If Hester had arrived at the Grimes’s house in two cabs instead of one it would have aroused her mother to little comment; for, for some years now, her daughter had grown quite beyond her control and Mrs. Grimes had learned not to comment upon Hester’s actions. Yet, oddly enough, Hester was neither a wild girl nor a silly girl; she was merely bold, bad tempered, and wilful.
Mrs. Grimes was a large, lymphatic lady, given to loose wrappers until late in the day, and the enjoyment of unlimited novels. “Comfort above all” was the good lady’s motto. She had suffered much privation and had worked hard, during Mr. Grimes’s beginnings in trade, for Hester’s father had worked up from an apprentice butcher boy in a retail store—was a “self-made man.”
Mr. Grimes was forever talking about how he had made his own way in the world without the help of any other person; but he was, nevertheless, purse-proud and arrogant. Hester could not fail to be somewhat like her father in this. She believed that Money was the touchstone of all good in the world. But Mrs. Grimes was naturally a kindly disposed woman, and sometimes her mother’s homely virtues cropped out in Hester—as note her interest in the Doyles. She was impulsively generous, but expected to find the return change of gratitude for every kindly dollar she spent.
They had a big and ornate house, in which the servants did about as they liked for all of Mrs. Grimes’s oversight. The latter admitted that she knew how to do a day’s wash as well as any woman—perhaps would have been far more happy had she been obliged to do such work, too; but she had no executive ability, and the girls in the kitchen did well or ill as they listed.
Now that Hester was growing into a young lady, she occasionally went into the servants’ quarters and tried to set things right in imitation of her father’s blustering oversight of his slaughter house—without Mr. Grimes’s thorough knowledge of the work and conditions in hand. So Hester’s interference in domestic affairs usually resulted in a “blow-up” of all concerned and a scramble for new servants at the local agencies.
Under these circumstances it may be seen that the girl’s home life was neither happy nor inspiring. The kindly, gentle things of life escaped Hester Grimes. She unfortunately scorned her mother for her “easy” habits; she admired her father’s bullying ways and his ability to make money. And she missed the sweetening influence of a well-conducted home where the inmates are polite and kind to one another.
Hester was abundantly healthy, possessed personal courage to a degree—as Dr. Agnew had observed—was not naturally unkind, and had other qualities that, properly trained and moulded, would have made her a very nice girl indeed. But having no home restraining influences, the rough corners of Hester Grimes’s character had never been smoothed down.
Her friendship with Lily Pendleton was not like the “chumminess” of other girls. Lily’s mother came of one of the “first families” of Centerport, and moved in a circle that the Grimeses could never hope to attain, despite their money. Through her friendship with Lily, who was in miniature already a “fine lady,” Hester obtained a slight hold upon the fringe of society. But even Lily was lost to her at times.
“Why ain’t I seen your friend Lily so much lately?” asked Mrs. Grimes, languidly, the evening of the day Hester had plunged into the sewer and rescued little Johnny Doyle.
“Oh, between dancing school and Purt Sweet, Lil has about got her silly head turned,” said Hester, tossing her own head.
“My goodness me!” drawled Mrs. Grimes, “that child doesn’t take young Purt Sweet seriously, does she?”
“Whoever heard of anybody’s taking Pretty seriously?” laughed Hester. “Only Pretty himself believes that he has anything in his head but mush! Last time Mrs. Pendleton had an evening reception, Purt got an invite, and went. Something happened to him—he knocked over a vase, or trod on a lady’s dress, or something awkward—and the next afternoon Lil caught him walking up and down in front of their house, trying to screw up courage enough to ring the bell.
“‘What’s the matter, Purt?’ asked Lily, going up to him.
“‘Oh, Miss Lily!’ cries Purt. ‘What did your mother say when you told her I was sorry for having made a fool of myself at the party last night?’
“‘Why,’ says Lil, ‘she said she didn’t notice anything unusual in your actions.’
“Wasn’t that a slap? And now Lil is letting Purt run around with her and act as if he owned her—just because he’s a good dancer.”
“My dear!” yawned her mother. “I should think you’d join that dancing class.”
“I’ll wait till I’m asked, I hope,” muttered Hester. “Everybody doesn’t get to join it. We’re not in that set—and we might as well admit it. And I don’t believe we ever will be.”
“I’m certainly glad!” complained her mother, rustling the leaves of her book. “Your father is always pushing me into places where I don’t want to go. He had a deal in business with Colonel Swayne, and he insisted that I call on Mrs. Kerrick. They’re awfully stuck-up folks, Hess.”
“I see Mrs. Kerrick’s carriage standing at the Beldings’ gate quite often, just the same,” muttered Hester.
“Yes—I know,” said her mother. “They make a good deal of Laura. Well, they didn’t make much of me. When I walked into the grounds and started up the front stoop, a butler, or footman, or something, all togged up in livery, told me that I must go around to the side door if I had come to see the cook. And he didn’t really seem anxious to take my card.”
“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Hester.
“You needn’t tell your father. I don’t blame ’em. They’ve got their own friends and we’ve got ourn. No use pushing out of our class.”
“You should have gone in the carriage,” complained Hester.
“I don’t like that stuffy hack,” said her mother. “It smells of—of liv’ry stables and—and funerals! If your father would set up a carriage of his own——”
“Or buy an automobile instead of hiring one for us occasionally,” finished Hester.
