CHAPTER XX--INTER-CLASS RIVALRY
If Eve Sitz had been outside of the schoolhouse tower, being held by thegirls all of this time, she must certainly have been by now at the pointof exhaustion, and so must they.
But Eve had dropped just right, had caught the wire with her glovedhands just as she had expected to, and then swung down and hung from thesteel strand for a few seconds to get her breath.
Nellie and Bobby, leaning out of neighboring windows, cheered her on.
"Hurrah, girls!" declared the irrepressible. "She's going to do it.There she goes--hand under hand!"
"Oh, if she doesn't slip," wailed Nellie.
"She's not going to slip," cried Bobby. "Hurrah! She's on the roof."
Once on the main building Eve did not waste time. She ran to the door,which she knew would be open, and so darted down the stairs to thecorridor out of which the tower stairway opened. There was the key inthe lock as they had expected, and in a few moments she was calling theother four girls down.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Nellie, kissing Eve when she reached the footof the stairs. "Aren't you just the brave, brave girl! And whatevershould we have done without you?"
"I guess one of the others would have done the same had I not firstthought of it," returned Eve, modestly.
"Hush!" exclaimed Laura, suddenly. "I hear somebody."
A door opened below, and then somebody came up stairs. The girls crowdedback into the corner and waited.
"I know that step," whispered Jess.
"Fee, fi, fo, fum!" murmured Bobby.
"And well may you say it is your 'foe,' Bobby," giggled Jess. "It's MissCarrington."
"Never!" gasped Nell.
"Yes, it is. I am sure," agreed Laura.
"Oh, dear! if she catches us here we'll have to tell where we have beenand all about it," groaned Eve.
"And demerits to work off to-morrow," moaned Bobby.
"Back into the stairway and keep still," whispered Laura.
They all crowded back. Miss Carrington came along the gloomy corridorand entered a classroom. She did not turn the corner.
"Good! Now let's creep down and make our escape," whispered Bobby.
"But not by the front door. She came in that way."
"But the other doors will be locked--both the boys' and ours," urgedJess.
"I know the way out through the basement," spoke Bobby, withdetermination. "I can open John's door. Come on."
So, at the very moment Prettyman Sweet tried the basement door, thegirls on whom he had played his trick were about to come out. Purt wasscared and ran away. Later, when he escaped from Margit, the Gypsy girl,and ran to the foot of the tower stairs, Purt was scared again.
He found the door open and the girls gone. Who could have released them?He slunk home in the darkness, taking the back alleys instead of WhiffleStreet, and the next day he scarcely dared go to school for fear thegirls had found out who played the trick on them.
But Laura and her mates all thought that either John, the janitor, orone of the teachers had chanced to close the tower door and lock it.And, as they had been where they were forbidden to go, they said verylittle about their fright and anxiety.
But Eve was quite a heroine among them. The girl from the farm was adeal more muscular than most of her mates; perhaps no girl at CentralHigh could have climbed out of that tower window and worked her way downthe wire in just that manner.
And Eve was showing herself, as time went on, to be the best girl at thebroad jump and at putting the twelve-pound shot, too. Lou Potter, of thesenior class, did well; but after a time she seemed to have reached herlimit in both the jumping and shot-putting.
Then it was that Eve took a spurt and went ahead. She left all othercompetitors but Lou far behind.
Mrs. Case did not approve of inter-class competition in athletics; butthe managing committee of the June meet had made such competitionnecessary to a degree. The upper classes of Central High had to choosetheir champions, and those champions in the foot races, from the100-yard dash to the quarter-mile, had to compete the first week in Juneto arrange which should represent the school on the big day.
In other trials it was the same--broad jump, shot-putting, relay raceteams, and all the rest. There was developed in the freshman class asprinter who almost bested Bobby Hargrew at first; but the freshmen hadlittle, after all, to do when the big day came.
The main contestants for athletic honors were bound to be drawn from thejunior and sophomore classes. It was a fact that the present seniorclass of Central High had not been as imbued with the spirit ofafter-hour athletics, or with loyalty to the school, as had the youngerclasses.
And the seniors had awakened too late to the importance of leaving agood record in athletics behind them when they were graduated. There wasnot a girl in the class the equal of Mary O'Rourke, or Celia Prime, whohad been graduated the year before.
Lou Potter, however, had many supporters, not alone among her own class.The freshies and sophs of course were jealous of the prominence of thejuniors in athletics, so they centered their loyalty upon Lou.
