"Oh, Miss Laura! Do you really mean it?" murmured Janet Steele, her full pink cheeks actually becoming white she was so much in earnest.
"Of course we mean it," Jess Morse said practically. "And glad to have you."
"I don't know--"
Janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced Lily Pendleton. Jess immediately pulled that young girl forward.
"Why, Lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared Jess, laughing. "This is our very particular friend, Janet Steele, Lil. You've got to treat her nicely. If you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go camping with us girls again as you did last summer. You and your Hester Grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves."
Really, Lily Pendleton had improved a good deal since the time Jess mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at once.
"Well, of course," she said, offering Janet her hand, "I did not mean it just that way. You know how cranky Hessie is when she does get mad. But Laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. Miss Steele as a Red Cross girl and Chet as Uncle Sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates."
So it was decided, and they hurried Janet down to the girls' boathouse, which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where Mr. Godey, the watchman, stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening skates. Laura found a pair of skates for the Red Cross girl, and for an hour the latter practiced with the girls of Central High the steps and figures of the masquerade parade, which Laura and her friends already had worked out to perfection.
"Don't worry a bit about to-night, Janet," Laura told her, when they all hurried away from the lakeshore about dusk. "We'll push you through the figures. Jess and I will be on either side of you, except when we pair off with the boys. And then you will be with my brother Chet. And if he isn't nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor.
"Oh, but Laura!" whispered Jess Morse, as they separated from Janet, "Chet mustn't be too nice to her. For Janet Steele is an awfully pretty girl."
"Now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient jealousy."
With only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. That Hester Grimes had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by Gee Gee troubled the girls of Central High less than they might have been troubled had it been almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited. For, to tell the truth, Hester Grimes was not well loved.
The daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, Hester had in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. With such rather shallow schoolmates as Lily Pendleton, Hester was successful. Lily toadied to her, to use Bobby Hargrew's expression; nor was Lily alone in this.
Upon those whom Hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits Hester possessed.
Hester antagonized almost everybody--teachers and students alike. Even placid, peace-loving Mother Wit, found Hester incompatible. And because Laura Belding was a natural leader and was very popular in the school, Hester disliked her and showed in every way possible that she would not follow in Laura's train. Yet there had been a time when Hester had felt under obligation to Laura.
Laura was secretly glad to see Lily Pendleton weaned slowly away from the butcher's daughter. The last summer had started Lily in the right direction, and although the overdressed girl had still some weaknesses of character to overcome, she had greatly improved, as this incident of the afternoon revealed.
Lily was not alone in complaining about Miss Carrington's harshness, however. It was the principal topic of conversation when the girls gathered in the boathouse rooms to prepare for the races and the features that were to precede the principal attraction of the carnival--the masquerade grand march.
"Sh! She's right here now," whispered Bobby Hargrew sepulchrally, coming into the dressing-room. "She's on watch at the door."
"Who?" asked Jess Morse.
"Not Hester?" cried Lily. "She told me she wouldn't come down here!"
"Gee Gee," shot back Bobby, with pursed lips. "She is going to be sure that Hester doesn't appear."
"Mean thing!" Nellie Agnew said. And when the doctor's gentle daughter made such a statement she had to be fully aroused. "She thinks she has spoiled the whole act!"
"I believe you," Bessie Yeager said. "I wonder if Miss Carrington really sleeps at night?"
"Why not, Bess?" cried Dora Lockwood.
"I think she lies awake thinking up mean things to do to us."
"Oh, oh!" murmured Nellie.
"I bet you!" exclaimed the slangy Bobby.
"Careful, girls. If she hears you!" warned Laura.
"Then you would be 'perspicuous au grautin,' as the fellow said," chuckled Bobby. "There! the whistle has sounded."
"The fête has begun," sighed Jess. "I do hope everything will go off right."
"The boys are taking in money all right," Laura said with satisfaction. "I believe we shall make a thousand dollars for the Red Cross."
"I hope so," said her chum. "Come on, girls! It's first the fancy skating before the ice arena is all cut up."
The effort to make the Ice Carnival of the Central High a success was aided by a perfect evening and perfect ice. The latter had been shaved and smoothed over every gnarly place. There was not a single crack in which a skate could be caught to throw the wearer. The arena roped off from the spectators was as smooth as a ballroom floor.