For with all his love of display, the wholesale butcher was a thrifty person.
With Lily so much interested for the time in other matters, Hester found her only recreation at the athletic field; and for several days after the mysterious raid upon the girls’ gymnasium there was not much but talk indulged in about the building. Then new basketballs were procured and the regular practice in that game went on.
In a fortnight would come the first inter-school match of the fall term—a game between Central High girls and the representative team of East High of Centerport. In the last match game the East High girls had won—and many of the girls of Central High believed that the game went to their competitors because of Hester Grimes’s fouling.
There was more talk of this now. Some of the girls did not try to hide their dislike for Hester. Nellie Agnew did not speak to her at all, and the latter was inclined to accuse Nellie of being the leader in this apparent effort to make Hester feel that she was looked upon with more than suspicion. The mystery of the gymnasium raid overshadowed the whole school; but the shadow fell heaviest on Hester Grimes.
“She did it!”
“She’s just mean enough to do it!”
“She said she hated us!”
“It’s just like her—she spoils everything she can’t boss!”
She could read these expressions on the lips of her fellow students. Hester Grimes began to pay for her ill-temper, and the taste of this medicine was bitter indeed.
It would have been hard to tell how the suspicion took form among the girls of Central High that Hester Grimes knew more than she should regarding the gymnasium mystery. Whether she had spoiled the paraphernalia herself, or hired somebody to do it for her, was the point of the discussion carried on wherever any of the girls—especially those of her own class—met for conference.
Older people scoffed at the idea of a girl having committed the crime. And, indeed, it was a complete mystery how the marauder got into the building and out again. Bill Jackway, the watchman, was worried almost sick over it; he was afraid of losing his job.
Bobby Hargrew was about the only girl in Central High who “lost no sleep over the affair,” as she expressed it. And that wasn’t because she was not keenly interested in the mystery. Indeed, like Nellie, she had seen at the beginning that suspicion pointed to Hester Grimes. And perhaps Bobby believed at the bottom of her heart that Hester had brought about the destruction. Bobby and Hester had forever been at daggers’ points.
Bobby, however, was as full of mischief and fun as ever.
“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, to a group waiting at the girls’ entrance to the school building one morning. “I’ve got the greatest joke on Gee Gee! Listen to it.”
“What have you done now, you bad, bad child?” demanded Nellie. “You’ll miss playing goal guard against East High if you don’t look out. Miss Carrington is watching you.”
“She’s always watching me,” complained Bobby. “But this joke can’t put a black mark against me, thank goodness!”
“What is it, Bobby?” asked Dorothy Lockwood.
“Don’t keep us on tenter-hooks,” urged her twin.
“Why, Gee Gee called at Alice Long’s yesterday afternoon. You know, she is bound to make a round of the girls’ homes early in the term—she always does. And Alice Long was able to return to school this fall.”
“And I’m glad of that,” said Dorothy. “She’ll finish her senior year and graduate.”
“Well,” chuckled Bobby, “Gee Gee appeared at the house and Tommy, Short and Long’s little brother, met her at the door. Alice wasn’t in, and Gee Gee opened her cardcase. Out fluttered one of those bits of tissue paper that come between engraved cards—to keep ’em from smudging, you know. Tommy jumped and picked it up, and says he:
“‘Say, Missis! you dropped one of your cigarette papers.’ Now, what do you know about that?” cried Bobby, as the other girls went off into a gale of laughter. “Billy heard him, and it certainly tickled that boy. Think of Gee Gee’s feelings!”
Not alone Bobby, but all the members of the basketball team were doing their very best in classes so as to have no marks against them before the game with the East High girls.
Mrs. Case coached them sharply, paying particular attention to Hester. It was too bad that this robust girl, who was so well able to play the game, should mar her playing with roughness and actual rudeness to her fellow-players. And warnings seemed wasted on her.
Hester never received a demerit from Miss Carrington. In class she was always prepared and there was little to ruffle her temper. The instructors—aside from Mrs. Case—seldom found any fault with Hester Grimes.
The game with the crack team of the East High girls was to be played on the latter’s court. The girls of Central High had been beaten there in the spring; this afternoon they went over—with their friends—with the hope of returning the spring defeat.
Bobby had been in the audience and led the “rooting” among the girls for Central High at the former game. Now she had graduated from a mere basketball “fan” to a very alert and successful goal guard.
This was Eve Sitz’s first important game, too; but the Swiss girl was of a cool and phlegmatic temperament and Laura Belding, as captain, had no fears for her.
The audience was a large one, and was enthusiastic from the start. The girls of Central High always attended the boys’ games in force and applauded liberally for their own school team; so Chet Belding and Lance Darby, with a crowd of strong-lunged Central High boys at their backs, cheered their girl friends when they came on the field with the very effective school yell:
“C-e-n, Central High!
C-e-n-t-r-a-l, Central High!
C-e-n-t-r-a-l-h-i-g-h, Central High!
Ziz-z-z-z——
Boom!”
The teams took their places after warming up a little, their physical instructors acting as coaches, while the physical instructor for West High School of Centerport was referee. The officials on the lines were selected from the competing schools.
It was agreed to play two fifteen-minute halves and the ball was put into play by the referee. The girls of Central High played like clockwork for the first five minutes and scored a clean goal. Their friends cheered tumultuously.
When the ball was put into play again there was much excitement. “Shoot it here, Laura! I’m loose!” shouted Bobby, whose slang was always typical of the game she was playing.
