The Girls of Central High; Or, Rivals for All Honors

CHAPTER XVIII—ON THE EVE OF THE CONTEST

Evangeline took Laura into her own room, removed her shoe and stocking, and bathed the twisted ankle in cold water, and then insisted upon rubbing home-made liniment upon it, and bandaging the member tightly. All the time she was doing this, she was exclaiming “Oh!” and “Ah!” over Laura’s adventure as the latter related it.

“I think it was real mean of those other girls to run and leave you,” said Evangeline, sympathetically.

“I don’t think it mean,” laughed Laura—for she could laugh now that the adventure had ended so happily. “There were so many of them that I was not missed, I suppose, in the general stampede.”

“But you might have remained there all night.”

“No! And that reminds me, your father says you have a telephone. I must call up my father, or brother. And yet—I wonder if I won’t scare mother by calling at this time of night? Let me think.”

“You can use the telephone if you want to,” said Evangeline, hospitably. “It’s right here in the corner of the living room.”

But Laura had a bright idea about the telephoning. She knew that, by this time, the girls must have arrived home. She did not believe Jess would go right past her house without making inquiries for her. And by this time the household might have been aroused, and her father, or Chet, would be on the way to Robinson’s Woods to hunt for her.

So she first called up the hotel at the entrance to the picnic park and told the people there that she was safe, and where she was to be found. She learned that, already, a party of men, and one girl, were out beating the woods for her.

In an hour a motor-car steamed up to the farmhouse door and Chet and Lance, with Jess close behind them, ran into the house.

“Oh, Laura! Laura!” cried her chum, in tears again. “Do forgive me for leaving you to the ghost. And what did it do to you? And how did you get here? And how came your skirt nailed to the floor of that horrid house? And——”

“Dear me! Wait and catch your breath,” laughed Laura, kissing her.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all right, Sis,” said Chet, pretty warmly for a brother, for the big boy was proud of his sister.

Launcelot Darby squeezed Laura’s hand tightly, but could say nothing. Lance admired Laura more than any other girl who went to Central High; but he was not able to express his feelings just then.

The farmer and his family—especially Evangeline—invited the girl to remain all night and rest her injured ankle. But Laura would not hear of that, although she appreciated their kindness.

“I want Dr. Agnew to see my ankle. Why! we’ve got a basket-ball game on for Friday afternoon, you know, Jess, with East High team—and I can’t possibly miss that.”

“I’ll carry you out myself to the car,” declared Lance, gruffly. He suddenly picked her up in his arms (and Laura was no light-weight) and managed to place her in the tonneau very comfortably.

“Come again! Ach! Come again!” cried Mrs. Sitz, from the doorway, bobbing them courtesies as they went down the walk.

Evangeline ran out to the car to kiss Laura good-night, and the latter promised that she would ride over soon and see the farmer’s daughter again. But Otto took the boys aside and assured them, with much emphasis, that the Robinson house was actually haunted, and that he wouldn’t go into it alone, at night or by day, for his father’s whole farm!

“But how did you get nailed to the floor, Laura?” demanded Jess, in the tonneau beside her chum, and when the car was speeding back to town.

“Why! foolish little me did that herself, of course,” laughed Laura. “That’s what I did when I drove the first nail. Then, when you all ran, squealing, and I tried to do the same, the nail held me and pulled me back. I thought something had grabbed me by the skirt—I really did!” and she laughed again.

But Laura was silent about the rest of her adventure—and none of her young companions chanced to ask her why she had not screamed for help. She hid the veil and determined to wait and watch, hoping to get some clue to the owner of the article. She was sure that the figure she had seen for a moment, and which had, of course, bound her wrists and gagged her with the veil, was one of the girls—somebody who bore her a grudge.

“And who that can be, I don’t know—for sure,” thought Laura, after she was in bed that night and the throbbing of her ankle and the fever in it kept her awake. “But somebody must really hate me—and hate me hard!—to have played such a trick on me.”

It was not that Laura was entirely unsuspicious; but she did not voice the vague thought that ever and anon came to her mind regarding the identity of the person who had so treated her. She did not believe it was any trick that the members of the M. O. R. were cognizant of; but to make sure she went to Mary O’Rourke that very Monday and asked her point-blank.

Mary had no knowledge of the affair. She deeply regretted that such a misfortune should have overtaken the candidate.

“No more haunted houses for us!” declared the senior. “We’ll hold the initiation in the clubhouse—and it will be a tame one, I guess. The girls were all pretty well scared. Of course, we shouldn’t have been frightened—especially we older ones; but we were, and that’s all there is about it.”

But the joke on the M. O. R.’s went the rounds of the school. Jess could not keep still about it, and all the members of the secret society were “ragged”—especially by the boys—over being scared by two farmers with a lantern hunting for a strayed cow!

Chet took his sister to and from school for a couple of days in the car and she walked as little as possible meantime; so that the ankle soon recovered its strength. The basket-ball match, which was to come off on the court belonging to East High, was the main topic of conversation among the girls of Central High all that week.

“Just think! they’ve got a good court, and we haven’t such a thing,” commented Josephine Morse to her chum. “I think it is too bad. We need some philanthropist to come here and give us a big prize for our field. When are you going to tackle Colonel Swayne again, Laura?” and she laughed.

“Ah! you don’t believe a way to his heart can be opened?” asked her friend, smiling.

“It’s a way to his pocket-book I’m speaking about.”

“Have patience. I feel that he will be a great help to us——?”

“You’ve got a ‘hunch,’ then, as Chet says?”

“I expect that is what they call it. But have patience.”

Jess was a member of the basket-ball team, as was Laura. And on the team Hester Grimes played. Hester was a strong girl and could play well if she chose; but her temper was so uncertain that Mrs. Case considered it necessary to watch the butcher’s daughter very closely.