It was about two acres in extent. Around three sides of the roped-off space there was a roped-off alley with boards laid upon the ice upon which the spectators could stand. Uprights held the strings of colored lights which were supplied with electricity from the city lighting company; for this was not the first exhibition of the kind that had been staged upon Lake Luna.
Around the alley allotted to the audience, each member of which had to pay a half dollar for a ticket, was a guarded space so that those who did not pay entrance fee could not get near enough to enjoy the spectacle.
The short-distance races, following the figure skating, were all within the oval of the principal arena. Then the ropes were taken down at one end and the long-distance races came off, a mile track having been marked with staffs upon the ice, staffs which now held the clusters of colored lanterns.
For two hours the company was so well amused that few were driven away by the cold--and it was an intensely cold night The ringing of the skates on the almost adamantine ice revealed the fact that Jack Frost had a tight clutch on the waters of Lake Luna.
"I wish my mother could have seen this," Janet Steele murmured to Laura Belding. "I think it is like fairyland."
"Isn't it pretty? Now comes the torchlight procession. The boys arranged this their own selves. See if it isn't pretty!"
The short end of the oval had been closed again after the long-distance races, and now there dashed into the arena from the boys' lane to the dressing-rooms a long line of figures in dominos, each bearing a colored light. They were the boys that could skate the best--the most sure-footed.
Back and forth, around and around, in and out and across! The swift movement of the figures was well nigh bewildering; while the intermingling of colored lights, their weaving in and out, made a brilliant pattern that brought applause again and again from the spectators.
Then the boys divided, taking stations some distance apart, and the torches were tossed from hand to hand, as Indian clubs are tossed in gymnasium exercises. The effect was spectacular and seemed a much more difficult exercise than it really was.
Meanwhile the girls selected for the masquerade were dressing in the boathouse. Their masquerade costumes were as diverse and elaborate as though it were a ball they were attending. There was no dress as simple as Janet Steele's Red Cross uniform; yet with her glowing face and sparkling eyes and white teeth there were few more effective figures in the party.
She had proved herself to be a fine and strong skater. Laura and Jess, who sponsored her, were delighted with the new girl's appearance on the ice. She had learned, too, her part quite perfectly. When the girls first came out and the boys darted back to get into their fancy costumes, the summary of the figures the girls wove on the ice were already known to Janet. She fulfilled her part.
Then returned the boys, "all rigged out," Bobby said, and the masquerade parade began. The crowd standing about the arena cheered and shouted. It really was a most attractive grand march, and there chanced, better still, to be no accident. Smoothly the young people wended their way about the ice, their skates ringing, their supple bodies swaying in time to the music, led by those two masks of Uncle Sam and the Red Cross girl.
"It is lovely," Mrs. Belding said to her husband. "What a fine skater our Chetwood is, Henry. And it is so near Christmas! I hope that bank-note will turn out to be a good one so that he will not lose the money," she finished wistfully.
"There, there!" said the jeweler. "I'll go to see Monroe to-morrow. He's at home again."
"Well, Mr. Monroe," the jeweler said, when he was ushered into the banker's office the following forenoon by the bank watchman, "I presume that bill is a counterfeit of some kind?"
"My dear Belding," said the banker, who was a portly and jolly man, who shook a good deal when he chuckled, and who shook now, "I thought you were old enough, and experienced enough, to discover the counterfeit from the real."
"My son took the bill in over the counter," said the jeweler, rather chagrined.
"But haven't you examined it?" said Mr. Monroe, taking the strange bank-note from a drawer of his desk.
"Well--yes," was the admission, made grudgingly.
"And are you not yet assured?"
"Neither one way nor the other," frankly confessed the jeweler. "It was taken by Chet for a hundred-dollar bill. And it is that on one side!"
"It certainly looks to be," chuckled Mr. Monroe.
"But who ever heard of such a thing?" demanded the exasperated customer of the bank. "A hundred printed on one side and a fifty on the other! The printers of bank-notes do not make such mistakes."
"Hold on! Nobody is infallible in this world--not even a bank-note printer," said the banker, reaching into another drawer and bringing forth a large indexed scrapbook.