“Block her! Block her!” cried the captain of the East High team.
Most of the instructions were supposed to be passed by signal; but the girls would get excited at times and, unless the referee blew her whistle and stopped the play, pandemonium did reign on the court once in a while. Suddenly the ball chanced to be snapped to Hester’s side of the court. Her opponent got it, and almost instantly the referee’s whistle blew.
“That Central High girl at forward center is over-guarding.”
“No, I’m not!” snapped Hester.
The lady who acted as referee was a bit hot-tempered herself, perhaps. At least, this flat contradiction brought a most unexpected retort from her lips:
“Central High Captain!”
“Yes, ma’am?” gasped Laura Belding.
“Take out your forward center and put in a substitute for this half.”
“But, Miss Lawrence!” cried Laura, aghast.
“You are delaying play, Miss Belding,” said the referee, sharply.
Laura looked at Hester with commiseration; but she did not have to speak. The culprit, with a red and angry visage, was already crossing the court toward the dressing rooms. Laura put in Roberta Fish, and play went on.
But the Central High team was rattled. East High got two goals—one from a foul—and so stood in the lead at the end of the half. The visiting team did not work so well together with the substitute player, and the captain of East High, seeing this fact, crowded the play to Roberta Fish’s side.
“My goodness!” whispered Bobby Hargrew, as they ran off the field at the end of the half. “I hope that’s taught Hester a lesson. And this is once when we need Hester Grimes badly.”
“I should say we did,” panted Laura.
“We’ve got to play up some to win back that point we lost, let alone beating them,” cried Jess Morse.
Nellie Agnew was the first to enter the dressing room assigned to the Central High girls. She looked around the empty room and gasped.
“What’s the matter, Nell?” cried Bobby, crowding in.
“Where is she?” demanded the doctor’s daughter.
“Hessie has lit out!” shouted Bobby, turning back to the captain and her team-mates.
“She’s got mad and gone home!” declared Jess Morse. “Her hat and coat are gone.”
“Now what will we do?” cried Dorothy Lockwood.
And the question was echoed from all sides. For without Hester it did not seem possible that the Central High team could hold its own with its opponents.
The dressing room buzzed like an angry beehive for a minute. It was Laura Belding, captain of the team, who finally said:
“Hester surely can’t have deserted us in this way. She knows that Roberta is not even familiar with our secret signals.”
“She’s gone, just the same,” said her chum, Jess. “That’s how mean Hester Grimes is.”
“Well, I declare! I don’t know that I blame her,” cried Lily Pendleton.
“You don’t blame her?” repeated Nellie. “I don’t believe you’d blame Hester no matter what she did.”
“She hasn’t done anything,” returned Lily, sullenly.
“How about the gym. business——”
Bobby Hargrew began it, but Laura shut her off by a prompt palm laid across her mouth.
“You be still, Bobby!” commanded Nellie Agnew.
“You’re all just as unfair to Hessie as you can be,” said Lily with some spirit. “And now this woman from West High had to pick on her——”
“Don’t talk so foolishly, Lil,” said Dora Lockwood. “You know very well that Hester has been warned dozens of times not to talk back to the referee. Mrs. Case warns her almost every practice game about something. And now she has got taken up short. If it wasn’t for what it means to us all in this particular game, I wouldn’t care if she never played with us.”
“Me, too!” cried Jess, in applause. “Hester is always cutting some mean caper that makes trouble for other folk.”
“We can’t possibly win this game without her!” wailed Dorothy.
“I’ll do my very best, girls,” said Roberta Fish, the substitute player at forward center.
“Of course you will, Roberta,” said Laura, warmly. “But we can’t teach you all our moves in these few moments—Ah! here is Mrs. Case.”
Their friend and teacher came in briskly.
“What’s all this? what’s all this?” she cried. “Where is Hester?”
“She took her hat and coat and ran out before we came in, Mrs. Case,” explained Laura.
“Not deserted you?” cried the instructor.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But that is a most unsportsmanlike thing to do!” exclaimed the instructor, feeling the desertion keenly. That one of her girls should act so cut Mrs. Case to the heart. She took great pride in the girls of Central High as a body, and Hester’s desertion was bad for discipline.
“You must do the best you can, Laura, with the substitute,” she said, at last, and speaking seriously. “I will inform Miss Lawrence that you will put in Roberta for the second half, too. Nothing need be said about Hester’s defection.”
“I am afraid we can’t win with me in Hessie’s place,” wailed Roberta.
“You’re going to do your very best, Roberta,” said Mrs. Case, calmly. “You always do. All of you put your minds to the task. Your opponents are only one point ahead of you. The first five-minutes’ play in the first half was as pretty team work on your part as I ever saw.”
“But we can’t use our secret signals,” said Laura.
“Play your very best. Do not put Roberta into bad pinches——”
“But the captain of the East High team sees our weak point, and forces the play that way,” complained Jess Morse.
“Of course she does. And you would do the same were you in her place,” said Mrs. Case, with a smile. “But above all, if you can’t win gracefully, do lose gracefully! Be sportsmanlike. Cheer the winners. Now, the whistle will sound in a moment,” and the instructor hurried away to speak to the referee.
“Oh, dear me!” groaned Roberta. “My heart’s in my mouth.”
