The Girls of Central High: or, Rivals for All Honors

CHAPTER III – A REAL ALARM

A bevy of girls were lingering on the steps and in the portico of the High School building. Mr. Sharp had given permission for the girls interested in the formation of the athletic association to meet in the small hall – “the music room” it was called, – on the third floor of the building, next to the suite given up to the teachers’ offices and studies.

Laura and her dearest friend, Josephine Morse, were welcomed vociferously by many of the waiting girls. Among them was Bobby Hargrew, but Laura did not tell her of the result of her practical joke in the window of the grocery store. Indeed, there was no opportunity to speak privately to Miss Harum-scarum. She came running to meet the chums just as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood, who were twins, crossed their path, arm in arm.

“There!” cried Jess Morse, “which of you two girls did I lend my pencil to yesterday in chemistry class? I declare I meant to mark the one I lent it to somehow; but you were dressed just alike then, and you’re dressed just alike now. How do you ever tell each other apart?” she added, shaking both twins by their arms.

“Only one way there’ll ever be to tell ’em apart,” broke in Bobby Hargrew. “When they get good and old, mebbe one will lose her teeth before the other does – like the twins back in the town my father lived in.”

“How was that, Bobby?” asked Jess.

“Why, those two twins, Sam and Bill, were just like Dora and Dorothy. Their own fathers and mothers didn’t know them apart. But Bill lost all his upper teeth and wouldn’t buy store teeth. So folks that knew got to telling them apart. You see, if you put your finger in Bill’s mouth and he bit you, why ’twas Sam!”

A rather tall, stately looking girl – taller, even than Jess Morse – drew near the group while the girls were laughing over Bobby’s story.

“Oh, Nellie!” cried Laura. “I’m glad to see you here. What does the doctor say about the scheme of our forming an athletic association?”

“I don’t know what he thinks about the proposed association,” returned the physician’s daughter; “but I’m sure he approves of athletics for girls. He told mother only yesterday that I ought to do at least half the sweeping, and so relieve mother and the maid,” and Nellie Agnew laughed. “What do you think of that? Father says I am getting round shouldered and flat chested. I do hope we’ll go in for athletics. I don’t like housework.”

“Lazy girl!” said Laura. “That is the way it will be with lots of them – I know. If it is play, they’ll like it; but anything like real work – ”

“There goes Laura Belding again – telling us all how we should be good and proper,” said a sneering voice behind Laura. “Really, I should think you’d be tired of telling us all how to conduct ourselves. You ought to run a ‘Heart to Heart Talks’ department in the

Evening Awful

.”

“Hessie Grimes! Mean thing!” hissed Jess in Laura’s ear. But the latter turned an unruffled countenance upon the rather overdressed, red-faced girl whose strident voice had broken in upon the good-natured conversation of the group.

“Oh, no, Hester. I don’t think my forte is journalism. We’ll let Jess take that position,” Laura said. “I see you and Lily Pendleton are both here, so there is nobody else to wait for. We can go upstairs, I guess.”

“Oh, I don’t know as I want to join the silly old society,” giggled Lily, who was a slender, white faced girl, who always clung to Hester and instead of giving the more assertive girl the benefit of her support, “clung like the ivy to the oak-tree’s branch.”

“Lil and Hessie expect to be ‘touched’ for the M. O. R.’s,” said Jess, quickly.

“Huh!” exclaimed Bobby Hargrew. “Perhaps they’ve another guess coming. The Middle of the Road Girls are not taking in many Sophs – we can make up our minds to that.”

“And do Hessie and Lily wish to join such a solemn conclave as the Mothers of the Republic,” demanded Nell Agnew, laughing, and making another play upon the initials of the most popular society of Central High. “I wouldn’t believe it.”

“You don’t know whether I wish to join or not, Miss!” snapped Hester Grimes.

“Say!” cried Bobby. “Heard the latest? Know what Chet and Lance and Short and Long call the M. O. R. girls?”