“And I wish you all to remember,” said the physical instructor, the day before the match at East High, “that we must play fair. Play the game for the game’s sake—not so much to win. If one desires, above all things, to win, he or she may forget to be perfectly fair. No foul playing. We are going to an opponent’s field. Let us win a name for playing clean basket-ball, whether we win the game or not.”

“What’s the use of playing if we don’t play just as hard as we know how?” demanded Jess.

“Play for all there is in you,” agreed Mrs. Case. “I will see that you do not overexert yourselves. But do not lose your tempers. And do not forget to cheer for the opposing team after the game, whether it wins or loses. Be fair, and let the sport be clean.”

“Did you watch Hessie while Mrs. Case was talking?” whispered Jess in Laura’s ear.

“No.”

“She looked so scornful! I hope she won’t make us unpopular with the East High girls. But you know how mean she acts sometimes when we play with some of the scrub teams.”

“It will be too bad if she makes a scene,” said Laura, thoughtfully, “and shames us before our opponents. The girls of Central High will then get a bad name for playing foul—and we can’t afford to have that reputation.”

CHAPTER XIX—HESTER FOULS THE GAME

It can be played by from five to nine players on a side, and the time of play is usually two halves of fifteen minutes each. Mrs. Case refused to allow her pupils—the girls of Central High—to play more than thirty minutes, and the younger girls could only play the game in three “thirds” of ten minutes each, with five or ten minutes’ rest between each two sessions of play.

It was a rule, too, that no girl could play without a physical examination as to her fitness, and the Central High team—the champion team of the school—was selected from among the strongest and best developed girls. This team was now billed to play a similar team selected from among the older girls of the East High of Centerport, and as made up by the physical instructor, was as follows:

    Jess  Morse,  goal  keeper
    Celia  Prime,  right  forward
    Mary  O’Rourke,  left  forward
    Hester  Grimes,  forward  center
    Laura  Belding,  jumping  center
    Lily  Pendleton,  back  center
    Bertha  Sleigel,  right  guard
    Nellie  Agnew,  left  guard
    Roberta  Fish,  goal  guard.

Besides the nine members of each team, the game called for nine other assistants—a referee, two umpires, a scorer, a time keeper, and four linesmen. Because of the possibility of so many foul plays, all these assistants and watchers were necessary. The ordinary “basket-ball five” was hardly known at Central High, as so many girls wanted to play.

On the Friday afternoon the hall in which the basket-ball court, or ground, of the East High girls was situated, was well filled, in the visitors’ part, with the parents and friends of both teams. This was really the first occasion of any athletic trial between the girls of the two schools, although the boys, in their sports, had long since become rivals.

Naturally the girls of Central High were excited over the prospect. Mary O’Rourke, the captain, as well as Mrs. Case, warned the players for the last time in the dressing room to keep cool, play fairly, and to give and take in the game with perfect good-nature.

“Good-nature wins more games than anything else,” said Mary. “Just as soon as a girl gets flustered or ‘mad’ at her opponent, she begins to lose ground—makes mistakes, and fouls the other player, and all that. Remember that the referee and the umpires will be sharp on decisions to-day. ‘Didn’t know’ will be no excuse. And by no means speak to the officials. If you have anything to report, report to me.”

“My!” sneered Hester to Lily, “doesn’t she think she knows it all? Who told her so much, I’d like to know? I guess there are others here who know the game quite as well as she does.”

“But she’s captain,” said Roberta Fish, one of the juniors.

“And how did she get to be captain? Favoritism, Miss!” snapped Hester.

“Come on, now!” advised Nellie Agnew, good-naturedly. “We don’t want to go into the game in this way. We’ve got to pull together to win. Loyalty, you know!”

“Bah!” said Hester.

“That’s what the black sheep said,” laughed Nellie. “Don’t you be the black sheep of Cen-High, Hessie.”

The teams were called into the field and the referee put the ball into play in the center. Laura and her opponent jumped for the ball and Laura was fortunate in getting it. During the next few moments, upon signals from their captain, the girls of Central High passed the ball back and forth and suddenly tried for a goal. It was from the field and would have counted two points; but Celia made a fumble, and the ball did not reach the basket, but was stopped by the left forward of the East High team.

The ball was in play immediately, but was in the hands of the home team. When Hester Grimes’s opponent got the ball, Hester leaped before her and raised her arms. But she over-guarded and instantly the warning whistle sounded from the side lines.

“Foul!” proclaimed the referee.

In a moment the play went on, but again Hester had a chance at the girl with the ball and once more the whistle blew sharply. Hester was guarding round, with her arms spread and crooked, instead of straight. And to be called down for a foul twice in succession stung Hester Grimes sharply. Her face grew red and her eyes flashed angrily.

“You wait, Miss!” she whispered to the girl who held the ball.

“Silence on the field!” commanded the referee. “Play!”

Hester’s fouling put her team-mates out not a little, and the ball was carried to their end of the field and their opponents scored.

“Get together, girls!” commanded Mary, in a low voice. “Don’t lose your heads.”

But Hester had become thoroughly angry now, for she saw that she would be blamed for the score against her team. She played savagely thereafter, and suddenly one of the home team cried out in pain. Hester had collided roughly with her.

Again the whistle. “I shall ask Captain O’Rourke to take that girl out of the game if there is any further rough play,” declared the referee, who was the physical instructor at West High.

The other girls of the Central High team were ashamed. The first half ended with no further score on the part of the home team; but, on the other hand, the visiting team had been held down to a “goose egg.” When the girls went to their dressing room there were some murmurs against Hester’s style of playing.

But Mrs. Case stopped this instantly. “If one of our team has shown excitement, we must not blame her too harshly,” she said, seriously. “This is our first time playing away from our own field. Be careful. Take time to think, Hester——”

“That referee is unfair. They’ve given the game to East High, anyway. It was all fixed beforehand,” snarled the culprit.