“Then it isn’t where Sissy Lowe, one of the freshies, said it was in physiology class yesterday,” chuckled Bobby Hargrew.
“How was that, Bobby?” queried Jess.
“Sissy was asked where the heart was situated—what part of the body—and she says:
“‘Pleathe, Mith Gould, ith in the north thentral part!’ Can you beat those infants?” added Bobby as the girls laughed.
But they were in no mood for laughter when they trotted out upon the basketball court at the sound of the referee’s whistle. They took their places in silence, and the roars of the Central High boys, with their prolonged “Ziz—z—z—z——Boom!” did not sound as encouraging as it had at the beginning of the first half.
Basketball is perhaps the most transparent medium for revealing certain angles of character in young girls. At first the players seldom have anything more than a vague idea of the proper manner of throwing a ball, or the direction in which it is to be thrown.
The old joke about a woman throwing a stone at a hen and breaking the pane of glass behind her, will soon become a tasteless morsel under the tongue of the humorist. Girls in our great public schools are learning how to throw. And basketball is one of the greatest helps to this end. The woman of the coming generation is going to have developed the same arm and shoulder muscles that man displays, and will be able to throw a stone and hit the hen, if necessary!
The girl beginner at basketball usually has little idea of direction in throwing the ball; nor, indeed, does she seem to distinguish fairly at first between her opponents and her team mates. Her only idea is to try to propel the ball in the general direction of the goal, the thought that by passing it from one to another of her team mates she will much more likely see it land safely in the basket never seemingly entering her mind.
But once a girl has learned to observe and understand the position and function of team mates and opponents, to consider the chances of the game in relation to the score, and, bearing these things in mind, can form a judgment as to her most advantageous play, and act quickly on it—when she has learned to repress her hysterical excitement and play quietly instead of boisterously, what is it she has gained?
It is self-evident that she has won something beside the mere ability to play basketball. She has learned to control her emotions—to a degree, at least—through the dictates of her mind. Blind impulse has been supplanted by intelligence. Indeed, she has gained, without doubt, a balance of mind and character that will work for good not only to herself, but to others.
Indeed, it is the following out of the old fact—the uncontrovertible fact of education—that what one learns at school is not so valuable as is the fact that he learns how to learn. Playing basketball seriously will help the girl player to control her emotions and her mind in far higher and more important matters than athletics.
To see these eighteen girls in their places, alert, unhurried, watchful, and silent, was not alone a pleasing, but an inspiring sight. Laura and her team mates—even Roberta—waited like veterans for the referee to throw the ball. Laura and her opposing jumping center were on the qui vive, muscles taut, and scarcely breathing.
Suddenly the ball went up. Laura sprang for it and felt her palms against the big ball. Instantly she passed it to Jess Morse and within the next few seconds the ball was in play all over the back field—mostly in the hands of Central High girls.
They played hard; but nobody—not even Roberta—played badly. The East High girls were strong opponents, and more than once it looked as though the ball would be carried by them into a goal. However, on each occasion, some brilliant play by a Central High girl brought it back toward their basket and finally, after six and a half minutes, the visiting team made a goal.
The Central High girls were one point ahead.
The ball went in at center again and there was a quick interchange of plays between the teams. Suddenly, while the ball was flying through the air toward East High’s basket, the referee’s whistle sounded.
“Foul!” she declared, just as the ball popped into the basket.
A murmur rose from the East High team. Madeline Spink, the captain, said quietly:
“But the goal counts for us, does it not, Miss Lawrence?”
“It counts as a goal from a foul,” replied the referee, “which means that it is no goal at all, and the ball is in play.”
The East High girls were more than a little disturbed by the decision. It was a nice point; for on occasion a goal thrown from the foul line counts one. It broke up, for the minute, the better play of the East High team, and the instant the Central High girls got the ball they rushed it for a goal.
There was great excitement at this point in the game. If Central High won two clean points it would hardly be possible for East High to recover and gain the lead once more. Laura signalled her players from time to time; but she was hampered whenever the ball came near Roberta, or the time was ripe for a massed play. The substitute did not know all the secret signals.
Had Hester Grimes only been in her place! Her absence crowded the Central High team slowly to the wall. In the very moment of success, when a clean goal was about to be made, they failed and their opponents got the ball. Again it was passed from hand to hand. One girl bounced the ball and a foul was called. Again the Central Highs rushed it, and from the foul line made another goal.
Two points ahead, and the boys in the audience cheered madly. No harder fought battle had ever been played upon that court.
“Shoot it over, Jess!” roared Chet, at one point, rising and waving to his particular girl friend, madly. “Look out! they’ll get you!”
“Look out, Laura! don’t let ’em get you——Aw! that’s too bad,” grumbled Lance Darby, quite as interested in the work of Chet’s sister on the court.
“Hi! no fair pulling! Say! where’s the referee’s eyes?” demanded Chet, the next moment, in disgust.
“Behind her glasses,” said his chum. “I never did believe four eyes were as good as two.”
The ball came back to center again and there was little delay before it was put in play. Only three minutes remained. The eighteen girls were as eager as they could be. Madeline Spink and her team mates were determined to tie the score at least. A clean goal would do it.
They rushed the play and carried the ball into Roberta’s country. Roberta never had a chance! In a moment the ball was hurtling toward the proper East High girl, and no guarding could save it.
A cheer from the audience—those interested in the East High girls—announced another clean goal. The score was tied and two minutes to play!
