Billie Bradleyawoke next morning with the same curious weight upon her spirit. Her mental depression was augmented by bodily discomfort that had grown no less overnight.
Every muscle in her body was strained and there were big, black bruises on her arms and legs, some of them as big as the palm of her hand.
“Youwillgo picking goldenrod!” gibed Laura with sympathetic interest, watching Billie’s painful effort to dress herself. “Next time you feel in the humor to visit Goldenrod Point——”
“I’ll run the other way,” said Billie, with a grimace. “Bother! I wanted to get out on the courts for practice to-day.”
“From the look of those arms and legs, it will be many a day before you can swing a wicked racket, Billie,” observed Vi. “Here, I’ll help you with that stocking. Give me a chance to show what an excellent lady’s maid I’d make.”
Between them, they managed to get Billie dressed in time for breakfast. It was not until the bell rangand there was a general exodus into the corridors from the dormitory that Laura broached the subject that was uppermost in the minds of them all.
“How about this lion cub from Arizona——”
“Oklahoma,” Billie corrected, a trifle frigidly.
“Well, Oklahoma, then. You aren’t really going to wish her on the crowd, are you, Billie? If you insist, the girls will take her up for your sake, but there will be trouble. I feel it in my bones.”
“I have no intention of wishing her on anyone,” retorted Billie coldly. “The girl saved my life and I am going to help her to be happy here at Three Towers Hall, if such a thing is possible. You girls may do as you like.”
Vi put an arm about Billie’s shoulders.
“Don’t be sore, Billie. If I can’t share your enthusiasm for this wild girl from the West, I am quite willing to admit that you are probably right and I’m wrong. Anyway, perhaps it’s worth giving it a whirl.”
With such tepid support, Billie was forced to be content.
On the way to the breakfast hall they passed Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks. The latter called to Billie and reminded her jeeringly not to forget that she had a date with Debsy at ten o’clock that morning.
Billie flushed and pressed her lips tight together to prevent a sharp retort.
“Some people never get enough,” she said in a low voice to Laura and Vi as they entered the dining hall. “So far we have beaten Amanda and her Shadow at every game they have ever tried to play with us, and still they come around looking for more trouble.”
Across the length of the hall, Billie’s eyes sought and found Edina Tooker. A look flashed between the two girls that was observed by more than one curious pair of eyes in that room.
Billie’s look seemed to say:
“Hold on! Have courage. I am going to fulfill my promise.”
While Edina, still a figure of fun in her outrageous clothes, seemed to respond:
“I’m depending on you. Don’t fail me. You’re my only hope.”
That was the beginning of a period of acute discomfort for Billie Bradley.
It began with Miss Debbs’ decision to give Billie two demerits, instead of one. Billie could never quite understand the reason, except that Miss Debbs was thorough in everything she undertook, including her methods of discipline.
Billie knew that the punishment was too severe, totally out of proportion to her fault. For a time she even considered taking her grievance to Miss Walters, the white-haired, gracious head of ThreeTowers Hall, adored by the girls and universally respected for her fine sense of justice.
Billie finally decided against this, however, accepting the unjust punishment with mental reservations and the determination to earn no more demerits during the remainder of the fall term.
To add to Billie’s discomfort, Edina took to following her about like a humble and adoring shadow. Unpleasant Edina could be, and often was—snappish and curt, even downright rude—but never so to Billie. Her outspoken devotion was embarrassing; yet, in her secret heart, Billie could not but be gratified by it.
Edina was known among the girls as “Billie’s little lamb,” or “Billie’s lion cub.”
If Billie was sensitive to the only partially disguised amusement that followed them wherever they went, Edina was even more so.
She noticed, even before Billie did, that subtle drawing off of the other girls, even from their adored Billie. Edina spoke of this one day, in her clumsy, blundering way.
“You’re gettin’ yourself in a heap of trouble, tryin’ to be nice to me. I seem to make trouble for every one I—like. I’d best go back to Oklahoma to Paw and Maw and leave you in peace.”
“Nonsense!” said Billie, eying her protégé sharply. “You aren’t getting cold feet at this late date, are you?”
Edina shook her head.
“No, I’m willin’ to stick. The girls ain’t been so mean since you’ve been nice to me. I’m gettin’ some book learnin’, too,” the round face shone suddenly with eagerness. “I don’t do so bad in my classes.”
“You are doing splendidly,” Billie encouraged her. “I was speaking to Miss Arbuckle about you yesterday, and she said that if all her students were as eager to learn as you, her task would be much easier. She was as pleased as punch with you, Edina.”
The girl’s face beamed with a sudden radiant happiness.
“That sort of makes up for all the rest,” she said eagerly.
Edina in this mood was very attractive to Billie. She eyed her with sympathetic interest for a moment, then said curiously:
“You’ve something on your mind, Edina. Out with it!”
“I was thinkin’ about you,” returned the girl hesitantly, stammering and flushing as she spoke. “The girls you go around with don’t like me. Oh, it don’t take a microscope to see that,” with sudden bitterness, as Billie made a negative gesture. “And because you’re nice to me they—they are sort of drawing off from you, too.”
Billie was startled. In a vague way she hadnoticed some such thing herself. Was her friendship for Edina Tooker imperiling her popularity?
When she did not speak, Edina continued:
“You’ve been the most popular girl up here. It didn’t take a microscope for me to see that neither—either. There’s no use your sp’ilin’—spoilin’—all that for me. I’d best go back to Oklahoma, like I said.”
Billie roused herself. She laughed and her mouth compressed itself into a rather fierce straight line. This was Billie Bradley’s “fighting face.”
“I think you are wrong, Edina. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. But if there’s a chance in the world that you’re right—then I want to know it. Don’t you see? I’d simply have to be sure!”
Edina was watching her with a half-fearful eagerness.
“Then you mean——”
“I mean we will go ahead with our plans just as we planned them!” said Billie. She jumped to her feet with swift decision. “I have already spoken to Miss Walters about a shopping tour to Fleetsburg.” Fleetsburg was the next town to Molata, a fairly cosmopolitan place with several large stores and a theater. “Some of the girls want to go to a matinée and Miss Arbuckle is to chaperone them. We are to go in the school bus and may have the whole day to spend as we like. We will buy clothesand other pretties till we’re weary. You and I, Edina Tooker, are going to have a very large time!”
Edina caught her breath. The wistful longing in her round, red face was pitiful to Billie. She caught Billie’s hand and squeezed it hard.
“You’re awful good to me. Seems like I never thought anybody could be so good.”
“No thanks, please!” cried Billie gaily. “Anyway, my work will bring its own reward. When we return to Three Towers Hall to-morrow you are going to be everybody’s ideal of what a perfect, modern schoolgirl should be!”
Edina’s gratitude, her eager anticipation, warmed Billie’s heart. She carried her mood of elation to bed with her and woke with it in the morning.
“To-day is going to be one of the most interesting I have ever lived through,” she thought. “The look on the girls’ faces when they see my new edition of Edina will be worth all the trouble. Only,” her face clouded, “I wish Laura and Vi could share the fun with me.”