“Listen, Hester,” said the teacher, gravely. “That is neither sportsmanlike nor truthful. You must restrain yourself. You are one of the best players we have; but you are fouling the game, and if you do not have a care we shall lose through your fault. Keep your temper. Don’t make it necessary for me to remind you again.”

This did not soothe Hester’s feelings. Mrs. Case had spoken sharply at last, and Hester went back to the field “just boiling inside,” as she told her chum.

The second half began. Again Central High was quicker in getting away with the ball. This time they kept it in play among themselves, too, until a goal was made; but if was from a foul and counted only one point.

Their friends cheered them, however, and as soon as the ball was put into play again the girls of Central High went at it with their old tactics and made splendid runs, finally getting another goal, this time from the field. The visiting team was then ahead in the score.

But the very next minute, when Hester had a chance to get into the game again, she snatched the ball from her opponent’s hands. It was so plain a foul that the girls did not need the whistle to cease play. And when the ball came back Hester’s team-mates were “rattled” again and East High secured another clean goal.

Indeed, all through the two halves the playing of the East High girls was perfectly clean, while that of Central High was spoiled by Hester. Her rough work was noticeable. Mary O’Rourke tried to keep her out of play as much as possible, and in doing this weakened her side. Before the end of the second half East High scored again, and the score finally stood, when the whistle was blown to cease playing, at seven to three in favor of the home team.

The girls of Central High were both disappointed and chagrined. But they cheered lustily for the winners (all but Hester) and were cheered fairly in return. Yet Laura and her friends knew that their team had made a bad impression upon the spectators and instructors because of Hester’s foul playing.

“That girl spoils everything she gets into,” declared Jess Morse, to Laura and Nellie. “I don’t see why Mrs. Case lets her play on the team. We certainly have got a black eye here.”

“I’m sorry for Hester—she has such a temper,” sighed the doctor’s gentle daughter.

“I do not know whether I am sorry for her or not,” said Laura, sternly. “It will be a long time before these girls over here at the East End of town will forget this game. It is bad enough to be beaten; but to be beaten by a member of our own team is what hurts.”

“Is that so, Miss?” exclaimed Hester’s harsh voice behind her. “Didn’t think I’d over-hear you, did you? You look out, Laura Belding, that you don’t get beaten in another way. I should think you’d had lesson enough——”

A sudden flush sprang into Laura’s face.

“What do you mean by that, Hessie?” she cried. “What lesson do you refer to?”

But Hester merely tossed her head and went on. Laura was thoughtful for the remainder of the way home. She was thinking of the veil she had brought away with her from the haunted house.

CHAPTER XX—THE EIGHT-OARED SHELL

The Grimeses often hired a car; but then, plenty of girls Laura knew wore automobile veils who had never ridden in a car! It was merely a fashion in apparel. So she kept silent about the veil—never even mentioned it to her chum, or to her brother, or to Lance Darby—and bided her time.

The basket-ball game had made the remainder of the team very angry with Hester Grimes. Only Lily Pendleton stood by her. Hester declared to everybody who would listen that the “game was fixed” and that the Central High team had no chance of winning.

“I guess that’s so,” said Bobby Hargrew, who overheard Hester say this. “You fixed it all right. I watched you. You’d queer anything you went into. It’s lucky you’re not rowing in the eight-oared shell. We’d have less chance of winning the girls’ boat race than we have, if you were!”

“Well, Miss, they certainly cannot accuse you of harming their chances of winning,” snapped Hester Grimes. “You’re out of it!”

And that was so! The girls’ eight-oared shell was without its little coxswain. Bertha Sleigel could not manipulate the steering apparatus of the long boat as Bobby had. And the boat races—rather an informal affair preceding the mid-summer aquatic sports—would come on in a fortnight now.

Bobby Hargrew had been very good in school for some weeks. Even Gee Gee could find no fault with her behavior. But it was more on Laura’s account than for any other reason that the irrepressible held herself in. She did not forget that Laura had interceded with Mr. Sharp for her.

The eight-oared crew was to use a second-hand boat; they owned no boat of their own, but hoped to purchase one, or have one presented to them, before the mid-summer sports on Lake Luna.

Professor Dimp, who coached the boys, having been a famous stroke in his own college, coached the girls as well. He was a very severe disciplinarian; but he had picked the crew for the big shell with judgment and skill.

And to make up a crew is no small matter. As far as physical conformation goes in the choice of a crew for an eight-oared scull, tall girls were preferable to short, well built to thin, and heavy girls to “feather-weights.” Saving in the cox, the girls were all chosen for their mature physique and long arms.

And Professor Dimp chose the crew and selected their positions with as much care as he gave to his boys’ crew. One cannot take enthusiastic girls hap-hazard and make a winning crew.

First of all the professor chose Celia Prime for stroke oar. Scores of girls can follow time, or stroke, after practice; but some who make the best rowers could never in this world “set the stroke” for a crew. Celia proved herself to be an accomplished stroke, with first-rate form, great pluck, and not easily confused. She could maintain the same number of equally well rowed strokes, whether rapid, medium, or slow; and she could spurt when necessary without throwing the rest of the crew into disorder.

At Number 7 a well-tried oarsman is needed, too, and the professor selected Laura Belding for that onerous position. Number 7 is supposed to take up the stroke duly and to give finish to the action of the crew. A crew that does not work in perfect unison cannot by any possibility be a winning crew.

As selected by Professor Dimp, the girls’ crew was as follows:

    Celia  Prime,  stroke
    Laura  Belding,  No.  7
    Dora  Lockwood,  No.  6
    Nellie  Agnew,  No.  5
    Roberta  Fish,  No.  4
    Mary  O’Rourke,  No.  3
    Dorothy  Lockwood,  No.  2
    Jess  Morse,  bow.