“Do not delay the game, young ladies!” warned the referee.
They were in position again and the ball was thrown up. No fumbles now. Every girl was playing for all that there was in her! A single point would decide the rivalry of the two schools at the beginning of the playing season. To lead off with this first game would encourage either team immeasurably.
East High led off first; but quickly Laura and her team mates got the ball again and pushed it toward the basket. There was no rough play. The umpires, as well as the referee, watched sharply. It was a sturdy, vigorous, but fair game. This was a time when Hester’s hot temper might have brought the team disgrace; and for a moment Laura was, after all, glad that the delinquent had gone home.
Then, suddenly, from full field and a fair position, the ball rose and flew directly for the basket. While in mid-air the whistle was blown. Time was called and the game was ended.
The spectators, as well as the players, held their breath and watched the flying ball. Although the whistle had blown, the goal—if the ball settled into the basket—would count for the visiting team. This one unfinished play would give the girls of Central High two clear points in the lead if all went well.
The course of the flying ball was watched by all eyes, therefore. Chet Belding and his mates began their chant, believing that the ball was sure to go true to the basket.
But they began too soon. The ball hit the ring of the basket, hovered a moment over it, and then fell back and rolled into the court! Chet’s chant of praise changed to a groan. The game was over—and it was a tie.
Disappointed as the girls of Central High were, they cheered their opponents nobly, and the East High girls cheered them. The audience had to admit that the game had been keenly fought and—after Hester was put out of it—as cleanly as a basketball game had ever been played on those grounds.
Miss Lawrence, the referee, came to the Central High girls’ dressing room and complimented Laura and her team on their playing.
“I was sorry to put off your forward center, Miss Belding, in the first half. If you had brought her into the field in the second half your team, without doubt, would have won,” said the referee. “That girl is a splendid player, but she needs to learn to control her temper.”
“That’s always the way!” cried Nellie Agnew, when the West High instructor was gone. “Hester spoils everything.”
“She crabs every game we play,” growled Bobby, both sullen and slangy.
“She ought to be put off the team for good,” said one of the twins.
“That’s so,” chimed in her sister.
“We’ll never win this season if Hessie is included in this team,” declared Jess Morse.
Even Lily Pendleton could find nothing to say now in favor of her chum. She hurried away from the others girls, and the seven remaining seriously discussed the situation. It was Nellie, despite her promise to her father, who came out boldly and said:
“Let’s put her off the team altogether.”
“We can’t do it,” objected Laura.
“Ask Mrs. Case to do it, then,” said Jess.
“But who’ll ask her? Hester will be awfully mad,” said Eve Sitz.
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to do the asking,” admitted the bold Bobby.
The seven regular members of the basketball team were alone now. Dorothy Lockwood said:
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to sign a petition. But that is what we ought to do—sign a petition to Mrs. Case asking her to remove Hester.”
“What do you say, Mother Wit?” demanded Jess Morse of Laura.
“I vote for the petition,” said Laura, gravely.
“And who’ll sign it?” cried Dorothy.
“All of us.”
“Not me first!” declared Dora.
“We’ll make it a ‘round robin,’” said Laura, smiling. “All seven of us will sign in a circle, but nobody need take the lead in making the request. If we are all agreed Jess can write the petition to Mrs. Case.”
“I’ll do it!” declared Jess Morse.
With some corrections from her chum, Josephine finally prepared and presented for their signatures the petition, and having read it the girls, one after the other, signed her name in the manner Mother Wit had suggested. The petition and Round Robin was as follows:
“We, the undersigned members of Basketball Team No. 1, of Central High, Girls’ Branch Athletic League, after due and ample discussion of the facts, conclude that the retention of Hester Grimes as a member of the said team is a detriment thereto, and that her membership will, in the future, as in the past, cause the team to lose games in the Trophy Series of Inter-School Games. We therefore ask that the aforesaid Hester Grimes be removed from the team and that some other player be nominated in her stead.”
In signing the paper in this fashion no one girl could be accused of leading in the demand for Hester’s removal. Lily had gone, so that nobody would tell Hester just what each girl said, or who signed first. That Nellie Agnew had taken the lead in this petition against her schoolmate the doctor’s daughter herself knew, if nobody else did. She felt a little conscience-stricken over it, too, for she had told Daddy Doctor that she would be guided by his advice in the matter of Hester Grimes.
And after supper that night her father said something that made Nellie feel more than ever condemned.
“Do you know, Nell,” he said, thoughtfully, pulling on his old black pipe as she perched as usual on the broad arm of his chair. “Do you know there is good stuff in that girl Hester?”
“In Hester Grimes?” asked Nellie, rather flutteringly.
“Yes. In Hester Grimes. I guess you didn’t hear about it. And it slipped my mind. But when I was over to see little Johnny Doyle again to-day I found Hester there and the Doyles think she’s about right—especially Rufus.”
“Rufus isn’t just right in his mind—is he?” asked Nellie, her eyes twinkling a little.
“I don’t know. In some things Rufe is ’way above the average,” chuckled her father. “He is cunning enough, sure enough! But to get back to Hester. I never told you how she jumped into the sewer-basin and saved Johnny’s life?”
“No! Never!” gasped Nellie.
The physician told her the incident in full. He told her further that Hester had done a deal, off and on, for the Widow Doyle and her children.
“Oh, I wish I had known!” cried Nellie, in real contrition.