“What is it?” asked the twins, in chorus.

“The Mary O’Rourkes! And Mary O’Rourke is a member – she’s a senior, you know, and just the nicest girl! But her initials are the same as the society’s – and nobody knows what the initials stand for. That is, nobody outside the society.”

There had begun a general advance into the school building and up the broad stairway, ere this. Chattering and laughing, in little groups and by couples, the girls mounted the two flights and advanced slowly into the hall, or into the main office next to it. The windows of this office were over the front entrance of the building, and although the room was a very long one, it was brilliantly lighted, the windows reaching almost from ceiling to floor.

A large globe of water with goldfish and some aquatic plants and coral in it had the post of honor on a stand in the center of the bowed windows. Before the window was Principal Franklin Sharp’s great table-desk, and a big rubbish basket beside it. The janitor had not yet dusted and cleaned these rooms for the week, knowing that the girls were to hold their meeting there.

“Mrs. Case and Gee Gee are here already, girls,” whispered Bobby Hargrew, after peering in somewhat cautiously at the door of the music room.

Laura and her chum, with the doctor’s daughter and some of the older girls, approached the hall where the meeting was to be held. There were already fifty or more girls gathered in the music room and as many more were strolling through the corridors, or in the office.

Suddenly a burst of half-stifled laughter arose from the office. A crowd of the more mischievous girls were about Bobby Hargrew. Miss Carrington stepped down from the platform at the end of the music room and marched steadily toward the office.

“Oh! Bobby’s going to catch it again!” whispered Jess in Laura’s ear.

But there was no opportunity for her friends to warn the sprightly Clara of the approach of her nemesis. And when Miss Carrington, otherwise Gee Gee, came to the doorway and through her eye-glasses beheld the heinous offense of Bobby the teacher was, indeed, very much horrified.

Bobby was perched on the corner of Mr. Sharp’s desk, in a most unladylike attitude, and apparently just removing a burning cigarette from her rosy lips! The blue smoke curled away from the horrid thing, and Bobby was leaning back, with her roguish glance following the smoke-rings, and apparently enjoying the weed immensely.

“Miss Hargrew!”

The awful voice startled everybody but Bobby herself. Perhaps the wicked one had been expecting it.

“What do I see, Miss Hargrew?” demanded Gee Gee, in a tone of cold horror.

“I really do not know, Miss Carrington,” replied Bobby, as the girls shrank away from her vicinity, and she herself hopped down to the floor, hiding her hands behind her. “I never did know just how far you could see with your glasses.”

“Miss Hargrew, come here!” snapped the teacher, in no mood for frivolity.

Bobby approached slowly. She held her hands behind her back like a naughty child.

“Let me see what is in your hand, Miss!” commanded the teacher

Bobby brought forth her right hand – empty.

“Your other hand, Miss!”

Back snapped the culprit’s right hand and then her left hand appeared – likewise empty.

“Miss Hargrew! I demand that you give me what you are hiding in your hand, at once!” cried Miss Carrington.

Slowly, and with drooping mien, the culprit brought forth both hands. In the fingers of one still smoked the brown object the teacher had spied.

“A vile cigarette!” she gasped.

“No, ma’am,” replied Bobby, quite bravely. “Only a piece of Chinese punk-stick left over from last year’s Fourth of July celebration. I wouldn’t smoke a cigarette, Miss Carrington. I don’t think they’re nice – do

you

?”

It was impossible for the other girls to smother their laughter. A ripple of merriment spread back to the music room. Now, Miss Carrington was a very unfortunate woman. She had no sense of humor. There should be a civil service examination for educational instructors in the line of “sense of humor.” For those who could not “pass” would never make really successful teachers.

“Clara Hargrew!” snapped Miss Carrington, her glasses almost emitting sparks. “You will show me a five hundred word essay upon the topic ‘Respect to Our Superiors’ when you come to the classes, Monday morning. And you may go home now. Until your standing in deportment is higher, you can have no part in athletics, save those gymnastic exercises catalogued already in the school’s curriculum. After-school athletics are forbidden you, Miss Hargrew.”