"Here's a case that happened some years ago. I am a scrapbook fiend, Belding," chuckled Mr. Monroe. "There were once two bills issued for a Kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. Only this note that we have here was printed for the Drovers' Levee Bank of Osage, Ohio, as you can easily see. This note went through that bank, was signed by Bedford Knox, cashier, and Peyton J. Weld, president, as you can see, and its peculiar printing was not discovered.
"Ah, here we have it!" added Mr. Monroe, fluttering the stiff leaves of the scrapbook and finally coming to the article in question. "Listen here: 'It was found on communication with Washington that a record was held there of the bill, and the department was anxious to recall it. With another bill it had been printed for a bank in Kansas, and the mistake had been made by the printer who had turned the sheet upside down in printing the reverse side. The first plate bore the obverse of a fifty-dollar bill at the top and of a hundred-dollar bill at the bottom, while the other plate held the reverse of both sides. By turning the sheet around for the reverse printing, the fifty-dollar impression had been made on the back of the hundred-dollar bill.'
"Do you see, now?" laughed the banker. "Quite an easy and simple mistake, and one that might often be made, only the printers are very careful men."
Oddly enough, Mr. Belding, although relieved by the probability that the Department at Washington would make the strange bill right for him, was suddenly attracted by another fact.
"I wonder," he said, "if that man came from Osage, Ohio?"
"What man? The one who passed the bank-note on your son?"
"Yes. You know, he was injured and is now in the hospital."
"I don't know. Go on."
Mr. Belding related the story of the accident and the unfortunate mental condition of the injured man. "They tell me all the money he had with him was new money--fresh from the Treasury."
"He probably did not make it himself," chuckled the jolly banker. "Poor chap! Don't the doctors think he will recover his memory?"
"That I cannot say," the jeweler said, rising. "Then you think I may relieve Chet's mind?"
"Oh, yes. I will give you another hundred for this bill, if you want me to. I will send this to Washington, where they probably already have a record of it. Bills of this denomination are printed by twos, and the other has probably turned up--as in the case of the Kansas bank-note."
Aside from the satisfaction this interview of his father's with Mr. Monroe accorded Chet Belding, further interest on the part of all the young people was aroused in the case of the injured stranger. Oddly enough, when Laura and Jess went to the hospital to inquire about the man, they found Janet Steele, the Red Cross girl, there on the same errand.
Since the Ice Carnival, that had proved such a money-making affair for the Red Cross, the Central High girls had considered Janet almost one of themselves. Although nobody seemed to know who or what the Steeles were, and they certainly lived very oddly in the old house at the lower end of Whiffle Street, Janet was so likable, and her invalid mother was evidently so much of a gentlewoman, that Laura and her chum had vouched for Janet and declared her to be "all right."
The matron of the hospital was the person whom the girls interviewed on this occasion. Mrs. Langworth had some interest in each patient besides the doctor's professional concern. She was sympathetic.
"We do not know what to call him," she explained. "He laughs rather grimly about it and tells us to call him 'John.' But that, I am sure, is not his name. He merely wishes us to have a 'handle' for him. And you cannot tell me," added the matron, shaking her head, "that he is one of those rough miners right out of Alaska!"
"Does he say he is?" asked Janet, with increased interest.
"He remembers of being in Alaska, he says. He was coming out, he tells us, when something happened to him. And that is the last he can remember. He believes he 'made his pile,' as he expresses it. Oh, he uses mining expressions, and may have lived roughly and in the open, as miners do, at some time in his life. But not recently, I am sure."
"And not a thing about him to identify him?" asked Laura.
"Not a thing. Plenty of money. Not much jewelry----"
"Oh! The lavallière my brother sold him!" cried Laura. "He said it was for 'a nice little girl he knew.' It was only a ten dollar one--one of those French novelties, you know, that we sell so many of at this time of year."
"He had that in an envelope in his pocket," said Mrs. Langworth.
"Then he had not made the presentation of it to 'the nice little girl,'" murmured Laura, thoughtfully.
"It almost proves he is a stranger in town, does it not?" asked Jess. "He bought the chain in the morning, and he was not hurt until evening. Do you know if he had any lodging in Centerport?"
"The police have searched the hotels, I believe," said the matron, "and described the poor fellow to the clerks and managers. Nobody seems to know him."
"Do--do you suppose we might see him?" Laura asked hesitatingly.