“What for?” demanded the doctor.
But she would not tell him. She knew that the petition had been mailed to Mrs. Case that very evening. Her name was on it, and in her own heart Nellie knew that she had had as much to do with the scheme to put Hester Grimes off the basketball team as any girl.
“Perhaps, if the girls had known what Hester did for Johnny they wouldn’t have been so bitter against her,” thought the doctor’s daughter. “I know I would never have signed that hateful paper. Oh, dear! why did Daddy Doctor have to find out that there was some good in Hester, and tell me about it?”
Hester Grimes, as the doctor said, had appeared late that afternoon at the Doyles’ little tenement. She had gone there from the basketball game instead of going directly home.
To tell the truth, she did not wish to be questioned by her mother, nor did she want to meet Lily. If she had felt hatred against her mates in Central High before, that feeling in her heart was now doubled!
For, as all anger is illogical (indignation may not be) Hester turned upon the girls and blamed them for the referee’s decision. Because Miss Lawrence had put her out of the game Hester would have been glad to know that her team mates had gone to pieces and been defeated.
She had managed to recover outwardly from her disappointment and anger, however, when she arrived at the domicile of her humble acquaintances. Mrs. Doyle knitted jackets, and Hester had ordered one for her mother.
“Ma is always lolling around and complaining of feeling draughts,” said Hester. “So I’ll give her one of these ‘snuggers’ to keep her shoulders warm. She’s always snuffing with a cold when it comes fall and the furnace fire is not lit.”
“Lots o’ folks are having colds just now,” complained Mrs. Doyle. “Johnny’s snuffling with one.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right—won’t he, Rufie?” said Hester, chucking the baby under his plump little chin, but speaking to his faithful nurse.
“In course he will, Miss Hester,” cried Rufus, and then opened his mouth for a roar of laughter, that made even the feverish Johnny crow.
“Rufus never gets tired of minding Johnny,” said the widow, proudly. “But he does miss his Uncle Bill.”
Rufe’s face clouded over. “He ain’t never home no more,” he said, complainingly.
“But you can go over to see him at the gymnasium,” said Hester.
“Not no more he can’t, Miss,” said the widow. “Rufus used to go over to see Uncle Bill evenings; but Uncle Bill can’t have him there no more.”
“Why not?” asked Hester, quickly; and yet she flushed and turned her own gaze away and looked out of the window.
“Bill’s had some trouble there. He’s afraid the Board of Education would object. Somebody got into the building——”
“I heard about it,” said Hester, quickly.
“Wisht Uncle Bill had another job,” grumbled Rufus.
“Rufie’s real bright about some things,” whispered his mother. “And sharp ain’t no name for it! He is pretty cute. You can’t say much before him that he don’t remember, and repeat.”
“Wisht that old gymnasium building would burn up; then Uncle Bill could come home,” muttered Rufe.
Mrs. Doyle went to see to her fire. Hester beckoned the boy to the window and whispered to him. Gradually Rufe’s face lit up with one of his flashes of cunning. Money passed from the girl’s hand to that of the half-witted youth.
Just then Dr. Agnew appeared and Hester took her departure.
On the following morning Franklin Sharp, the principal of Central High, called a conference of his teachers at the first opportunity. He was very grave indeed when he told them that another raid had been made upon the girls’ gymnasium.
“Not so much damage is reported as was done before. But, then, the paraphernalia before destroyed was not all removed. But this time the scoundrel—or scoundrels—tried arson.
“A fire was built in a closet on the upper floor. Bill Jackway smelled smoke and got up to see what it was. He found no trace of the firebug—can discover no way in which he got out——”
“But how did he get in?” asked one of the teachers.
“That is plain. It had rained early in the evening. Footprints are still visible leading across a soft piece of ground from the east fence to a window. The window was open, although Bill swears it was shut and locked when he went to bed at ten o’clock. That is how the marauder entered the building. How he got out is a mystery,” declared the principal.
“It is a very dreadful thing,” complained Miss Carrington. “I do not see what we can do about it.”
“We must do something,” said Miss Gould, with vigor.
“Suppose you suggest a course of procedure, Miss Gould?” said the principal, his eyes twinkling.
“I think it would be well,” said Miss Gould, “to sift every rumor and story regarding this matter. There is much gossip among the girls. I have heard of a threat that one girl made in the gymnasium——”
“That is quite ridiculous, Miss Gould!” cried Miss Carrington, with some heat. “You have been listening to a base slander against one of my very best pupils.”
“You mean this Hester Grimes, Henry Grimes’s daughter?” said the principal, sternly.
“That is the girl,” admitted Miss Gould. “I know little about her——”
“And I know a good deal,” interposed Mrs. Case, grimly. “Miss Carrington finds her good at her books, and her deportment is always fair in classes. I find her the hardest girl to manage in all the school. She has a bad temper and she has never been taught to control it. It has gone so far that I fear I shall have to shut her out of some of the athletics,” and she related all that had happened at the basketball game with the East High girls the afternoon before.
“I do not approve of these contests,” said Miss Carrington, primly. “They are sure to cause quarreling.”
“If they do, then there is something the matter with the girls,” declared Mr. Sharp, briskly.
“And I have received this request from the girls of the team—seven of them—this morning,” continued Mrs. Case, producing the “round robin.” “The only girls beside Hester who did not sign it is a girl who always chums with her—the only really close friend Hester has to my knowledge in the school.
