Loe raamatut: «Marjorie Dean, High School Junior», lehekülg 9

CHAPTER XVIII – DOING BATTLE FOR MARJORIE

Two spots of angry color appeared high up on Miss Davis’s lean face as she viewed the waiting six. It came to her that she was in for a lively scene. Setting her mouth firmly, she approached them. Addressing herself to Marjorie, she opened with: “I sent for you, Miss Dean; not your friends.”

“I asked these girls to come here.” Ellen Seymour turned an unflinching gaze upon the nettled instructor.

“Then you may invite them into one of the dressing rooms for a time. My business with Miss Dean is strictly personal.”

“I am quite willing that my friends should hear whatever you have to say to me.” Marjorie’s brown head lifted itself a trifle higher.

“But I am not willing that they should listen,” snapped Miss Davis.

“Then I must refuse to listen, also,” flashed the quick, but even response.

“This is sheer impudence!” exclaimed Miss Davis. “I sent for you and I insist that you must stay until I give you permission to go. As for these girls – ”

“These girls will remain here until Marjorie goes,” put in Ellen, admirably self-controlled. “Everyone of them knows already why you wish to see Marjorie Dean. She knows, too. We have come to defend her. I, for one, say that she shall not be dismissed from the team. Her teammates say the same. It is unfair.”

“Have I said that she was to be dismissed from the team?” demanded Miss Davis, too much irritated to assert her position as teacher. Ellen’s blunt accusation had robbed her of her usual show of dignity.

“Can you say that such was not your intention?” cross-questioned Ellen mercilessly.

Miss Davis could not. She looked the picture of angry guilt. “I shall not answer such an impertinent question,” she fumed. “You are all dismissed.” Privately, she determined to send for Marjorie the next day during school hours.

“Very well.” Ellen bowed her acceptance of the dismissal. “Shall we consider the matter settled?”

“Certainly not.” The words leaped sharply to the woman’s lips. Realizing she had blundered, she hastily amended. “There is no matter under consideration between you and me.”

“Whatever concerns Marjorie’s basket ball interests, concerns me. If you send for her again she will not come to you unless we come with her. Am I not right?” She appealed for information to the subject of the discussion.

“You are,” was the steady reply.

“This is simply outrageous.” Miss Davis completely lost composure. “Do you realize all of you that you are absolutely defying your teacher? Miss Dean deserves to be disciplined. After such a display of discourtesy I refuse to allow her the privilege of playing on the junior basket ball team.” Miss Davis continued to express herself, unmindful of the fact that Muriel Harding had slipped away from the group and out of the nearest door. Her temper aroused she held forth at length, ending with: “This disgraceful exhibition of favoritism on your part, Miss Seymour, shows very plainly that you are not fitted to manage basket ball in this school. I shall replace you as manager to-morrow. You, Miss Dean, are dismissed from the junior team. I shall report every one of you to Miss Archer as soon as I leave the gymnasium.”

“I believe she is on her way here now,” remarked Ellen with satirical impersonality. “Muriel went to find her and ask her to come.”

“What!” Miss Davis betrayed small pleasure at this news. Quickly recovering herself she ordered: “You may go at once.”

“Here she is.” Ellen nodded toward a doorway through which the principal had just entered, Muriel only a step behind her. The senior manager’s eyes twinkled satisfaction.

“What seems to be the trouble here, Miss Davis?” The principal came pithily to the point.

“I have been insulted by these disrespectful girls.” Miss Davis waved a hand toward the defending sextette.

“That is news I do not relish hearing about my girls. I wish every teacher in this school to be treated with respect. Kindly tell me what reason they gave for doing so.”

“I sent for Miss Dean on a personal matter. She insisted on bringing these girls with her. I requested them to leave me alone with Miss Dean. They refused to do so. I dismissed them all, intending to put off my interview with Miss Dean until to-morrow. Miss Seymour took it upon herself to tell me that Miss Dean would not come to me to-morrow unless accompanied by herself and these girls. Miss Dean declared the same thing. Such conduct is unendurable.”