"Oh, Laura! Would you want to?" Jess murmured.
"Why not?" said the matron, smiling. "Not just now, perhaps. But the next time you come--in the afternoon, of course. He will be glad to see young faces, I have no doubt I will speak to Dr. Agnew when he comes in," for Nellie's father was of importance at the Centerport Hospital.
"But who is he, do you suppose?" Jess Morse demanded, when the three girls left the hospital and walked uptown again. "He can't be any person who has friends in Centerport, or they would look him up."
"That seems to be sure enough," admitted her chum. Then: "Shall we walk along with Janet?"
"Of course," said Jess. "Are you going home, Miss Steele?"
"Yes," said the girl in the Red Cross uniform. "I have been on duty at the Central Chapter; but mother expects me now."
"How is your mother, dear?" asked Laura, with sympathy.
"She is as well as can be expected," said Janet gravely. "If she had nothing to worry her mind she would be better in health," and she sighed.
Janet did not explain what this worry was, and even Jess, blunt-spoken as she often was, could not ask pointblank what serious trouble Mrs. Steele had on her mind.
Again the Central High girls went in to see the invalid upon Janet's invitation. They found Bobby Hargrew there before them. Harum-scarum as Bobby was, nobody could accuse her of lack of sympathy; and she had already learned that her fun and frolic pleased the invalid. Bobby did not mind playing the jester for her friends.
Of course, the strange man at the hospital was the pivot on which the conversation turned.
"Were you there, too, to inquire about him?" asked Mrs. Steele of Janet.
Laura noticed a certain wistfulness in the invalid's tone and look; but she did not understand it. Merely, Mother Wit noted and pigeonholed the remark. Janet said practically:
"I can't help feeling an interest in him, as I helped him that evening he was hurt."
"But have they learned nothing about him?"
"Only that the hundred-dollar bill he gave Chet is probably all right," laughed Jess Morse.
"They say he had a big money roll," said Bobby.
"Not a poor man, of course," Laura agreed.
"And Mrs. Langworth says she is sure he has been in Alaska," Jess added.
Laura noted the swift glance that passed between the invalid and her daughter.
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Steele, "you did not tell me that"
"No," said Janet, shaking her head, "But lots of men go to Alaska, Mamma."
"Ye-es," admitted Mrs. Steele.
"And come back with plenty of money," put in Bobby, smiling. "This poor man's money doesn't help him much, does it? He doesn't seem to have any friends here in Centerport. He is just as much a stranger as the man they tell about who came back to his old home town after a great many years and found a lot of changes. As he rode uptown his taxicab stopped to let a funeral go by.
"'Who's dead?' asked the returned wanderer of the taxicab driver.
"'Dan Jones,' said the driver.
"'Not Dan Jones that kept the hotel!' cried the man. 'Why, I knew him well. Can it be possible that Dan is dead?'
"'I reckon he's dead, Mister,' said the chauffeur, as the hearse went by. 'What d'you think they're doin'--rehearsin' with him?'"
"How very lonely the poor man must feel," said Mrs. Steele, after laughing at Bobby's story.
"We're going in to see him the next time," Jess said.
Mrs. Steele looked again swiftly at her daughter. "You will see him, too, won't you, Janet?" she murmured.
Her daughter seemed not to like the idea; but Jess said quickly:
"We will take Janet with us, Mrs. Steele. And Bobby, too. If Mrs. Langworth approves, I mean. 'The more the merrier.' Really, I'm awfully interested in him myself."
Laura, said nothing; but she wondered why the invalid showed so much interest in the injured man.
The copies of the play chosen for production by the girls of the Central High Players Club had arrived, and Mr. Mann, who was to direct the production, called the members of the club together in the small hall which was just off Mr. Sharp's office.
"And thank goodness!" murmured Bobby Hargrew, "Gee Gee cannot break into this session. What do you suppose she has suggested?"
"Mercy! how do you expect us to guess the vagaries of the Carrington mind?" returned Lily Pendleton. "Something foolish, I'll be bound."
"Sh! Remember Mr. Mann is an instructor, too," said Nellie Agnew.
"That is all right, Doctress," giggled Lily. "Mr. Mann is a good fellow and will not peach."
"Tell us the awful truth, Bobby," drawled Jess. "What is Gee Gee's latest?"