“Now, I should like very much to be instructed what to do about this? The girls are perfectly in the right. Hester is not dependable on the team. There should be another girl in her place——”
“Oh, but it is quite unfair!” cried Miss Carrington. “And remember her father is quite an important man. There will be trouble if Hester is put down in these tiresome athletics; or if this story that is going about is repeated to Mr. Grimes I can’t imagine what he would do.”
“Mr. Grimes does not run the Board of Education, nor does he control our actions,” declared Mr. Sharp. “We must take cognizance of these matters at once. I believe you should remove Hester from the team, as requested, Mrs. Case. You have ample reason for so doing. And this matter of the attempt to burn the gymnasium must be investigated fully.”
“But no girl could do these things in the gymnasium,” cried Miss Carrington, with considerable asperity.
“But she could get somebody else to do them—especially a girl who is allowed as much spending money as Hester Grimes,” said the principal. “I can imagine no sane person committing such a crime. It is wilful and malicious mischief, and could only be inspired by hatred, or—an unbalanced mind. That is my opinion.”
For some reason, that lively young “female Mercury,” as Jess Morse sometimes dubbed her, Bobby Hargrew, did not hear of this new raid upon the girls’ gym. early that morning; so, like the other pupils of Central High, she could not visit the athletic building until after school. She went then with Nellie and Laura and Jess, and the quartette were almost the first girls to enter the building that day.
“It’s a dreadful thing,” said Laura, in discussing the affair.
The girls were all noticeably grave about the matter this time. There was little excitement, or talk of “how horrid it was” and all that. There was a gravity in their manner which showed that the girls of Central High were quite aware that the case was serious in the extreme.
One of their number was accused of being the instigator of these raids on the gymnasium. True, or false, it was an accusation that could not be lightly overlooked. Laura Belding was particularly grave; and Nellie Agnew had cried about it.
The four friends went out into the field and examined the footprints in the earth.
“Those were never Hessie’s ‘feetprints,’ for, big as her feet are, she never wears boots like those!” giggled Bobby.
“He was a shuffler—that fellow,” said Jess. “See how blurred the marks are at the heel?”
“And he shuffled right up to this window—And how do you suppose he opened it, if, as Mr. Jackway says, it was locked on the inside?”
“Mystery!” said Bobby.
“Give it up,” added Jess. “What do you say, Mother Wit?”
“That is the way he opened it,” said Laura, softly, looking up from the foot prints.
“What’s that?” cried Jess.
“Why—I hear you talking, but you don’t say anything!” laughed Bobby. “How did he open it?”
“From the inside,” said Laura.
“Why, Laura!” gasped Nellie. “You do not distrust Mr. Jackway?”
“Hush! Of course not,” cried Jess, in a lower tone.
“No, I do not distrust him,” said Laura Belding.
“What do you mean, then, by saying that the fellow opened the window from the inside?”
“And that’s ridiculous, Laura!” cried Jess. “He walked up to the window from across the field—you can see he did. And there’s no mark showing how he went away. He did not leave by the window. He could not have been inside when he came from outside——”
“Hold on! Hold on!” warned Bobby. “You’re getting dreadfully mixed, Jess.”
“But I don’t see what Laura’s driving at,” declared her chum.
“Why,” said Mother Wit, calmly, “the person who made those shoe prints walked backwards. Don’t you see? That is what makes the shuffling mark at the heel. And see! the step is so uneven in length. He escaped by the window; he didn’t enter by it.”
“Well!” cried Nellie Agnew. “That explains without explaining. The mystery is deeper than ever.”
“Why is it?” demanded Jess.
“Don’t you see? Before, we thought we knew how the fellow got in. It seems to be an easier thing to get out of the gym. than into it. But now Laura knocks that in the head. The mystery is: How did he get in?”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Bobby. “It makes my head buzz. And Laura is a regular lady detective. She’s always finding out things that ‘it would be better, far, did we not know!’”
She said this to Nellie Agnew, when they had separated from Laura and Jess, and were walking toward home.
“Say! do you know how Laura explained that canoe tipping over with Purt Sweet and Lily Pendleton?” pursued the lively one.
“I didn’t know that they had an accident,” laughed Nellie. “Those canoes are awfully ticklish, I know.”
“I should say they were! Well, Purt and Lil borrowed Hessie’s canoe and they no more than got started before they went head first into the water—and Lil, of course, helpless as usual, had to be ‘rescued.’ The number of times that girl has been ‘rescued’ this season is a caution!”
“I do admire your elegant language,” said Nellie, reprovingly. “But what did Laura say?”
“She explained it all for them. Both Purt and Lil were trying to tell how such a wonderful thing chanced to happen as an overturn, when Laura said she could explain it satisfactorily to all hands. She said that Purt had made a mistake and parted his hair too far on one side, and that had overbalanced the canoe!”
“Well, they do swamp awfully easy,” laughed Nellie. “I guess Laura has found the right explanation of how the villain left the gym. But there is one explanation that I would like to have—a much more important one,” concluded Nellie.
“What’s that?”
“Who did it?”
“I thought that was pretty well understood,” growled Bobby.
“No girl could have climbed over that fence, that’s sure!”
“Oh, I grant you that!” cried Bobby. “But she paid to have it done. There are plenty of tough fellows from down at the ‘Four Corners’ who work at the slaughter house. They could be hired to do it.”
