CHAPTER XXIV
THE TRAITOR’S BLOW
Beth really had her heart and mind so full these days that there should not have been room for worry over anything that a girl like Maude Grimshaw could say. The fact remained, however, that Beth was disturbed by Maude’s innuendo.
Molly had asked: “What could that nasty thing mean, Beth, about Mrs. Severn?”
“I don’t know,” her chum honestly replied. “I can’t imagine.”
“Humph! just some of her spleen, I guess. She’s heard you weren’t working there any more on Saturdays and so just made something up out of whole cloth.”
So they passed it over. Molly evidently heard no more about it during the next week, for she did not broach the subject again to Beth. But the latter felt that there was a cabal of some nature against her among Maude’s “Me toos.”
Beth practised with the first basket-ball team every day, and Miss Hammersly herself came to watch the play and pronounce judgment. She was very much pleased with the smooth work of the five and applauded vigorously.
The whole school took a deep interest in the practice games; but the general applause grew noticeably fainter day after day, when Beth chanced to make a good play. Molly Granger and a number of her close friends, who were frequently on the side lines together, cheered Beth to the echo. But they finally became quite alone in their applause.
Beth herself had noticed the coldness of her fellow-students before this. She discovered it in other ways besides the lack of applause on the basket-ball court.
A girl who had promised her some work did not bring it to Number Eighty and Beth asked her about it.
“Miss Rice, I can mark those handkerchiefs for you now, if you like,” Beth said. “Shall I come for them, or will you bring them to me?”
The girl spoken to flushed and hesitated. “Oh—I—well—I’ve changed my mind, Miss Baldwin,” she stammered. “I guess I won’t have them done just now.”
“Oh, dear me!” laughed Beth, “if it is a matter of a lack of the essential pin-money just now, I’ll trust you. I have to do such work when I can, you know, and often we girls have spent all our immediate allowances.”
“No, Miss Baldwin. I don’t want the handkerchiefs done at all,” said Miss Rice, tartly. “I prize them rather highly—they were sent to me from Paris. I don’t think I care to risk them out of my own possession.”
Nothing could be plainer than this. Beth was aware that Miss Rice was frequently in Maude Grimshaw’s company. The lesson to be drawn was obvious.
All the girls of Rivercliff were not followers of “Princess Fancyfoot.” Yet it was plain enough before the day of the game between the school’s first team and the one from Jackson City, that Beth was not a favorite on the basket-ball team.
Whether Miss Crossleigh, the instructor, noticed it or not, she said nothing. Teachers cannot always take note of girlish feuds and rivalries.
A match game between the teams of rival schools brought to the Rivercliff athletic field many friends of the girls. Miss Hammersly had had a grand stand erected to overlook both the basket-ball and tennis courts, which were inside the cinder path. The weather was fine, the sport was popular, and the field made a brilliant picture on this crisp October afternoon.
Beth’s mates on the basket-ball team showed her frank good fellowship—that was one good thing. Otherwise, she could not have played as brilliantly as she did that day. The opposition to her that developed among her own fellow-students as the game went on only served to spur her to greater efforts.
In the first half the Rivercliff team was outmatched. There was a weak spot in the home team, but not in Beth Baldwin’s corner. Yet almost the whole school was unfriendly toward her.
“All ready?” demanded the referee, and at the signal the ball was thrown into play.
Although the play was fast and furious from the very start, at first neither side scored. Then the umpire halted the play with:
“Foul on Rivercliff for over guarding!”
It was really a shock to the school five. “Do get together, girls!” begged Maxine Laval, the captain.
But their opponents got the ball and shot it basketward. Right from the field the Jackson City Academy five made a basket. And following it—within a half minute—they made a second.
“Break it up, guards! Do!” groaned Maxine.
Maxine herself made a brilliant play the next moment, and her friends on the benches and side lines showed their approval wildly. And then a basket was made splendidly by Beth.
Silence. For a moment, dead silence. Then Molly led a weak and forlorn applause. But the snub of the little brunette beauty, who was playing so well and vigorously, was so plain that the entire audience marked it.
Whispering among the elders, laughter among the girls, followed the incident. The whistle called the half with the home five badly behind. The visitors scored six points over them.
In the dressing room allotted to the Rivercliff five, Miss Crossleigh thanked them for their work and encouraged them.
“There seems to be some schoolgirl foolishness afoot,” the instructor added, rather sharply. “One of us seems to be unpopular——”
“Miss Crossleigh,” said Beth, quickly, “if you think that I had better retire and let a substitute take my place——”
“No, no!” the other girls of the team cried.
“Why, Beth Baldwin!” Maxine said, warmly, “you have done better than any of us. Isn’t that so, Miss Crossleigh?”
“I will not say that,” said the lady, smiling. “You have each done your best, I believe, and I want you to keep at it. Show them that although they may win this game from us you are all good sports. Of course, Miss Baldwin will finish the game.”
And cheered somewhat by this, when the whistle announced the game was on for the second half, Beth went out with renewed vigor. Almost at once she got another basket. This time there was a pronounced hiss from one group on the benches. Needless to say Maude Grimshaw was the central figure of that group.
But the friends of the visiting girls began to understand the opposition to Beth by her own party. They applauded Beth themselves, and when the game was over (and it was not such a bad beating the Rivercliff team received, after all, thanks to Beth’s good playing), every member of the opposing team insisted upon shaking hands with the girl who had fought them the hardest.
Almost everybody was late to supper that evening; but notably the losing team in the afternoon’s game, and Maude Grimshaw and several of her “Me toos.” In fact, Maude herself did not appear at all, and Miss Carroll slipped into her place at table.
“That table would have just buzzed if Carroll hadn’t sat there,” Molly Granger announced, when the meal was over and the girls were trooping upstairs to the general recreation room on the second floor.
The elements of the game that afternoon were busily discussed; but as several of the teachers were present right up to the time the half-past eight bell rang, when the girls retired to their rooms, any particular talk regarding Beth had to be postponed by either friends or enemies.