Eve could do nothing that Lou Potter couldn't do! That was the cry, andthe feeling ran quite high for a while. Besides, another thing came tomake Eve rather unpopular with a certain class of girls.
"Touch Day"--that famous occasion when candidates for membership in theM. O. R.'s were chosen--came in May, and Eve was one of the lucky girlsto receive the magic "touch." The fact that she had not been attendingCentral High a year aroused bitter feeling, although Eve was a junior ingood standing.
"Say!" cried Bobby Hargrew, "if they had kicked about _me_ being an M.O. R. there would have been some sense in it. For I never really thoughtI'd arrive at such an honor."
For Bobby had really been drawn as a member of the secret society, andshe never ceased to be surprised at the fact. But this schoolyear--especially since early spring--Bobby Hargrew had been muchchanged. Not that she was not cheerful, and full of fun; but she hadsettled down to better work in her classes, and there was a steadinessabout her that had been missing in the old Bobby Hargrew.
They were talking this change over one evening around the Belding dinnertable.
"Bobby wouldn't be herself if she got too strait-laced," remarkedChetwood. "That's the main good thing about her--the ginger in her."
"Chetwood!" exclaimed his mother, admonishingly. "You speak of the girlas though she were a horse--or a dog. 'Ginger' indeed!"
"Well, Little Mum," said her big son. "That's exactly what I mean. She'sno namby-pamby, Miss Sissy kind of a girl; but a good fellow----"
"I cannot allow you to talk that way about one of your young ladyfriends," declared Mrs. Belding, with heat. "I am surprised, Chetwood."
Mr. Belding began to chuckle, and she turned on him now with someexasperation.
"James!" she said, warmly. "I believe you support these children intheir careless use of English, and in their other crimes against theniceties of our existence. Chet is as boisterous and rough as--as astreet boy. And Laura uses most shocking language at times, I declare."
"Oh, Mother Mine! why drag me into it?" laughed Laura, while her fatheradded:
"Isn't 'crimes' a rather strong word in this instance, Mother?"
"I do not care!" cried the good lady, much disturbed. "Chetwood useslanguage that I know my mother would never have allowed at Her table.And Laura is so taken up with these dreadful athletics that she caresnothing for the things which used to interest me when I was a girl. Shereally doesn't like to pour tea for me Wednesday afternoons."
"I admit it," said Laura, _sotto voce_.
"Do you blame her?" added Chet, grumblingly.
"Thank goodness! I was brought up differently," declared Mrs. Belding,sternly. "We girls were not allowed to do such awful things-even inprivate--as you do, Laura, in your gymnasium----"
"Hear! hear!" cried Father Belding, finally rapping on the table withthe handle of his knife. "I must say a word here. Mother, you are toohard on the
young folks."
"No I am not, James," said the good lady, bridling.
"You force me to say something that may hurt your feelings; but Ibelieve you have forgotten it. You complain of Laura's athletics andgymnasium work. Don't you see that it is an escape valve for theoverflow of animal spirits that the girls of our generation, Mother,missed?"
"I deny that the girls of _my_ day possessed such 'animal spirits,' asyou call them," declared Mrs. Belding, vehemently.
"You force me," said Mr. Belding, gravely, yet with a twinkle in hiseyes, "to prove my case. Children! did I ever tell you about the firstview I had of your dear mother?"
"No, Pop! Tell us," urged Chet, who kept on eating despite his interestin the discussion.
"Mr. Belding!" gasped his wife, suddenly. "What are you----"
"Sorry, my dear; you force me to it," said her husband, with continuedgravity. "But the first sight I ever had of your mother, children, waswhen she was six or seven years old. I was working for old Mr. Cummings,whose business I finally bought out, and I came to your mother's houseon an errand."
"James!" cried Mrs. Belding. "I cannot allow you to tell that foolishthing. It--it is disgraceful."
"It is indeed," admitted her husband, nodding. "But if you and yourschool girl friends had been as much devoted to athletics as Laura andher little friends, I doubt if you would have needed the front stairsbannisters as an escape valve for your animal spirits.
"For, children," added Mr. Belding, as his wife, her face very rosy, gotup to come around the table to him, "my first view of your mother washer coming down stairs at express train speed, a-straddle of thebannisters!"
Mrs. Belding reached him then, and any further particulars of this"disgraceful" story, were smothered promptly. But Laura and Chet enjoyedimmensely the fact that--once upon a time, at least--there had been somelittle element of tomboyishness in their mother's character.