“Hush, Bobby!” commanded the doctor’s daughter. “I feel terribly condemned. I am afraid we are accusing Hester wrongfully. A girl couldn’t have two such very opposite sides to her character,” and she promptly told her friend what Dr. Agnew had related regarding Hester’s rescue of little Johnny Doyle from the sewer basin.
“Gee! that was some jump, wasn’t it?” demanded the admiring Bobby. Then she shook her head slowly. “Well,” she remarked, “nobody ever said Hester wasn’t brave enough. She was brave enough to slap your face!” and then she giggled.
“I don’t care,” said Nellie, slowly. “I fear we went too far when we asked Mrs. Case to take her off the team. And I’m sure it isn’t right for us to accuse her of being the cause of the trouble at the gym.—without further and better evidence.”
“Oh, dear, Nell! you’re a great fuss-budget!” cried the effervescent Bobby. “Are you sure that your Daddy Doctor saw quite straight when he saw Hester save the kid? You know, he’s getting awfully absent-minded.”
Nellie smiled at her, taking Bobby’s jokes good naturedly.
“I know father is absent-minded,” she admitted. “But not as bad as all that.”
“I don’t know,” returned Bobby, with apparent seriousness. “The other day when he put the stethoscope to me before practice, I expected to see him take the receiver away from his ear and holler ‘Hello, Central!’ into it.”
“I’ll tell him that!” promised Nellie.
“All right. Do your worst,” giggled Bobby. “It will be a month old before he gets around to sound my heart action again, and he will have forgotten all about it by then.”
The Saturday following a crowd of the girls went out to visit Eve Sitz, and Nellie and Bobby were included in the automobile load that left the Beldings’ house right after luncheon. Saturday mornings Laura always helped in her father’s jewelry store, while Chet was behind the counter as an extra salesman in the evening; so the Beldings’ chauffeur drove the car to the Sitz farm for the girls.
There were chestnut and hickory woods on, and near, the Sitz farm, and the girls had in mind a scheme for a big nutting party just as soon as Otto Sitz—Eve’s brother—should pronounce the frost heavy enough to open the chestnut burrs and send the hickory nuts tumbling to the ground.
There was always plenty to do to amuse the young folk—especially young folk from the city—on the Sitz place. This day Otto and the hired men were husking corn on the barn floor, and Nellie, and Bobby, and Jess and the Lockwood twins were supplied with “corn pegs” and sat around the pile, helping to strip the golden and red ears.
Eve had an errand down at the nearest country store, so she put the old gray mare into the spring cart with her own hands, and Laura rode with her.
“We had a nice colt from old Peggy last year, and two weeks ago it was stolen. Otto had just broken her to saddle, and she was a likely animal,” Eve said. “Old Peggy misses her, and whinnies for her all the time,” she added, as the mare raised her head and sent a clarion call echoing across the hills.
“Hasn’t your father tried to find the thief—or the colt?” queried Laura.
“Yes, indeed. He’s over to Keyport to-day to see the detective there.”
“But the colt may be outside the county,” urged Laura.
“That’s so, too. We haven’t any idea where Jinks went. That was her name—Jinksey. She doesn’t look much like Old Peggy; but she was worth a hundred and fifty dollars, if she was worth a cent! More than father could easily afford to lose. And then—Otto really owned her—or would have owned her when he came of age. Father had promised Jinks to him.”
“It’s a shame!” cried Laura, always sympathetic. “And you have no suspicion as to who could have taken her?”
“No. Down beyond the store—beyond Robinson’s Woods, you know—there is a settlement of people who have a hard name. They rob the gardens and orchards on the edge of town——”
“Toward Centerport, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“The Four Corners’ crowd!” cried Laura.
“Yes.”
“Oh, that gang are a bad lot. Once Chet and I motored through there and an ugly fellow named Pocock came out and fired a charge of bird-shot into a rear tire. He said an auto had been through there the week before and killed his pig, and he was going to shoot at every machine he saw. We’ve never taken that road again.”
“That Hebe Pocock is an awfully bad fellow,” said Eve, seriously. “He tried to work for us once, but father wouldn’t keep him more than a day. And he’s been mad at us ever since.”
“Maybe some of those fellows in that gang stole your Jinksey.”
“How are we going to know? Father or Otto wouldn’t dare go down there and look around. And I guess the police are afraid of those fellows, too.”
“Let’s drive down past the store,” suggested Laura, thoughtfully, after the old mare had again lifted up her voice.
“Oh, my, Laura! What for?”
“Something might come of it.”
“I guess nothing but trouble.”
“I’ve got what Chet and Lance call ‘a hunch,’” said Laura, slowly.
“We—ell——here’s the store.”
“Just a little farther, Eve,” said Laura, taking the reins herself, and clucking to the old mare.
They passed the store on the trot. Around the first bend they came in sight of the little hollow where the roads crossed, making the renowned “Four Corners.” Coming up the road was a boy on a bay colt. Instantly the old mare whinnied again, and the colt answered her.
“It’s Jinksey!” gasped Eve.
“We’re going to get her—if you’re sure!” declared Laura.
“Of course I’m sure. I’d know her anywhere—and so would Old Peggy.”
The colt snorted again, and the boy riding her tried to pull her out into a side path, to cut across the fields. Eve stood up and shouted to him. Laura urged the gray mare on, and she went down the hill at a tearing pace.