“These young women must have strong reason for such peculiar conduct, or else they have overstepped all bounds,” decided Miss Archer impassively. “What have you to say for yourself, Ellen? As a member of the senior class I shall expect a concise explanation.”

“We have a very strong reason for our misbehavior.” Ellen put a questioning inflection on the last word. “Briefly explained, it is this. Miss Davis has been influenced by certain persons to dismiss Marjorie Dean from the junior basket ball team. Because the juniors lost the game the other day by two points, the blame for it has been unjustly placed upon Marjorie. At practice yesterday she did not play as well as usual. These are, apparently, the very shaky causes for her dismissal. I shall not attempt to tell you the true reasons. They are unworthy of mention. As her manager I refused to countenance such unfairness. So did her teammates. They will agree with me when I say that Marjorie is one of the best players we have ever had at Sanford High. We are all in position to say so. We know her work. So we came with her to defend her. I admit that we took a rather stiff stand with Miss Davis. There was no other way.”

“What are your reasons for dismissing Miss Dean from the team?” Still impassive of feature, the principal now addressed Miss Davis.

“I have received complaints regarding her work,” came the defiant answer.

“According to Ellen these complaints did not proceed from either herself or her teammates. If not from them, whom could it interest to make complaint?” continued the inexorable questioner.

“The members of the junior class are naturally interested in the team representing them,” reminded Miss Davis tartly.

“How many members of the junior class objected to Miss Dean as a player?” relentlessly pursued Miss Archer.

Miss Davis grew confused. “I – they – I decline to talk this matter over with you in the presence of these insolent girls,” she hotly rallied.

“A word, girls, and you may go. I am greatly displeased over this affair. Since basket ball seems to be such a trouble-breeder, it might better be abolished in this school. I may decide to take that step. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. You will hear more of this later. That will be all at present.”

With the feeling that the gymnasium roof was about to descend upon them, the six girls quitted the battlefield.

“Don’t you ever believe Miss Archer will stop basket ball,” emphasized Muriel Harding when they were well down the corridor. “She knows every single thing about it. I told her in the office. I told her, too, that I knew Rowena Farnham and Charlotte Horner were mixed up in it. They’ve had their heads together ever since the game.”

“I would have resigned in a minute, but I just couldn’t after the way you girls fought for me,” Marjorie voiced her distress. “If Miss Archer stops basket ball it will be my fault. I’m sorry I ever made the team.”

“You couldn’t help yourself.” Ellen Seymour was rapidly regaining her cheerfulness. “Don’t think for a minute that Miss Davis will be able to smooth things over. Miss Archer is too clever not to recognize unfairness when she meets it face to face. And don’t worry about her stopping basket ball. Take my word for it. She won’t.”

CHAPTER XIX – WHAT JERRY MACY “DUG UP”

As Ellen Seymour had predicted, basket ball did not receive its quietus. But no one ever knew what passed between Miss Archer and Miss Davis. The principal also held a long session with Ellen, who emerged from her office with a pleased smile. To Marjorie and her faithful support Ellen said confidentially: “It’s all settled. No one will ever try to shove Marjorie off the team while Miss Archer is here. But basket ball is doomed, if anything else like that ever comes up. Miss Archer says so.” Strangely enough the six girls were not required to apologize to Miss Davis. Possibly Miss Archer was not anxious to reopen the subject by thus courting fresh rebellion. After all, basket ball was not down on the high school curriculum. She was quite willing her girls should be at liberty to manage it as they chose, provided they managed it wisely and without friction. Privately, she was disgusted with Miss Davis’s part in the recent disagreement. She strongly advised the former to give up all claim to the management of the teams. But this advice Miss Davis refused to take. She still insisted on keeping up a modified show of authority, but resolved within herself to be more careful. She had learned considerable about girls.

The three plotters accepted their defeat with bad grace. Afraid that the tale would come to light, Mignon and Charlotte privately shoved the blame on Rowena’s shoulders. Nothing leaked out, however, and they were too wise to censure Rowena to her face. Mignon soon discovered that the obliging sophomore’s efforts in her behalf had cost her dear. Rowena tyrannized over her more than ever. After the second game between the junior and sophomore teams, which occurred two weeks after Marjorie’s narrow escape from dismissal from the team, Mignon came into the belief that her lot was, indeed, hard. The sophomores had been ingloriously beaten, the score standing 22-12 in favor of the juniors. In consequence Rowena was furious, forcing Mignon to listen to her long tirades against the juniors, and rating her unmercifully when she failed to register proper sympathy.