"I understand," said the younger girl, "that she has been to Mr. Sharp and begged him to exercise his authority and make us act 'Pyramus and Thisbe' instead of 'The Rose Garden.'"
"Goodness! That old thing?" flung out Dora Lockwood.
"There is a burlesque on 'Pyramus and Thisbe' that we might give," chuckled Jess. "And it's all in doggerel. Let's!"
"Reckless ones! Would you spoil all our chances?" demanded Laura.
"Aw--well----"
"Remember, we are working for a worthy cause," Dorothy Lockwood mouthed, in imitation of the scorned Miss Carrington.
"You are right, Dory," Laura said soberly. "The Red Cross is worth suffering for."
"Right-o, my dear girl," declared Jess Morse with conviction. "Let us put aside Gee Gee and listen to what Mr. Mann has to say."
They had already talked over the characters of the play. None of them was beyond the capabilities of the girls of Central High. But what delighted some of them was that there were boys' parts--and girls would fill them!
Of course, Bobby Hargrew had been cast for one of the male parts. Bobby's father had always said she should have been a boy, and was wont to call her "my eldest son." She had assumed mannish ways--sometimes when the assumption was not particularly in good taste.
"But Short and Long," she growled in her very "basest" voice, "says I can't walk like a boy. Says anybody will know I'm a girl. I have a mind to get my hair cut short."
"Don't you dare, Clara Hargrew!" Laura commanded. "You'd be sorry afterward--and so would your father."
Bobby would never do anything to hurt "Father Tom," as she always called Mr. Hargrew, so her enthusiasm for this suggested prank subsided. But she growled:
"Anyway, it's a sailor suit I am going to wear, and I guess I can walk like a sailor, just as well as Short and Long."
"Better," declared Nellie soothingly. "And then, those wide-legged trousers sailors wear are quite modest."
At this all the girls laughed. Knickers in their gymnasium and field work had become second nature to them.
"But think of me," cried Jess, "in what Chet calls 'the soup to nuts!' Really the dress-suit of mankind is awfully silly, after all."
"And uncomfortable!" declared Dora.
"Attention, young ladies!" exclaimed Mr. Mann at that moment.
He was a rotund, beaming little man, with vast enthusiasm and the patience--so Nellie declared--of an angel.
"Not a full-sized angel," Bobby had denied seriously. "He is more the size of a cherub--one of those you see pictured leaning their elbows on clouds."
But, of course, neither of the girls made this comment within Mr. Mann's hearing.
The final decisions regarding the choice of parts were now made. The copies of the play were distributed. Mr. Mann even read aloud the first two acts, instructing and advising as he went along, so that the girls could gain some general idea of what was expected of them.
Before they were finished another point came up. There was a single character in the play that had not been accorded to any girl. It was not a speaking part; but it was an important part, for the other characters talked about it, and the silent character was supposed to appear on several occasions in "The Rose Garden."
"We need a tall, dark girl," said Mr. Mann. "One who walks particularly well and who win not be overlooked by the audience even when she merely crosses the stage. Who----?"
"Margit Salgo!" exclaimed Jess, who had every bit of the new play and its needs very close to her heart.
"Of course!" cried Laura and the Lockwood twins. "Margit is just the one," Mother Wit added.
"Oh!" said Mr. Mann at last. "You mean Margaret Carrington?"
"And she walks like a queen," sighed Lily Pendleton. "I wish I could learn to walk as she does."
"You know what Mrs. Case says," put in Bobby, in an undertone. "She says your feet, Lil, have been bound like a Chinese woman's of the old regime."
"Oh, you!"
"Margit went barefoot and lived in the open for years," said Laura.
"She was 'near to Nature's heart,'" laughed Jess. "Of course, she never tried to squeeze a number six foot into narrow twos."
"Never mind the size of her feet," said Mr. Mann good-naturedly. "If she can take the part, she will be just the one for it I remember that Miss Carrington's niece does have a queenly walk. And that is just what we need. But do you think we can get her?"
"She has never joined our club," said Jess thoughtfully.
"I am not sure that she has ever been invited," Laura said. "But she is always busy----"
"Gee Gee pretty near works her to death," growled Bobby. "I shouldn't wonder if Margit flew the coop some day."
"I am not sure, Miss Hargrew," said Mr. Mann, without a smile, "that I ought not to take you to task for your language. It really is inexcusable."
