CHAPTER XXIII--THE UNVEILING OF HESTER
"There was a girl in Central High And she was wondrous wise, When she wasn't rigging thunderstorms She was making strawberry pies!
"Gee, Laura! those tarts smell delicious! Do give a feller one?"
Black Jinny, the Belding's cook, chuckled inordinately--as she always didwhenever Bobby Hargrew showed her face at the Belding's kitchen window,and shuffled two of the still warm dainties onto a plate and passed themwith a fork to the visitor.
"Now, Jinny, you'll spoil the count. And Bobby's getting in in advanceof the other girls. These are for my party to-morrow afternoon,"complained Laura, but with a smile for the smaller girl.
"Party! Yum, yum!" said Bobby, with her mouth full. "I just loveparties, Laura. 'Specially your kind. You always have something good toeat."
"But you'll eat your share of the tarts now."
"I am no South American or Cuban. There is no 'manana.' To-morrow nevercomes. '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 fillup 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. "Jinnysays the way to the boys' hearts is through their stomachs; and I thinkyour mind has a very close connection with your digestive apparatus."
"I believe it. They tell me that eating fish is good for the brain, soall brains must be in close juxtaposition to people's stomachs."
"Wha's dat 'juxypotation,' chile?" demanded Jinny, rolling her eyes. "Inever 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 thebroadest kind of a smile. "I be'lieb de men wot makes dictionariesoughtn't to put in 'em no wo'ds longer dan two syllabubs."
"Great!" crowed Bobby, and then choked over a mouthful of Laura's flakypie crust.
"Come out on the side porch," said Laura, her face quite flushed. "I'vebaked 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 comfortableseats. "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 hadexplained the 'wheres and whereofs' in her most lucid manner. Lily hadlaid 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 ofblood to her head that gives her that delicate cerise flush once in awhile. 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'sas near-sighted as she can be--glasses and all. But this time she spottedLily.
"She comes up carefully behind her, with a clean damp sponge in herhand.
"'Young ladies,' says she, 'we will have one other experiment beforeexcusing you to your next class. Notice that!' and she gave one dab ofthe sponge to Lily's right cheek. You never saw a girl change color sosuddenly!" 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 Lilycarefully removed all the 'penny blush' before she went back torecitation 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 youhave 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. "Butthat was certainly a great scheme about the stage thunderstorm. Somefolks laughed and said it was all nonsense. But Nellie's father says itwas all right. And the Colonel has worked it himself once since, andMrs. Kerrick has got the habit of sleeping at night now, instead oftrying to do so in the afternoon, as she used."
"Well, she's not complaining about us girls making a noise in thefield--that's one good thing," said Laura, with a sigh of genuinesatisfaction.
"Lucky she is not. Think of the racket there will be there next Fridayafternoon. But, oh! I can only be there as a spectator," groaned Bobby.
"Bobby, dear," said Laura. "I wish I really was a magician--or somethinglike that. A prophetess would do, I guess--a seeress. Then I couldexplain the mystery of the fire in Mr. Sharp's office and yourtroubles--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 HesterGrimes climbing into an automobile, which was standing before the gateof the butcher's premises.
"She _did_ testify against you," sighed Laura. "But there really was afire."
"Just the same, if Hester hadn't said she saw me throw something intothe basket, Gee Gee would never have put it up to the principal sostrong."
Hester was evidently waiting for her mother to appear from the house.They were probably going shopping. Before Laura spoke again she andBobby heard--as did everybody else who might be listening on theblock--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 thehouse.
She ran up to her room, seized something from a bureau drawer, stuffedit behind the bib of her big apron, and ran down the front stairway andout of the house by that door.
The Grimes's car was still waiting. Mrs. Grimes--a much overdressed womanwith the same natural bloom on her coarse face that Hester possessed--wasjust coming out of the house.
Laura darted down the walk out at the gate. She flew up the street andreached the automobile before Mrs. Grimes had stepped in. That lady wassaying to her daughter:
"Hester! I 'most know you took that veil and lost it. You took it thenight you went car-riding alone. You remember? When you said you hadbeen 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 hadbeen used to gag her when she was overcome by the "ghost" in the hauntedhouse in Robinson's Woods.
"No! That isn't her veil," declared Hester, quickly, but growing redderin the face than Nature, even, had intended her to be. "She never sawthat 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 fromLaura's hand.
"'Taint, either, Ma!" cried Hester.
"I hope I know my own veil, Hessie Grimes. This is it. Where did youfind it, Laura?" asked the butcher's wife.
"I found it where Hester left it," said Laura, quietly, and lookingstrai
ght into the other girl's face. "It was the night the M. O. R.'swent to Robinson's Woods."
"There! what did I tell you, Hes?" exclaimed the unsuspecting lady. "Iknew you lost it that night. I'm a thousand times obliged, Laura. Idon't suppose you would have known it was mine if you hadn't heard mehollering about it?" and she laughed, comfortably. "I _do_ shout, that'sa fact. But Laws! it got me back my veil this time, didn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Laura, unsmilingly. "And Hester! Monday morning MissCarrington will want to speak to you before school."
She turned back without any further explanation to the culprit. She knewthat she could make this unveiling of Hester's meanness do Bobby Hargrewa good turn. Hester must admit to Miss Carrington that she had told afalsehood when she said she saw Bobby throw something in the principal'swastebasket. If Hester would not make this reparation Laura wasdetermined to make public what Hester had done to her in the hauntedhouse.