Bobby at first paled, and then grew very red. Tears stood in her usually sparkling eyes.

“Oh, Miss Carrington!” she cried. “I was only in fun. And – and this is not a regular school session. This is Saturday.”

“You are in the precincts of the school, Miss.” said Gee Gee. “Do as you are bid. And throw that nasty thing away.”

She swept back to the platform at the upper end of the music room, and those girls who had not already gone ahead of her were quick to leave the culprit to herself. Hester Grimes smiled sneeringly at poor little Bobby.

“Got taken up that time pretty short, didn’t you, Miss Smarty?” she jeered.

Miss Grimes had often been the butt of Bobby Hargrew’s jokes. And then – Bobby was Laura Belding’s friend and eager supporter. The door was closed between the music room and the office and Bobby was left alone.

Mrs. Case, the girls’ athletic instructor, was a very different person from the hated Gee Gee. She was a fresh-colored, breezy woman, in her thirties, whose clear voice and frank manner the girls all liked. And then, in the present instance, her proposals anent the athletic association fitted right into the desires and interests of most of the pupils present.

“The work of the Girls’ Branch Athletic Association is spreading fast,” Mrs. Case said. “Centerport must not be behind in any good thing for the education and development of either her boys or girls. This is something that I have been advocating before the Board for several years. And other teachers are interested, too.

“An association will be formed among the girls of East High and West High, as well. I understand that the school authorities of both Lumberport and Keyport are to take up the subject of girls’ athletics, too. So, although inter-class athletics is tabooed, there will be plenty of rivalry between the girls of Central High and those of our East and West schools, and those of neighboring cities. A certain amount of rivalry is a good thing; yet we must remember to cheer the losers and winners both. This is true sport.

“I want my girls,” continued Miss Case, with a smile, “to be all-round athletes, as well as all-round scholars. You may be rivals for all honors with those of your own age in other schools. There are most fascinating games and exercises to take up, as well as Folk Dancing. The boys have a splendid association in our school – ”

Suddenly Miss Carrington sprang up, interrupting her fellow-teacher. She stood upon the platform a moment, looking toward the office, and sniffed the air like a hound on the scent.

“Wait!” she commanded. “I smell smoke!”

She was a tall woman, and she darted down the room with long strides. She flung open the office door. Then she shrieked and fell back, and half the girls in the music room echoed her cry.

Flames rose half way to the ceiling, right near the principal’s desk, and the office itself was full of smoke!

CHAPTER IV – “POOR BOBBY!”

Ordinarily the girls of Central High were perfect in “fire drill.” But then, when ever they practiced that manœuver, there was no fire. For a hundred or more of them, however, to see the shooting flames and blinding smoke, and to hear a teacher who had “lost her head” screaming as loud as she could scream, was likely to create some confusion.

It was Mrs. Case who rang the fire alarm. This notified the janitor, if he was in his basement quarters, of the situation of the fire, too. He would come with an extinguisher to their rescue. But meanwhile the blaze in the principal’s office was increasing.

“That reckless girl!” shrieked Miss Carrington. “She shall pay for this!”

And Laura, who had run down the room until she, too, was at the door of the office, knew whom the teacher meant. Poor Bobby Hargrew! She and her piece of burning punk-stick must be at the bottom of the catastrophe. But Miss Carrington really spoke as though she thought Bobby had intentionally set the fire.

“Oh, she never could have meant to do it,” cried Laura, horrified.

The girls had run from the door into the corridor and nobody but Miss Carrington and Laura were at the office door.

“What shall we do? What shall we do?” moaned the teacher, wringing her hands.

“Can’t we put it out?” demanded the girl.

“No, no! You’ll be burned! Come back!” cried Miss Carrington.