"Oh, dear me, Mr. Mann, don't you begin!" begged the culprit "If I am academic in school in my speech, let me be relieved out of sessions, I pray."
"But about Margit Salgo?" queried Laura. "Do you suppose she will be able to help us? I know she will be willing to, if we ask her."
"Gee Gee will object, you bet," growled Bobby under her breath.
That was not to be known, however, without asking. Laura said she would speak to Margaret about it, while Mr. Mann intimated that he would mention to Miss Carrington, the elder, that her niece was almost necessary to the success of the play.
Margit Salgo was not so straightly kept by Miss Carrington as she was engaged from morning to night in her studies. Having been utterly neglected as far as mental development went for several years, the half-gypsy girl was much behind others of her age at Central High.
Miss Grace Gee Carrington was pushing her protégé on as fast as possible. She was not yet in the classes of those, girls of her age whom she knew at Central High; but she was fast forging ahead and she took much pride in her own advancement.
Therefore she did not see Miss Carrington's sternness as Bobby, for instance, saw it. She found her aunt kind and considerate, if very firm. And the girl who had been half wild when Laura Belding first found her, as has been related in "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field," was settling into a very sedate and industrious young woman.
What girl, however, does not love to "dress up and act?" Margit Salgo was delighted when Laura explained their need to her.
"Just as sure as auntie will let me, I'll act," declared the dark beauty, flushing brilliantly and her black eyes aflame with interest. "You are a dear, Laura Belding, to think of me," and she hugged Mother Wit heartily.
Two days passed, and then came the first rehearsal. This, of course, could be little more than a reading of the parts before Mr. Mann, with the latter to advise them as to elocution and stage business. But Bobby declared she had been practicing walking like a boy and had succeeded in copying Short and Long almost exactly.
"Why me?" demanded Billy sharply, whose usual sweet temper seemed to have become dreadfully soured of late.
"Well, why not?" demanded Bobby. "Should I copy Pretty Sweet's strut?"
"Aw--him!" snorted Billy Long, turning away in vexation.
"Now, tell me," said the quick-minded Bobby Hargrew to Laura and Jess, with whom she chanced to be walking at the moment, "why it is that Billy has taken such a violent dislike to poor Purt of late? Why, he doesn't feel kindly enough toward him to send him another dead fish!"
They were going to the rehearsal, which was in the small hall of the school. Of course, there was a sight of bustle and talking. Every girl was greatly excited over her part. Some were "sure they couldn't do it," while there were those who "could not possibly remember cues."
"And I know I shall laugh just at the wrong place," said Lily Pendleton. "I always do."
"If you do," growled Bobby, "I'll do something to you that will make you feel far from laughing, I assure you."
"How savagely you talk!" sighed Nellie Agnew. "That boy's part you are to fill is already affecting you, Clara."
"'Sailor Bob' is going to be terrifically rough, I suppose," Jess said, laughing.
Mr. Mann called them to order, and the girls finally rustled into seats and prepared to go through "The Rose Garden" for the first time. Everybody knew her first speeches, and as Mr. Mann accentuated the cues and advised about the business the girls did very well during the first act.
But with the opening of the second act there was a halt. Here was where "the dark lady" should come in. Her first appearance marked a flourishing period by Jess, who strode about the stage as the hero of the piece.
"And Margit's not here!" cried Dora Lockwood. "Shouldn't she be, Mr. Mann? Really, her entrance gives me my cue, not Adrian's speech."
Adrian was Jess Morse. She nodded her head vigorously. "Of course, Margit ought to be here to rehearse with us."
"I am afraid," said Mr. Mann, with pursed lips, "that we shall have to give up the idea of having Miss Carrington--the younger--for the part."
"Oh, oh, oh!" chorused some of the girls. "Can't Margit play?"
"Isn't that just like Gee Gee?" demanded Bobby furiously.
"She wanted to, I am sure," Laura said. "It is not Margit's fault."
"Of course it isn't," snapped Jess. "That old--"
Fortunately she got no farther. The door opened at that instant and Miss Grace Gee Carrington entered. She was a very tall woman with grayish hair, eyeglasses, and a sallow complexion. Her dignity of carriage and stern manner were quite overpowering.
