, but I had it framed for myself, to make me think of home, last year, and never put it up. It is Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, you know, from the fresco on the refectory wall in Milan. If you would like it, I have a pretty Madonna that I can have framed for you, too.”
“Oh, Lucia! Why it isn’t an hour ago that I was wishing I had just the right pictures! Thank you! I shall love it! But I can’t let you have anything more framed for me.”
“Why not? You will let me do something once in a while for myvery dearestfriend, won’t you?”
“Am I that, Lucia?” Betty asked, surprised and not a little touched. As they talked they were unwrapping the picture, but paused a moment.
“You are indeed, Betty,” earnestly said Lucia. “I can’t tell you how much you mean to me, though it didn’t look like it, did it? the way I didn’t write to you this summer!”
Lucia laughed and the sentimental moment passed, rather to the relief of both, though Lucia had intended to say that to Betty.
“I wish I knew all that you do, Lucia, about the wonderful old paintings and sculpture and everything,” sighed Betty, looking with pleasure on the appropriately framed reproduction of the famous work of art.
“Come home with me for our Sunday supper, Betty, and we’ll look through such things as I have with me and have a good talk. You can pick out your own Madonna!”
After selecting the proper spot upon which Betty would hang her gift, where the light would properly fall upon it, the two girls went down stairs to visit with the rest of the family a few moments and arrange for Betty’s carrying off.
“I had to see your new place, Mrs. Lee,” said Lucia, “and find my way to it. Doris, the next time Betty comes to dinner with me you must come, too. I haven’t realized that Betty’s sister was so grown up! My new auntie is very pleasant about telling me that I may have my friends, so I must begin.”
Betty had not had a glimpse of the Murchison home since she came back to the city after the summer’s trips. She would not have thought of it, of course, till after Lucia’s arrival. Now she met the very charming lady who was Mr. Murchison’s second wife and had a quiet visit with Lucia in her own room. They looked at pictures and Betty took the opportunity to tell Lucia all about Ramon’s recent experience.
“I thought you’d better know all about it, Lucia,” said she. “Imagine being anassistant‘unbeknownst’ to that sort of men! But he found out what they were really doing, of course, and planned to run away. Then that man got him! Maybe he would have been killed if the boys hadn’t found him! I hope it isn’t going to be hard for you not to tell Mrs. Sevilla and Rose. Anyhow, I thought I’d better tell you.”
“I’m used to keeping secrets, Betty,” returned Lucia. “It is just as well not to stir up poor old Mrs. Sevilla, though it’s odd—she does not seem so old now that she is comfortable. She is learning English, too. Could I tell Rose, do you think, if it seemed best?”
“Really, Lucia,Ishould think so. But that was Ramon’s request, that they should not hear about all this and get all worried about where he was and what they were doing to him.”
“I see,” thoughtfully said Lucia.
-----
The day of the G. A. A. “presidential election” arrived. Mathilde knew that she was out of the running, but she concentrated her efforts on one of Betty Lee’s two opponents, fine girls, both of them. Much pressure had been brought to bear by different groups and the meeting was a full one with old and new members present. The new members were particularly open to influence, but Betty’s friends had not been idle.
“I don’t believe I’ll come at all,” declared Betty, “and I simply won’t vote for myself!”
“All right, stay away, then,” laughed Mary Emma. “I’ve just got three new members of the freshmen and they’re all going to vote for you!”
“Maybe I’ll not be even nominated.”
“Maybe you will. I’m on the nominating committee myself and I know who’s going to be presented. There may be even more candidates than we have simply had to put up because of the requests; but there certainly won’t be less. We make our report and then I understand that opportunity will be given for more names to be presented if anybody wants them.”
“H’m,” said Betty. “Well, it isn’t the only thing on earth. I’ll come and not vote at all. To tell the truth, girls, I hate to beat anybody that wants it, and I hate to think that anybody has had to be asked to vote for me!”
“Elizabeth Virginia Lee, all that your friends have done is to call attention to your superior qualities as a leader and also performer in athletics. If you go in as our president it will be a mere tribute to your worth.” Mary Emma was laughing but she meant what she said.
Possibly the fact that Betty had recently been selected to be captain of the hockey team had something to do with it, but when the vote was taken Betty was elected. Her majority was not so much over the vote given to the other girls by their friends that it made her any enemies; and both of the other candidates came straight to her to tell her that they thought she was the one to have the office. Betty begged them to help her and said that she felt “aghast” at the prospect, which was true. But perhaps the incident that made her happiest among the congratulations was when one of the athletic directors came up to her in the hall.
“I am glad that the G. A. A. has chosen you, Betty Lee, for you are not only good in every sort of athletics you undertake but you have a sense of responsibility and carry out what you undertake. If you want any help, or suggestions, let me know. We shall have to call you into consultation about some features, you know. The election should have been last spring, you know.”
It was pleasant to have the faculty with her, Betty thought. She wondered if it were really true that she carried responsibility well. To tell the truth she had been planning to—or thinking that she must—neglect some things in order to carry out what she liked best. She would try to live up to what they thought of her, anyhow, and do the best she could.