They missed Bobby Hargrew dreadfully; but the crew practised as frequently as possible, hoping to break Bertha in as coxswain, and get her seat shifted to the best place possible for the balancing of the boat. But Bertha was not like Bobby—and she was pounds heavier!

The eight-oared shell of the girls of Central High would compete with similar boats from both of the other Centerport High Schools and with boats from the Highs of Lumberport and Keyport. The three cities being located upon this beautiful inland lake, the young folks were all more or less familiar with aquatic sports. But never before the establishment of the Girls’ Branch Athletic Association had the girls of the several cities competed.

The newspapers of the three towns gave plenty of space to amateur athletics, and the big men of the educational boards had taken up the girls’ athletic work with vigor, too. Those interested looked forward to many field days and exhibitions during the ensuing months. But outside of their school work the crew of this particular eight-oared shell had little thought for anything but the approaching race.

The boathouse and landing where the shell was kept was right beside the girls’ bathing place and athletic field. Naturally, too, it was near Colonel Richard Swayne’s handsome place. As the girls were rowing in one afternoon after practice they saw the Colonel, with a veiled lady in a wheel-chair, on the bank. They seemed to be watching the girls pulling in so easily; but whether the Colonel approved of them, or not, they did not know.

“And he’s got oodles of money!” sighed Roberta Fish. “Wish he’d give us some for our athletic field.”

“But he won’t,” said Dora Lockwood. “He says we make too much noise. We disturb his daughter. She can’t sleep much, they say, and afternoons we spoil her forty winks.”

“It is too bad if we really do disturb her with our noise,” said Laura, thoughtfully.

“You’ll never get any money out of the Colonel, Laura,” declared Jess.

“I will!” returned Laura, firmly. “You wait and see. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“Huh! but it wouldn’t ever have been built at all if Romulus and Remus hadn’t made a commencement,” scoffed her chum.

The races were held on Saturday afternoon of that week. There were paddling races, four-oared shell races, and eight-oared shell races. There were many classes of contestants; but interest centered mainly in the events in which the high school boys and girls participated.

The girls’ eight-oared shell race was the last number on the program. It was a straight-away half-mile race—not too long, or too short, for girls of the age taking part in the sport.

The five boats got into position with some skill and they got a better start than in the boys’ races. The crowds gathered on shore and on the boats lining the course cheered the girls as they shot away over the bright water.

It was a warm and beautiful day and the water was as calm as a millpond. It was “fast water” indeed!

The crew of Central High were looking their best and “feeling fine.” They caught Celia’s stroke instantly and, at the swinging pace she set, their boat darted through the water, keeping well up at first with the leading shell.

On so short a course the first few strokes, even, sometimes tell the tale. The Keyport crew took the lead at the start, but both East High and Central High of Centerport were close after the leader. The Central crew, indeed, for some rods were only half a length behind the Keyport shell.

It was a pretty fight, and the voices of the spectators grew in volume as the five shells shot along the course.

CHAPTER XXI—THE FINISH OF THE BOAT RACE

But the Keyport boat kept ahead. And she seemed to be gaining on Central High, too, though that gain was very slow. The shell of the East High girls crept up, nearer and nearer, its bow overlapping the stern of the Central High shell.

But of a sudden West High of Centerport, coming up on the other side, fouled East High. Their oars crashed together for an instant. It scarcely cost the East High girls an inch; but the colliding boat fell out of the race and dropped back behind the Lumberport shell.

This latter came up with a rush. East High kept ahead of Lumberport for a few yards, and then fell back. The girls from the upper end of the lake came on with increasing speed. Keyport was struggling to maintain its place in the lead. The Central High girls were dropping back by inches.

It was useless for the latter crew to strain further. Lumberport was passing them. Yet Celia set the pace for a spurt and her comrades did their level best. Bertha, in the stern, however, got excited, and shifted her seat. It made the boat drag heavily, and the Lumberport shell passed them with a rush.

Those last few yards all three of the head crews were under great strain. But each held to its work as truly as had the boys’ crews earlier in the day.

The Lumberport boat could not overtake the Keyport; but it came in Number 2. Central High was Number 3, and East High fourth, while West High had fallen out of the race entirely. The three leading boats, however, crossed the line within lengths of each other—a close and exciting finish.

But the girls of Central High were vastly disappointed. The race should have been theirs, according to the time elapsed from start to finish. Often they had done a straight-away half-mile at better speed when Bobby Hargrew was there. There was something fundamentally wrong with the eight-oared crew.

“We could have won—I know we could!—if Bobby had been in her place,” wailed Jess Morse. “See how mean Gee Gee is!”

“See how unfortunate Bobby is,” returned her chum.

“See how unfortunate we all are,” added Mary O’Rourke. “I believe if that little scamp had been in our boat to-day we would have won.”

“We’ll never win without a better balanced boat—that is sure,” said Laura, gravely, as she and Jess hurried through dressing so as to join the boys for a trip to Cavern Island.

“And the mid-summer races coming on!” groaned Jess.

“We’ll have to get her back before that time,” declared her chum, assertively.

“But suppose she has to leave school for setting that fire in Mr. Sharp’s office?”

“She never set it!” exclaimed Laura, quickly.

“Who did, then?”

“That is what we must find out,” announced Laura, decidedly.

“How ridiculous you talk!” exclaimed Jess. “We can’t find out.”

“I believe one can explain almost any mystery if one only puts mind enough to it.”

“That’s all right, Miss Sherlock Holmes. Put your great mind to it. Be the greatest female detective of the age!” scoffed Jess. “You’re going to do wonders, aren’t you? How about getting a big present from Colonel Swayne for our new athletic field, too? Say! you’ve been promising a whole lot that you’ll never perform, Laura.”