"Young ladies!" she said sharply, having come into the room and closed the door, "I have a word to say. I told Mr. Mann I would come here and explain why my niece cannot take part in any such foolish and inconsequential exhibition as this that you have determined on."
She glared around, and the girls' faces assumed various expressions of disturbance. Some, even, were frightened, for Miss Carrington had always reigned by power of fear.
"I would not allow Margaret to lower herself by appearing in such a play. I disapprove greatly of girls taking boys' parts. The object of the play itself is merely to amuse. There is nothing worth while or educational about it."
Again silence, and the girls only glanced fearfully at each other.
"I have a proposition to make to you," said the stern teacher. "It is not too late to change your plans. I have Mr. Sharp's permission to make the suggestion. He will agree to your changing the play and will be--er--satisfied, I am sure, if you accept my advice and put on the play which I first suggested. This is an old Greek play with real value to it We gave it once in my own college days, and it truly made a sensation. I should be quite willing for Margaret to appear in that play, and I should, in fact, be willing to give Mr. Mann the benefit of my own experience in rehearsing the piece."
Mr. Mann actually looked frightened. The stern instructor overpowered him exactly as she did many of the girls.
"Toot! Toot! Toot-te-toot! Back water!" muttered Bobby Hargrew. "Wouldn't I cut a shine acting in a Greek play? Oh, my!"
Her imprudence--and impudence--was fortunately drowned by the general murmur of objection that went up from the girls of the club. That Miss Carrington's suggestion met with general objection was so plain that even the stern woman herself must have realized it.
"Of course," she said, really "cattish," "you girls would prefer something silly."
"Perhaps, Miss Carrington," said Laura with more boldness than most of her mates possessed, "we prefer something more simple. 'The Rose Garden' does not call for more than we can give to it. I am afraid the play you suggest would take too much study."
"Ha!" snapped the tall teacher. Then she went on: "I want you all to understand that your recitations must be up to the average while you put in your time on such a mediocre performance as this you are determined upon. Of course, if the play was of an educational nature we might relax our school rules a little--"
"Oh! Oh! Bribery!" whispered Jess to Nellie.
"It seems," Mr. Mann finally found voice to say, "that the desire of the young ladies is for the piece selected. It is too late, as Miss Belding says, to make a change now."
"Then Margaret cannot act!" exclaimed Miss Carrington, and, turning angrily, she left the hall in a way that had she been one of the girls, it would have been said, "She flounced out."
The rehearsal continued; but most of the girls were in a sober state of mind. There was a general desire among them to stand high in all their studies. They had learned when first they entered upon the athletic contests and exercises of the Girls Branch League that they must keep up in studies and in deportment or they could not get into the good times of the League.
It was so with the secret society, the M. O. R.'s, and likewise in this acting club. "Fun" was merely a reward for good work in school. Not alone was Miss Carrington stiff on this point, the principal and the rest of the faculty were quite as determined that no outside adventures or activities should lower the standard of the girls of Central High.
At the present time the members of the club had a serious fact to contemplate. A girl to fill the part of the "dark lady" in the garden must be found. As it was not a speaking part, the person filling the character must more particularly look as she was described in the play.
"We want a type," said Mr. Mann. "Tall, graceful, brunette, and with queenly carriage. You must find her before the next rehearsal. I must have plenty of time to train her, for her appearance is of grave importance--as you young ladies can yourselves see."
"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie Agnew, when the rehearsal was finished. "And Margit Salgo would have been just the one!"
"And the poor girl certainly would have enjoyed being one of us," Laura said.
"Take it from me," said Bobby gruffly, "she's just the meanest--"
"Margit?" cried Jess.
"Gee Gee! I'm good and disgusted with her."
But Bobby, for once in her life, was very circumspect during recitations that week. She felt that Gee Gee was watching for a chance to demerit her, and the girl did not intend to give the teacher occasion for doing so.
"For once I am going to be so good, and have my lessons so perfect, that she cannot find fault."
"But trust Miss Carrington to find fault if she felt like it!" grumbled the girl a day or so later.
"Miss Hargrew, do not stride so. And keep your elbows in. Why! you walk like a grenadier. And don't sprawl in your seat that way. Are you not a lady?"
Ah, but it was hard for saucy Bobby to keep her tongue back of her teeth!