But the smoke had cleared somewhat now and Laura could see just what damage the fire was doing. It surely had started in the big wastebasket. If Bobby had flung the burning punk into that basket she deserved punishment – that was sure. Now the flames were spreading to the rug on which the basket stood. And they were charring the corner of the desk. Laura could smell the scorching varnish.

“Come back, Miss Belding!” commanded the teacher again.

But the girl thought she saw a chance to accomplish something. There was no use in waiting for the janitor to come to put out the flames if they could be quenched immediately. And no knowing how long before John would reach the room. He was not very spry.

Besides, to allow the fire to spread was both reckless and foolish. Laura saw just what should be done. She sprang into the room and passed the flames in a single swift dash.

She reached the window and seized the heavy bowl of water in which the gold fish swam. It was some weight for her, but she seized it firmly with both arms, and staggered toward the burning basket.

The smoke was drawn away for a moment by the draught of an opening door and she heard Miss Carrington scream again. But Laura shut both her eyes tight and staggered on.

Her foot tripped on the edge of the rug, she felt the blast of fire in her face, and then she overturned the full globe, fish and all, upon the flames!

With a great hiss of steam, which rose in her face in a cloud, the water struck the burning basket and the rug. There was enough water to saturate the place where the fire had been burning the most briskly. Not every spark was put out with this dash of water; but it took but a minute to stamp out the remainder when the steam cleared away.

But the poor fish! All four lay dead upon the floor, either trampled upon, or scorched by the flames.

“You are a very strong young girl, Miss Belding,” said Mrs. Case, hurrying in. “And a quick witted one.”

Laura was thinking that it was the second fire she had put out that day!

Miss Carrington was still sputtering. She called Laura “a dear, good girl – so bright and quick-witted!” And on the other hand she scolded about Bobby Hargrew until one would have thought poor Bobby was a monster of wickedness.

“Never mind the poor fish, Miss Agnew,” cried the teacher, as the doctor’s tender hearted daughter expressed her sorrow over the fate of those pretty creatures. “More fish can be bought – plenty more. And here is the rug ruined – and Mr. Sharp’s desk injured. But it shall be paid for – yes, indeed! Clara Hargrew’s father shall settle the bill. And Miss Clara shall pay for it, too. Careless, reckless girl!”

“Oh, but Miss Carrington!” cried Laura. “Perhaps she didn’t do it.”

“Who could have done it, then?” demanded Gee Gee, almost tempted to be angry with Laura for trying to defend the culprit.

“But nobody saw her – ”

“I do not say she deliberately set the fire,” said Miss Carrington, angrily. “But she had the lighted punk. Naturally she tossed it thoughtlessly into the basket. Behold the result!” finished Gee Gee, so dramatically that her glasses hopped off her nose.

“Oh, I can’t believe Bobby would have done so careless a thing,” murmured Laura in the ear of her chum, Jess Morse, who appeared at this juncture.

“But who else could be guilty?” demanded Jess, convinced against her own will.

“It will just about finish Bobby for this half,” groaned Laura.

“I should say it would!” returned Jess, as Mrs. Case called them back to their seats, while old John, who had now arrived, remained to clean up the debris.

The excitement had come very near breaking up the meeting. And it was some time before the athletic instructor could obtain the undivided attention of the girls.

The meeting was advanced far enough for a committee to be appointed to report on constitution, by-laws, and the like, and the government of the new organization. It was the intention of those backing the organization that the girls of Central High should govern their athletics as much as possible themselves. Too much interference by the faculty always spoils a school society.

Laura Belding and her chum were both appointed on this committee; and Hester Grimes and her friend Lily were likewise members. The committee was to report in a week, and Mrs. Case was to meet with them and advise them.

Miss Carrington burst out in her tirade upon the absent Clara Hargrew just as soon as the meeting was closed. She said to Mrs. Case:

“One of my pupils you cannot have in your association, Mrs. Case! I shall veto Miss Hargrew’s entering into any sports, or taking any ‘extras,’ during the remainder of this term. And I shall take up the matter with the principal, too. I am not at all convinced in my mind that for such an offense a girl of her age should not be suspended.”