“I’ve been promising to try, my dear. And I can still try,” laughed her friend.

But Laura was very much in earnest regarding three things just at this time. First, was the discovery of how the fire started in the schoolhouse; second was the mystery of the person who had bound her in the haunted house in Robinson’s Woods; third was the interesting of the wealthy Colonel Swayne in girls’ athletics.

This last would seem to be the hardest of all, for Colonel Swayne had, on several occasions of late, complained to the school board that the athletic field and bathing place adjoining his estate was a nuisance. He complained of the shrill voices of the girls at play; but how did he expect young folk to disport themselves and have a good time without shouting and laughter?

The week following the boat race two eagerly contested doubles were going on the courts next to Colonel Swayne’s line at the same time. The girls were making a great deal of noise, but they were doing so innocently. Once a serving man had climbed a stepladder and, looking over the hedge and fence, announced that his master “would be pleased if the young ladies went to the further side of the field to play.”

“How ridiculous!” exclaimed Jess Morse, who happened to be one of the contestants. “Does he think that we can pick up the courts and move them about at will?”

So the girls went on enjoying themselves, and, it must be confessed, did little to lower their voices. Laura had dressed and was coming to the gate when she heard angry voices there. The keeper was saying:

“Very sorry, sir; you cannot come in without a ticket. This is not visiting day.”

“I’ll show you whether I can come in or not!” roared the voice of Colonel Swayne. “Think I’m going to brow-beaten by a lot of little snips that had better be at home in their nurseries? Their parents ought to be ashamed of themselves for bringing them up so badly. And as for this idiotic school board of Centerport——”

His voice died away as Laura came modestly out of the gate. The old gentleman, choleric as he was, could not face the young girl’s cool bow and still bully the gate keeper.

“I—I——” he stammered. Then his eye lit up with recognition. “I say!” he growled. “You’re the girl who saved that man on the steeple.”

“Yes, sir,” returned Laura, demurely. “I am Laura Belding, Colonel.”

“Look here! Can’t those girls in there keep better order? They sound like a pack of wild Indians. I never heard such yelling.”

“Oh, Colonel! we are only having a little fun, mixed with physical culture, after school hours,” said Laura.

“Call it fun?” gasped the Colonel. “Sounds more like a massacre!”

“I wish you could come in and see how the girls enjoy themselves, sir,” said Laura. “But visitors are not allowed save on invitation. But I will ask Mr. Sharp to send you tickets——”

“I don’t want to see ’em!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “Think I’m hanging around here to see a parcel of girls be as unladylike as they can? Let me tell you when I was young, girls didn’t have athletics—and yell like Indians while they were at it!”

“But don’t you think the girls to-day are a lot nicer than the girls used to be?” asked Laura, demurely.

“No, I don’t, Miss!” But the Colonel had to smile a little now. Laura, was so unruffled and smiling herself that he could not wholly maintain his “grouch.” Besides, he had admired the girl immensely ever since she had shown she had so good a headpiece.

“Why, even my mother says that we girls are much better physically than the girls of her day. We work much harder in school, but we do not get nervous and ‘all played out,’ as the saying is. She believes it is due to our physical exercises and our outdoor lives. The games and exercises we have in this athletic field are making us stronger and abler to meet the difficulties of life. Don’t you believe so, sir?”

“I must confess I had never given it much thought,” admitted the old gentleman, eyeing her curiously.

“Don’t you see how much healthier and stronger we are than even the girls were ten years ago?” she persisted.

“I never gave much attention to girls—only to one girl,” he replied, with a drop in his voice and a gloomy brow.

“You mean your daughter—Mrs. Kerrick?”

“Poor Mabel!” the old man sighed. “Yes. She never was given to activities of any kind—save social activities. She has never been well.”

“But suppose she had ‘gone in’ moderately for athletics when she was my age?” suggested Laura.

“There were no such things in either the private or public schools at that time, my dear,” said the old gentleman, shaking his head. “They had what they called ‘calisthenic drills’; but I guess they did not pay much attention to them, after all. Poor Mabel was always nervous—little things annoyed her so dreadfully. And that is why the screeching of those girls annoys her now,” added Colonel Swayne, with a quickening note of anger in his voice. “And it’s got to be stopped.”

“Oh, please don’t say that, Colonel!” begged Laura. “I—I hoped you would be interested in our work in time, and help us. We need so many things, you know!”

“Want my help, do you?” demanded the old gentleman, grimly. “And my daughter not able to sleep for weeks!”

“But, Colonel! we are not on the field at night.”

“And she doesn’t sleep at all at night. Why, she hasn’t had a night’s sleep in weeks upon weeks. But sometimes she is able to just lose herself in the afternoon. I allow nobody to come to the house, and the servants move about within doors in felt slippers. I do everything not to disturb her—and here you crazy young-ones are raising particular Sam Hill out there in that open lot!”

Under other circumstances Laura would have been tempted to laugh at the old gentleman’s heat. But she knew that he felt for his daughter very deeply—although Laura believed, with the other neighbors, that if Mrs. Kerrick would rouse herself, she could shake off much of her nervous disorder.

“Hasn’t she been attended by Dr. Agnew?” asked Laura patiently.

“Oh, the Doc doesn’t seem to realize how sick she is,” grunted Colonel Swayne, “He does not give her enough of his attention. I feel sometimes that she ought to have some younger and more up-to-date practitioner attend her. Agnew thinks she makes her case out worse than it is.”

“But if she cannot sleep——”

“And that’s another thing. He will not give her anything to make her sleep. Says her heart is too weak to stand it. But the truth is, Doc does not believe in giving drugs much. You know how he is,” said the Colonel, finding himself—to his secret surprise—talking to this young girl as though she were grown up!