"Have you lost your tongue?" nagged Miss Carrington.
Bobby's eyes flashed a reply. But her lips "ran o'er with honey," as Jess Morse quoted,sotto voce.
"No, Miss Carrington. I am merely holding it," said the girl softly.
Miss Carrington flushed. She knew she was unfair; and Bobby's unexpected reply pilloried the teacher before the whole class. There was a bustle in the room and a not-entirely-smothered snicker.
Had there been any way of punishing the girl Miss Carrington would certainly have done it. She was neither just nor merciful, but she was exact. She could see no crevice in Bobby's armor. The incident had to pass, and the girl remained unpunished.
However, it did seem as though Miss Carrington were more watchful each day of the girls who belonged to the Players Club. She was evidently expecting those who had parts to learn to show some falling off in recitation, or the like. Her sharp tongue lashed those who faltered unmercifully. The girls began to show the strain. They became nervous.
"I really feel as though I must scream sometimes!" said Nellie Agnew, almost in tears, one afternoon as the particular chums of Central High left the building for home. "I know my lessons just as well as ever, but Gee Gee has got me so worked up that I expect to fail every time I come up to recite to her."
"She is too old to teach, anyway," snapped Jess. "My mother says so. She ought to have been put on the shelf by the Board of Education long ago."
"Oh, oh!" gasped Dora Lockwood. "What bliss if she were!"
"She is not so awfully old," said Laura thoughtfully.
"But she is awful!" sniffed Jess.
"She acts like a spoiled child," Nellie said. "If she cannot have her own way in everything she gets mad and becomes disagreeable."
This was pretty strong language from the doctor's daughter. At the moment Bobby Hargrew appeared, whistling, and with her hands in her coat pockets. She was evidently practicing her manly stride. But she did not grin when she saw the juniors approaching. Instead, in a most dolorous voice she sang out, quoting the witches' chant:"'Double, double; toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'
"Everything's stewing, girls, and it is bound to be some brew. Do you know the latest?"
"Couldn't guess," said Jess Morse. "But it is something bad, I warrant."
"Everything's going wrong, girls!" wailed Nellie.
"I just saw Mr. Mann and Lil. Couldn't help overhearing what she was giving him. What do you suppose she wants to do?"
"Play the lead instead of Laura," snapped Jess.
"That would not be so strange," Dora Lockwood observed. "Would it, Dorothy?"
"Not at all. Lil Pendleton--"
"Wait a minute," proposed Laura Belding. "Let us hear her crime before we sentence her to death."
"That's right," agreed Bobby. "Oh, she surely has put her foot in it! She told Mr. Mann that Hessie is just the girl to act 'the dark lady' in our play. What do you know about that?"
"Ow! Ow! That hurts!" squealed Dora.
"She neverdid?" gasped her twin.
"Hope to die!" exclaimed Bobby recklessly. "That is exactly the game she is trying to work."
"Hester Grimes! Of all persons!" groaned Nellie.
"Lil hasn't said a word about it to me," Jess Morse declared.
"No, she is going to get Mr. Mann himself to propose Hester--"
"But Hessie isn't a member of the club!" cried Nellie.
"We have set a precedent there," said Laura thoughtfully. "We took Janet Steele into the ice carnival, and she was not a member of the school."
"That was an entirely different thing!" snapped Jess.
"Why, Hester Grimes is no more fit to play that part than I am fit for the professional stage!" Nellie Agnew said. "What can Lil mean?"
"I bet a cooky," Bobby growled, "that Hester put Lil up to it. You know, Hess is crazy to get her finger into every pie; but she would never come straight out and ask to join our club."
"She'd be blackballed," said Dora tartly.
"I believe she would," agreed her twin.
Bobby chuckled. "There would be two black beans against her, and no mistake."
"What did you say to Lil, Clara?" demanded Laura thoughtfully.
"Not a word."
"How was that?" Jess asked. "You didn't have a sudden attack of lockjaw, did you?"
"Don't fret, Jess," said Bobby sharply. "I know when to keep my mouth shut on occasion. I came right away from there to find you girls. Something must be done about it."
"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie. "If Margit Salgo had only been allowed to take the part!"
"What did I tell you?" almost snarled Bobby. "Gee Gee has managed to queer the whole business. This play is going to be a failure."