“Why, don’t you suppose it was entirely an accident, Miss Carrington?” asked the athletic instructor, doubtfully.

“I don’t know whether it could be called wholly an accident. I shall look into it very closely,” said the other teacher, shaking her head and biting her lips.

“Poor Bobby!” repeated Laura Belding to her chum, as they went out of the school building. “She is so enthusiastic over games and athletics, too. It will be dreadful deprivation for her.”

“Do you suppose she really threw that burning punk into the papers?” asked Jess.

“Why – I suppose so. Of course, she’ll be given a chance to say whether she did or not. But how else could the fire have started?”

But Miss Morse had no answer to make to that.

CHAPTER V – WHOM DO YOU BELIEVE?

The Beldings lived in a nice house on Whiffle Street, with quite a big plot of ground about it – room for a lawn in front, a tennis court at the side, and a garden in the rear, out of which a rustic gate opened into the street where the Hargrews lived. Mr. Belding owned the house and, with his business as jeweler, was considered, as fortunes went in Centerport, a wealthy man. But the family lived with old-fashioned simplicity.

Mrs. Belding was, Laura knew, just the dearest mother who ever lived; yet she had been brought up as a girl in a country community, had never had interests any broader than her own home while her children were small, and now that Laura and Chetwood were almost “grown up” – or, at least,

felt

 they were – Mother Belding scarcely understood their plans and aspirations. The new organization was “too much” for her, as she frequently said.

“Why, how ridiculous!” Mrs. Belding once said, upon coming home from a shopping tour. “They show me exactly the same style of garment both for Laura and myself. No difference save the size, I declare! And at Laura’s age I had not even begun to put my hair up, and my skirts had not been lengthened.”

“Changes – changes! Don’t let them worry you, Mother,” said her husband, comfortably.

“Well, Milly and Frank are left us, anyway – they’re still children,” sighed the troubled lady. “But I must admit that Laura and Chet are too much for me!”

Not that either of her older children gave her real cause for worriment or complaint. Chet was his father’s chum and confidant; he could not go far wrong under such guidance. And Laura was a very sweet tempered and practical girl. Indeed, it was Laura’s shrewd outlook upon and her keen appreciation of things that had never entered her mother’s mind as a girl, that so startled Mrs. Belding.

At supper that night Chet was full of the ball game that his father and he had attended that afternoon.

“Well, the East High fellows beat the West High boys, just as everybody said they would. They’ve got the battery – Hanks and Doolittle – and Merryweather and Ted Doyle are some punkins with the stick. Why, Ted is a bear-cat! But I believe we Central High fellows can put up a game that will hold them for a while. I want to see Central High win the pennant this year.”

“What is a battery?” sighed his mother. “Why ‘punkins’ and ‘stick’? Is this Ted you speak of really a subject for side-show exhibition, or are you ‘nature-faking’ when you call him a ‘bear-cat’? And why should the playing of you and your friends at baseball, Chetwood, ‘hold them’ for any length of time? Please elucidate?”

Laura and the younger children burst out laughing, and the older daughter said:

“English

is

 a funny language, isn’t it?”

“The American brand of it is,” said Mr. Belding, who was also smiling.

“That is not English,” remarked the mother, with scorn. “Such expressions have no relation to good English. But I grant you that the slang language is very funny, indeed.”

“Aw, mother, the trouble with you is you don’t understand athletics. Every game has its own technical phrases, so to speak. You ask Laura to explain. I hear Central High girls are going in for ’em. Going to compete for all honors with the other schools, eh, Laura?”

“We hope to,” returned his sister.

“How did the meeting go, daughter?” asked Mr. Belding, with interest.