“But isn’t it because she sleeps in the daytime that she cannot sleep at night?” asked Laura, thoughtfully.

“Great heavens! she can’t sleep in the daytime with you girls yelling like fiends right next door,” cried the Colonel, going back to the subject of his exasperation.

“Now, Colonel! we don’t yell like fiends,” declared Laura, in a little heat herself. “You know we don’t. And we are only there after half past three and until half past five—and sometimes from seven o’clock until dark. And so far the athletic field has been open but four afternoons a week.”

“By Jove, though! You make yourselves a nuisance when you are there,” declared the Colonel.

“We don’t mean to, I can assure you. And if your daughter cannot sleep save during the hours when we can go to the field, I believe the girls would all be willing to make concessions of their time. You surely mean that Mrs. Kerrick is suffering from insomnia?”

“I should say she was,” sighed the Colonel. “The last time we had a thunderstorm was—when?”

“Why, we have scarcely any this season. You know for weeks not a drop of rain has fallen. Our lawn is suffering.”

“Mine, too,” grunted the Colonel. “But that isn’t the point. The last night’s sleep she had was when we had that thunderstorm. The doctor told us she would sleep better if she removed her bed to the top floor so that she could hear the patter of rain on the roof. She has a big room at the back of the house and not only is the roof right over her head, but the tin roof of the extension is right under her windows. But, since she moved up there, there hasn’t been a shower, either day or night! And no prospect of one, so the papers say—what’s the matter with you?”

For Laura showed that she was startled and she looked up into his face very earnestly. “Oh, Colonel Swayne!” she murmured.

“What’s the matter now?” he demanded.

“Do you really believe she could sleep naturally again if there were thunderstorms at night? Do you really believe it?”

“Why—yes. I know it to be a fact, Miss Laura. And so does the doctor. With my daughter it is a proven fact. Even when she was a girl she could always sleep calmly if the rain pattered on the roof. There’s nothing more soothing for the nervous patient.”

“Then, Colonel, I’ve got an idea!” gasped Laura.

“I hope it is as good an idea as that one you had the day the man got caught on St. Cecelia’s steeple,” laughed the Colonel.

“It is as good a one,” declared Laura, very earnestly.

“Do you mean something about Mrs. Kerrick?” he asked, more eagerly.

“Yes, sir. Something to help her sleep.”

“Have you got influence enough with the weather bureau to bring a storm when none is forecast?” he asked, rather whimsically.

“It will amount to the same, sir. I want to try. May I?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Laura,”

“I know you don’t; but if you’ll just be patient and wait until this evening—after supper—I’ll show you. Let my brother and me and—yes!—one of his chums, come over to your house. We three will be enough. What time does Mrs. Kerrick retire?”

“Why, she usually goes to bed early.”

“Then tell her nothing about our coming. Can we come, Colonel?”

“Why—why—surely! But I don’t understand.”

“You will, sir, when we arrive. I’ll tell you all about it then. We’ll be there about dark,” promised Laura, and she darted away through a side street, running hard, she was so much in earnest and had so much to do in preparation for the performance she had in mind.

CHAPTER XXII—STAGING A THUNDERSTORM

They had to take Mr. and Mrs. Belding into their confidence at the supper table, for they had to get permission to use the car that evening. Mrs. Belding was somewhat doubtful of Laura’s scheme, and called it “an escapade.” But her father was always an easy captive to his oldest daughter’s whimsies, and he cheered her idea enthusiastically.

“And besides,” said Chet, slily, “Laura is trying to rope in the old Colonel and make him cough up for the girls’ athletic field. I know her!”

“Chetwood!” ejaculated his mother. “Is it proper to speak of your sister as a ‘roper in’—as though she were a female cowboy? And why should the Colonel contract a bronchial affection for the sake of the girls’ athletics?”

The family assembled had to laugh at this; but Chet was somewhat abashed, too.

“Don’t be so hard on a fellow, Mother,” he begged. “I can’t remember to shift languages when I come into your presence—it is just impossible. To talk Americanese outside the house and stilted English within—well, it’s just impossible. I’m sure to get my wires crossed—there I go again!”

“I really do not see why you send this boy to high school, James,” sighed Mrs. Belding. “It seems to be a waste of time. ‘Stilted English,’ indeed!”

But Mr. Belding was inclined to laugh at her. And he was very much interested in Laura’s plan for helping Mrs. Kerrick get a good night’s sleep.

“I think,” said the father, “that the principal trouble with Mabel Kerrick—and always has been—is she has never had any real object in life worth living for. If Fred Kerrick had been a different sort of a man while he lived—or if he had lived more than three months after they were married—Mabel might have amounted to something.”

“But she really is ill, Father,” said Laura.

“So she is ill—now. But it is nothing, I believe, that a vital interest in life wouldn’t cure. The Colonel has ‘babied’ her all her life. When she was a girl she could dance all night, and sleep most of the day, and never took any healthful exercise. And now she is one of these nervous women whom every little thing fusses. She leads the old Colonel a pretty dance, I guess.”

“Nevertheless, if she cannot sleep she is in a very uncomfortable state,” said Mrs. Belding.

“Let Laura try her magic, then,” laughed Chet. “Lance and I will help. I’ll go down to the opera house and borrow that stuff all right. I know Mr. Pence, and he’ll let us have it.”

“It seems to be carried by the majority,” said his mother. “I will not object. But get back as early as possible, children. Late hours are becoming prevalent in this family, and it must not continue.”

So after supper Lance came over and the three young people went off in the automobile, first stopping at the stage entrance of the opera house on Market Street. It was not quite dark when the car rolled into Colonel Swayne’s grounds. The old gentleman was on the lawn waiting for them.

“Now, what sort of a play are you going to act, Miss Belding?” he asked quizzically.