Owing to the nearness of the Christmas holidays and the brief stretch that lay between them and the mid-year examinations, the other two games were put off until February and March, respectively. No one except Rowena was sorry. She longed for a speedy opportunity to wipe the defeat off her slate. She had little of the love of holiday giving in her heart, and was heard loudly to declare that Christmas was a nuisance.

Marjorie and her little coterie of intimates regarded it very differently. They found the days before Yule-tide altogether too short in which to carry out their Christmas plans. With the nearness of the blessed anniversary of the world’s King, Marjorie grew daily happier. Since the straightening of the basket ball tangle, for her, things in school had progressed with surprising smoothness. Then, too, the hateful Observer had evidently forgotten her. Since the letter advising her to “prepare to meet the inevitable,” the Observer had apparently laid down her pen. Marjorie soberly confided to her captain that she hoped Christmas might make the Observer see things differently.

Obeying the familiar mandate, which peered at her from newspaper, store or street car, “Do Your Christmas Shopping Early,” she lovingly stored away the numerous beribboned bundles designed for intimate friends at least a week before Christmas. That last week she left open in order to go about the business of making a merry Christmas for the needy. As on the previous year Jerry Macy and Constance were her right-hand men. Susan, Irma, Muriel and Harriet also caught the fever of giving and the six girls worked zealously, inspired by the highest motives, to bring happiness to the poverty-stricken.

Christmas morning brought Marjorie an unusual windfall of gifts. It seemed as though everyone she liked had remembered her. Looking back on the previous Christmas, she remembered rather sadly the Flag of Truce and all that it had signified. This year Mary and she were again one at heart. She dropped a few tears of sheer happiness over Mary’s long Christmas letter and the beautiful embroidered Mexican scarf that had come with it. She had sent Mary a wonderful silver desk set engraved with M. to M., which she hoped wistfully that Mary would like as much as she cherished her exquisite scarf.

The Christmas vacation was, as usual, a perpetual round of gaiety. Jerry and Hal gave their usual dance. Constance gave a New Year’s hop. Harriet and Muriel entertained their friends at luncheons, while Marjorie herself sent out invitations for an old-fashioned sleigh-ride party, with an informal supper and dance at her home on the return. These social events, with some few others of equal pleasure, sent Father Time spinning along giddily.

“Aren’t you sorry it’s all over?” sighed Constance, as she and Marjorie lingered at the Macys’ gate at the close of their first day at school after the holidays.

“Sorry’s no name for it,” declared Jerry. “We certainly had one beautiful time, I mean a beautiful time. Honestly, I liked the getting things ready for other folks best of all, though. I like to keep busy. I wish we had something to do or somebody to help all the time. I’m going to poke around and see what I can stir up. I try to do the sisterly, helpful act toward Hal; picking up the stuff he strews all over the house and locating lost junk, I mean articles, but he’s about as appreciative as a Feejee Islander. You know how grateful they are.”

“I saw one in a circus once,” laughed Constance reminiscently. “I wasn’t impressed with his sense of gratitude. Someone threw him a peanut and he flung it back and hit an old gentleman in the eye.”

A general giggle arose at the erring Feejee’s strange conception of gratitude.

“That will be nice to tell Hal when he shows the same delicate sort of thankfulness,” grinned Jerry. “I’m not going to waste my precious talents on him all winter. I’m going to dig up something better. If you girls hear of anything, run all the way to our house, any hour of the day or night, and tell your friend Jerry Geraldine Jeremiah. All three are one, as Rudyard Kipling says in something or other he wrote.”

“I love Kipling’s books,” said Constance. “One of the first things I did when I wasn’t poor any longer was to buy a whole set. That first year at Sanford High I tried to get them in the school library. But there were only two or three of them.”