Laura recited the work accomplished. “Of course,” she said, “we shall found our association on the constitution of the Girls’ Branch Athletic Association. Then we can compete for trophies with inter-county and inter-state teams, as well as with the local teams. Mrs. Case says that there will be an association at both Lumberport and Keyport.”

“Do you approve of all this disturbance about girls’ athletics, James?” asked Mrs. Belding.

“It’s for after-hours. It won’t interfere with their school work. It can’t, in fact,” said the jeweler, “for only those pupils who stand well in both their studies and in deportment can take part.”

“And poor Bobby!” cried Laura, suddenly. “It does seem as though she was fated to have bad luck. She won’t be able to join, even if Miss Carrington has her way,” and she told the family about the fire in the principal’s office.

“A very careless girl,” said Mrs. Belding, yet not sternly, for she loved jolly, harum-scarum Bobby Hargrew.

“You were a brave kid, Laura, to think of the water bowl,” said Chet, with enthusiasm.

“I object, Chetwood!” exclaimed his mother. “Neither your father nor I are caprine, hollow-horned ruminants. Your sister, therefore, cannot be a ‘kid.’”

“Oh, Mother!” complained Chet. “You won’t let a fellow talk.”

“I would much prefer to hear a young gentleman converse,” returned Mrs. Belding, though smiling. “And I agree with you that our Laura is both brave and quick-witted.”

“She’ll get along in the world,” said Mr. Belding, with a satisfied smile. “But I’m sorry Tom Hargrew’s girl is in trouble.”

“Of course, I haven’t seen her since Miss Carrington sent her home,” Laura said. “Nobody has heard her side of the story.”

“Of course, she set the papers afire,” Chet observed.

“It seems impossible that it could be otherwise. Thoughtless child!” said their mother.

“But I want to wait and hear Bobby’s story. If she says she didn’t, and

knows

 she didn’t, I shall believe her,” spoke Laura.

“You will not take circumstantial evidence into consideration, then?” laughed her father.

“Not against Bobby’s word,” returned Laura, confidently. “Bobby just couldn’t tell a falsehood. It isn’t in her. That is why she so often gets into trouble in school. She cannot even

act

 deceit.”

“Short and Long is like that,” said Chet. “And

he’s

 going to be barred from athletics if he doesn’t have a care. We would be in a mess if we lost our shortstop. Old Dimple – ”

“Professor Dimp, you refer to?” interjected his mother.

“Oh, yes!” sighed Chet. “He can’t take a joke. And Billy is full of them. Yesterday he got into trouble with Dimple – er – Professor Dimp. The professor had written something on the board – I forget the sentence; but it had the word ‘whether’ in it. Billy read it as though it was ‘weather.’ ‘Ha!’ snapped Dimple in his very nastiest way, ‘how do you spell “weather,” Master Long?’

“Of course, Short and Long saw his mistake right off, and drawled:

“‘W-i-a-t-h-i-a-r.’

“‘Sit down! You’ve given us the worst spell of weather we’ve had this spring. Recitation zero,’ snaps Dimple. Now, wasn’t that mean – for just a little joke?”

“It seems to me,” said his father, “that the professor had the best of the joke. There’s some wit to that Professor Dimp, after all. And your friend, Billy, is too old for childish pranks, even if he is such a little fellow.”

The topic of the girls’ athletics and the new association was discussed in many homes in Centerport that evening. Nor was it tabooed from conversation on Sunday. By Monday morning, when the pupils of Central High gathered for classes, the girls, at least, were in a buzz of excitement. But they had an added topic of interest, too. The fire in the principal’s office on Saturday afternoon was much discussed.

Laura and Jess, with some of the other girls, surrounded Bobby Hargrew the moment she appeared.

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“What are they going to do about it?”

“Is Mr. Sharp awfully mad?”

“Is Gee Gee going to have you expelled?”

These and other questions were fired at Bobby in a volley.

“Hold on! Wait! Help! I’m down!” squealed Bobby. “Give me a chance to answer.”

“Well, tell us!” commanded Jess.

“I’ll tell y