“You’ll see,” laughed Laura. “Is Mrs. Kerrick up yet?”

“She is just about to retire.”

“Then you will have to play a deceitful part, sir,” said Laura. “Go and tell her that you think there will be a thunder storm. Put down the shades at her windows so that the lightning will not frighten her.”

“You must have a better hold on the weather department than anybody else,” declared Colonel Swayne, looking up into the perfectly clear sky. “There isn’t a sign of a storm.”

“That’s all right,” said Laura. “Is your gardener about?”

“You will find him at the back of the house. I told him you would need him.”

“Then we will go right ahead with our plan,” said the girl, confidently. “See that Mrs. Kerrick gets to bed with the idea firmly fixed in her mind that a shower is approaching. That will help a whole lot.”

The car was run around to the rear of the big house. There the two boys and Laura found the gardener, with a long ladder and the garden hose already attached to one of the lawn hydrants. They raised the ladder quietly to the roof of the ell, and when the light in Mrs. Kerrick’s windows was dimmed by the shades, the boys and Laura climbed up the ladder, dragging the hose and carrying some paraphernalia with them.

Chet put on a pair of rubber gloves and disconnected the telephone wire which here was fastened to the side of the house. Chet knew a good deal about electricity and was careful about putting the telephone out of commission.

Meanwhile Lance began to work the sheet-iron “thunder machine” which they had borrowed from the manager of the opera house.

“Bring the thunder on gradually, Lance,” whispered Laura, with a low laugh. “Not too often. Chet has to rig his lightning machine. There!”

Chet had rigged his little box-like instrument quickly. He brought the two ends of the charged wire into close contact and there was a startling flash.

“Now the thunder—louder!” exclaimed Laura, in a whisper.

The thunder rolled convincingly. It sounded nearer and nearer. After every flash of the stage lightning the explosion of sound became more furious. Then Laura waved her hand to the gardener below. The man turned on the water.

Laura turned the spray-nozzle of the hosepipe upon the tin roof and against the side of the house. The water began pattering gently. Another flash of lightning, and the thunder rolled as though the tempest had really burst over the house.

It really was a convincing exhibition of stage mechanism. Colonel Swayne climbed the ladder himself and stepped upon the roof.

“This is great,” he whispered. “I never saw a girl like this one. She’s as full of novel ideas as an egg is of meat. Great!” he added as Chet flashed the lightning again and Lance followed it up with a roar of thunder that shook the house.

Laura gave the “rain storm” more force and the drops pattered harder and harder upon the roof and against the windows. Soon a very convincing shower was clashing against the panes, while the lightning became intermittent, and the thunder rolled away “into the distance.”

But the gardener came up and relieved Laura at the hosepipe, and they finally left the man alone on the roof to continue the shower for some time longer while the young folks removed their paraphernalia, and Chet connected up the telephone wires again.

When they were on the ground Colonel Swayne came back from a trip to his daughter’s room. Her maid reported to him that her mistress was fast asleep. The old fellow was really quite worked up over the affair.

“You young people have done me an inestimable service,” he declared, shaking hands with them all around. But he clung to Laura’s hand a little longer, and added: “As for you, young lady, you certainly are a wonderfully smart girl! Perhaps it pays to make our girls more vigorous physically—it seems to stimulate their mentality as well.

“I haven’t really thought much about your athletics; but the school board has been at me, and I shall consider seriously their request that I become one of a number of patrons who will give a foundation fund for a really up-to-the-minute athletic field for your Girls’ Branch. We will see.”

“Oh, that will be just scrumptious!” gasped Laura, “If you only knew how much good the sports did us—and how we all enjoy them!”

“I can believe it,” agreed the old gentleman, as Lance helped Laura into the car and Chet started the engine. “And I shall give it serious thought. Good-night!”

CHAPTER XXIII—THE UNVEILING OF HESTER

“Party! Yum, yum!” said Bobby, with her mouth full. “I just love parties, Laura. ’Specially your kind. You always have something good to eat.”

“But you’ll eat your share of the tarts now.”

“I am no South American or Cuban. There is no ‘manana.’ To-morrow never comes. ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ ‘Never put off until to-morrow,’ and so forth. Oh, I’m full of old saws.”

“I’m glad,” said Laura. “Then there will not be so much of you to fill up with goodies.”

“But it’s my mind that’s full of saws—not my ‘tummy.’”

“Same thing, I believe, in your case,” declared Laura, laughing. “Jinny says the way to the boys’ hearts is through their stomachs; and I think your mind has a very close connection with your digestive apparatus.”

“I believe it. They tell me that eating fish is good for the brain, so all brains must be in close juxtaposition to people’s stomachs.”

“Wha’s dat ‘juxypotation,’ chile?” demanded Jinny, rolling her eyes. “I never heerd the like of sech big wo’ds as you young ladies talks. Is dere seech a wo’d as ‘juxypotation?’”

“There is not, Jinny,” chuckled Laura. “She’s fooling you.”

“I knowed she was,” said the cook, showing all her white teeth in the broadest kind of a smile. “I be’lieb de men wot makes dictionaries oughtn’t to put in ’em no wo’ds longer dan two syllabubs.”

“Great!” crowed Bobby, and then choked over a mouthful of Laura’s flaky pie crust.

“Come out on the side porch,” said Laura, her face quite flushed. “I’ve baked my complexion as well as the pies.”

“Your cheeks are as red as Lily Pendleton’s were last Tuesday at school. Did you hear what Gee Gee did to her?” asked Bobby.

“No.”

“Real mean of Gee Gee,” chuckled Bobby, as the girls took comfortable seats. “But Lily deserved it.”

“Tell me—Gossip!” said Laura.

Bobby merely made a grimace at her and finished the last crumb of pie.