“That library is terribly run down,” asserted Jerry. “They haven’t half the books there they ought to have. I was talking to my father about it the other night. He promised to put it before the Board. I hope he does. Then maybe we’ll get some more books. I don’t care so much for myself. I can get all the books I want. But there are a lot of girls that can’t, who need special ones for reading courses.”

Jerry’s resolve to “poke around and stir up something” did not meet with any special success. The more needy of the Christmas poor were already being looked after by Mrs. Dean, Mrs. Macy and other charitably disposed persons who devoted themselves to the cause of benevolence the year around. Generous-hearted Jerry continued to help in the good work, but her active nature was still on the alert for some special object.

“I’ve dug it up,” she announced in triumph, several evenings later. The three girls were conducting a prudent review at Jerry’s home, preparatory to the rapidly approaching mid-year test.

“What did you say, Jerry?” Marjorie tore her eyes from her French grammar, over which she had been poring. “I was so busy trying to fix the conjugation of these miserable, irregular verbs in my mind that I didn’t hear you.”

“I’ve dug up the great idea; the how-to-be-helpful stunt. It’s right in our school, too, that our labors are needed.”

“That’s interesting; ever so much more so than this.” Constance Stevens closed the book she held with a snap. “I’m not a bit fond of German,” she added. “I have to study it, though, on account of the Wagner operas. This ‘Höher als die Kirche’ is a pretty story, but it’s terribly hard to translate. We’ll have several pages of it to do in examination. Excuse me, Jerry, for getting off the subject. What is it that you’ve dug up?”

“It’s about the library. You know I told you that my father was going to speak of it at the Board meeting. Well, he did, but it wasn’t any use. There have been such a lot of appropriations made for other things that the library will have to wait. That’s what the high and mighty Board say. This is what I say. Why not get busy among ourselves and dig up some money for new books?”

“You mean by subscription?” asked Marjorie.

“No, siree. I mean by earning it ourselves,” proposed Jerry. “Subscription would mean that a lot of girls would feel that they ought to give something which they couldn’t afford to give. Then there’d be those who couldn’t give a cent. That would be hard on them. What we ought to do is to get up some kind of a show that the whole school would be interested in.”

“That’s a fine idea. It’s public-spirited,” approved Marjorie. “What sort of entertainment do you think we might give? We couldn’t give it until after examinations, though.”

“I know the kind I’d like to give, but I can’t unless a certain person promises to help me,” was Jerry’s mystifying reply.

“Miss Archer?” guessed Constance.

“Nope; Connie Stevens.” Jerry grinned widely at Constance’s patent amazement.

“I?” she questioned. “What have I to do with it?”

“Everything. You could coax Laurie Armitage to help us and then, too, you’d be leading lady. Do you know now what I’m driving at? I see you don’t. Well, I’d like to give the ‘Rebellious Princess’ again, one night in Sanford and the next in Riverview. That is only twenty-five miles from here. A whole lot of the Sanfordites were disappointed last year because they couldn’t get into the theatre to see the operetta. Another performance would pack the theatre, just as full as last Spring. I know the Riverview folks would turn out to it. There are two high schools in Riverview, you know. Besides, we have the costumes and everything ready. Two or three rehearsals would be all we’d need. If we tried to give an entertainment or a play, it would take so long to practise for it. Have I a head on my shoulders or have I not?”

“You certainly have,” chorused her listeners.

“I am willing to do all I can,” agreed Constance. “I’ll see Laurie about it to-morrow.”

“Oh, you needn’t wait until then. He’s downstairs now with Hal and Danny Seabrooke. I told Hal to ask the boys over here this evening. We can’t study all the time, you know. I suppose they are ready to tear up the furniture because we are still up here. Danny Seabrooke is such a sweet, patient, little boy. Put away your books and we’ll go down to the library. Since this is a library proposition, let’s be consistent.”

A hum of girl voices, accompanied by the patter of light feet on the stairs, informed three impatient youths that they had not waited in vain.

“At last!” exclaimed the irrepressible Daniel, better known as the Gad-fly, his round, freckled face almost disappearing behind his Cheshire grin. “Long have we sought thee, and now that we have found thee – ”

“Sought nothing,” contradicted Jerry. “I’ll bet you haven’t set foot outside this library. There’s evidence of it.” She pointed to Hal and Laurie, who had just hastily deposited foils in a corner and were now more hastily engaged in drawing on their coats. “You’ve been holding a fencing match. Laurie came out best, of course. He always does. He’s a fencing master and a musician all in one.”

“Jerry never gives me credit for anything,” laughed Hal. “That is, in public. Later, when Laurie’s gone home, she’ll tell me how much better I can fence than Laurie.”

“Don’t you believe him. He’s trying to tease me, but I know him too well to pay any attention to what he says.” Jerry’s fond grin bespoke her affection for the brother she invariably grumbled about. At heart she was devoted to him. In public she derived peculiar pleasure from sparring with him.

The trio of girls had advanced upon the library, there to hold a business session. But the keynote of the next half hour was sociability. It was Constance who first started the ball rolling. Ensconced beside Laurie on the deep window seat, she told the young composer that Jerry had a wonderful scheme to unfold.

“Then let’s get together and listen to it,” he said warmly. Three minutes afterward he had marshalled the others to the window seat. “Everybody sit down but Jerry. She has the floor. Go ahead, Jerry. Tell us what you’d like us to do.” He reseated himself by Constance. Laurie never neglected an opportunity to be near to the girl of his boyish heart.

Posting herself before her hearers with an exaggerated air of importance, Jerry made a derisive mouth at Danny Seabrooke, who was leaning forward with an appearance of profound interest, which threatened to land him sprawling on the floor. “I’m not used to addressing such a large audience,” she chuckled. “Ahem! Wow!” Having delivered herself of these enlightening remarks she straightened her face and set forth her plan with her usual brusque energy. She ended with: “You three boys have got to help. No backing out.”

“Surely we’ll help,” promised Laurie at once. “It’s a good idea, Jerry. I can have things going inside of a week. That is, if my leading lady doesn’t develop a temperament. These opera singers are very temperamental, you know.” His blue eyes rested smilingly on Constance.

“I’m not an opera singer,” she retorted. “I’m only a would-be one. Would-be’s are very humble persons. They know they must behave well. You had better interview your tenor lead. Tenors are supposed to be terribly irresponsible.”

Amid an exchange of equally harmless badinage, the six willing workers discussed the plan at length. So much excited discussion was provocative of hunger. No one, except Hal, said so, yet when Jerry disappeared to return trundling a tea wagon, filled with delectable provender, she was hailed with acclamation.

“What splendid times we always have together,” was Marjorie’s enthusiastic opinion, when seated beside Hal in his own pet car she was being conveyed home. Snatches of mirthful conversation issuing from the tonneau where the rest of the sextette, Jerry included, were enjoying themselves hugely, seemed direct corroboration of her words. Invited to “come along,” Jerry had needed no second urging.

“That’s your fault,” Hal made gallant response. “You are the magnet that draws us all together. Before you and Jerry were friends I never realized what a fine sister I had. If you hadn’t been so nice to Constance, she and Laurie might never have come to know each other so well. Then there’s Dan. He always used to run away from girls. He got over his first fright at that little party you gave the first year you came to Sanford. You’re a magician, Marjorie, and you’re making a pretty nice history for yourself among your friends. I hope always to be among the best of them.” Hal was very earnest in his boyish praise.

“I am sure we’ll always be the best of friends, Hal,” she said seriously, though her color heightened at the sincere tribute to herself. “I can’t see that I’ve done anything specially wonderful, though. It’s easy to be nice to those one likes who like one in return. It’s being nice to those one doesn’t like that’s hard. It’s harder still not to be liked.”

“Then you aren’t apt to know that hardship,” retorted Hal.

Marjorie smiled faintly. She had known that very hardship ever since she had come to Sanford. She merely answered: “Everybody must meet a few, I won’t say enemies, I’ll just say, people who don’t like one.”

That night as she sat before her dressing table brushing her thick, brown curls, she pondered thoughtfully over Hal Macy’s words. In saying them she knew he had been sincere. It was sweet to hope that she had been and was still a power for good. Yet it made her feel very humble. She could only resolve to try always to live up to that difficult standard.