“It was chemistry class. We had done simple tricks and Gee Gee had explained the ‘wheres and whereofs’ in her most lucid manner. Lily had laid it on pretty thick that day.”

“Laid what on?” demanded Laura.

“What she puts on her cheeks sometimes. You know, it isn’t a rush of blood to her head that gives her that delicate cerise flush once in a while. I think she tries to emulate Hester Grimes’s cabbage-rose cheeks. However, Gee Gee came close enough to her to behold the ‘painted Lily’s’ cheeks. Wow! Gee was mad!” exclaimed the irrepressible. “You know she’s as near-sighted as she can be—glasses and all. But this time she spotted Lily.

“She comes up carefully behind her, with a clean damp sponge in her hand.

“‘Young ladies,’ says she, ‘we will have one other experiment before excusing you to your next class. Notice that!’ and she gave one dab of the sponge to Lily’s right cheek. You never saw a girl change color so suddenly!” giggled Bobby. “And only on one side!”

“Don’t you come into my class, Miss, without washing your face, another time!” exclaims Gee Gee. And you can bet she meant it. And Lily carefully removed all the ‘penny blush’ before she went back to recitation again.

“Foolish girl,” said Laura, softly.

“Nothing but a miracle will ever give that girl a natural blush,” declared Bobby, reflectively. “You might work it on her, Laura.”

“How do you mean?”

“Aren’t you a miracle worker?” laughed Bobby.

“I guess not.”

“I hear you are. Colonel Swayne’s telling all over town what a head you have got! You certainly have got him going, Laura——”

“Sh! You talk worse slang than Chet. Don’t let mother hear you.”

“I learned part of it from Chet,” declared Bobby, unblushingly. “But that was certainly a great scheme about the stage thunderstorm. Some folks laughed and said it was all nonsense. But Nellie’s father says it was all right. And the Colonel has worked it himself once since, and Mrs. Kerrick has got the habit of sleeping at night now, instead of trying to do so in the afternoon, as she used.”

“Well, she’s not complaining about us girls making a noise in the field—that’s one good thing,” said Laura, with a sigh of genuine satisfaction.

“Lucky she is not. Think of the racket there will be there next Friday afternoon. But, oh! I can only be there as a spectator,” groaned Bobby.

“Bobby, dear,” said Laura. “I wish I really was a magician—or something like that. A prophetess would do, I guess—a seeress. Then I could explain the mystery of the fire in Mr. Sharp’s office and your troubles—for the time being, at least—would be over.”

“There’s the hateful cat that made me all the trouble!” exclaimed Bobby, suddenly, shaking her clenched fist.

Laura peered around the vines which screened the porch and saw Hester Grimes climbing into an automobile, which was standing before the gate of the butcher’s premises.

“She did testify against you,” sighed Laura. “But there really was a fire.”

“Just the same, if Hester hadn’t said she saw me throw something into the basket, Gee Gee would never have put it up to the principal so strong.”

Hester was evidently waiting for her mother to appear from the house. They were probably going shopping. Before Laura spoke again she and Bobby heard—as did everybody else who might be listening on the block—Mrs. Grimes shouting to Hester from an upper window:

“Hes! have you seen my veil?”

“No, Ma,” replied Miss Grimes.

“My ecru veil—you know, the big one—the automobile veil?”

“I haven’t got it, Ma,” shouted back Hester.

Laura leaped to her feet.

“What’s the matter, Laura?” demanded Bobby.

“Wait a minute, Bobby,” whispered the older girl.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got an errand to do,” said Laura, evasively, and darted into the house.

She ran up to her room, seized something from a bureau drawer, stuffed it behind the bib of her big apron, and ran down the front stairway and out of the house by that door.

The Grimes’s car was still waiting. Mrs. Grimes—a much overdressed woman with the same natural bloom on her coarse face that Hester possessed—was just coming out of the house.

Laura darted down the walk out at the gate. She flew up the street and reached the automobile before Mrs. Grimes had stepped in. That lady was saying to her daughter:

“Hester! I ’most know you took that veil and lost it. You took it the night you went car-riding alone. You remember? When you said you had been as far as Robinson’s picnic grounds——”

“Oh, Mrs. Grimes!” gasped Laura, “is this your veil?”

She flashed before the eyes of Hester and her mother the veil that had been used to gag her when she was overcome by the “ghost” in the haunted house in Robinson’s Woods.

“No! That isn’t her veil,” declared Hester, quickly, but growing redder in the face than Nature, even, had intended her to be. “She never saw that veil before.”

“Why, hold on, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Grimes. “That looks like mine.”

“No, it isn’t!” snapped her daughter.

“Yes it is, Hes,” said Mrs. Grimes, and she took the proffered veil from Laura’s hand.

“’Taint, either, Ma!” cried Hester.

“I hope I know my own veil, Hessie Grimes. This is it. Where did you find it, Laura?” asked the butcher’s wife.

“I found it where Hester left it,” said Laura, quietly, and looking straight into the other girl’s face. “It was the night the M. O. R.’s went to Robinson’s Woods.”

“There! what did I tell you, Hes?” exclaimed the unsuspecting lady. “I knew you lost it that night. I’m a thousand times obliged, Laura. I don’t suppose you would have known it was mine if you hadn’t heard me hollering about it?” and she laughed, comfortably. “I do shout, that’s a fact. But Laws! it got me back my veil this time, didn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Laura, unsmilingly. “And Hester! Monday morning Miss Carrington will want to speak to you before school.”

She turned back without any further explanation to the culprit. She knew that she could make this unveiling of Hester’s meanness do Bobby Hargrew a good turn. Hester must admit to Miss Carrington that she had told a falsehood when she said she saw Bobby throw something in the principal’s wastebasket. If Hester would not make this reparation Laura was determined to make public what Hester had done to her in the haunted house.