Betty Wales, Freshman Part 26

Ah! Captain Lawrence is down, sliding heavily along the smooth floor; but in an instant she is up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes with one hand and making a goal with the other.

"Time!" calls Miss Andrews. "The goals are three to two, fouls not counted."

The line-men gather to compare notes on those. The teams hurry off to their rooms, Captain Lawrence limping badly. The first half is finished.

A little shivering sigh of relief swept over the audience. The front row in the gallery struggled to its feet to rest, the back rows sat down suddenly for the same purpose.

"Oh, doesn't it feel good to stretch out," said Betty, pulling herself up by the railing and drawing Helen after her. "Aren't you tired to death sitting still?"

"Why no, I don't think so," answered Helen vaguely. "It was so splendid that I forgot."

"So did I mostly, but I'm remembering good and hard now. I ache all over." She waved her hand gaily to Dorothy King, then caught Mary Brooks's eye across the hall and waved again. "T. Reed is a dandy," she said. "And Rachel was great. They were all great."

"How do you suppose they feel now?" asked Helen, a note of awe in her voice.

"Tired," returned Betty promptly, "and thirsty, probably, and proud--awfully proud." She turned upon Helen suddenly. "Helen Chase Adams, do you know I might have been down there with the subs. Katherine told me this morning that it was nip and tuck between Marie Austin and me. If I'd tried harder--played an inch better--think of it, Helen, I might have been down there too!"

"I couldn't do anything like that," said Helen simply, "but next year I mean to write a song."

Betty looked at her solemnly. "You probably will. You're a good hard worker, Helen. Isn't it queer," she went on, "we're not a bit alike, but this game is making us feel the same way. I wonder if the others feel so too. Perhaps it's one reason why they have this game--to wake us all up and make us want to do something worth while."

"Betty Wales," called Christy Mason from the floor below. Betty leaned over the railing. "Don't forget that you're coming to dinner to-night.

We're going to serenade the team. They'll be dining at the Belden with Miss Andrews."

Kate Denise joined her. She had never mentioned the afternoon in Eleanor's room, but she took especial pains to be pleasant to Betty.

"h.e.l.lo, Betty Wales," she called up. "Isn't it fine? Don't you think we'll win? Anyway Miss Andrews says it's the best game she ever saw."

"Betty Wales," called Dorothy King from her leader's box, "come to vespers with me to-morrow."

Betty met them all with friendly little nods and enthusiastic answers.

Then she turned back to Helen. "It's funny, but I'm always interrupted when I'm trying to think," she said. "If there were six of me I think I might be six successful persons. But as it is, I suppose I shall always be just 'that little Betty Wales' and have a splendid time."

"That would be enough for most people," said Helen.

"Oh, I hope not," said Betty soberly. "I don't amount to anything." She slipped down into her place again. The teams were coming back.

"See Laurie limp!"

"Their other home--the one with the red hair--looks as fresh as a May morning."

"Well, so does T. Reed."

"We have a fighting chance yet."

Thus the freshman gallery.

But the second half opened with the rapid winning of three goals by the soph.o.m.ores. Cornelia Thompson had evidently made up her mind that n.o.body so small as T. Reed should get away from her and mar the reputation of her famous "ever moving and ever present" elbow. The other freshman centres were over-matched, and once Marion Lawrence and the red-haired home got the ball between them, a goal was practically a certainty.

"Play!" called Miss Andrews for the fourth time.

T. Reed's eyes flashed and her lips shut into a narrow determined line.

Another freshman centre got the ball and pa.s.sed it successfully to T.

Reed, who gave it a pounding blow toward the freshman basket. A soph.o.m.ore guard knocked it out of Rachel Morrison's hands, and it rolled on to the stage. There was a wild scuffle and the freshman balcony broke into tumultuous cheering, for a home who had missed all her previous chances had clutched it from under the president's chair and had scored at last.

A moment later she did it again. There was a pause while a freshman guard was carried off with a twisted ankle and Katherine Kittredge ran to her place. Then the soph.o.m.ores scored twice. Then the freshmen did likewise. "Time!" called Miss Andrews sharply. The game was over.

"Score!" shrieked the galleries.

Then the freshmen bravely began to sing their team song,

"There is a team of great renown."

They were beaten, of course, but they were proud of that team.

"The freshmen score one goal on fouls. Score, six to eight in favor of the purple," announced Miss Andrews after a moment. "And I want to say----"

It was unpardonably rude, but they could not help interrupting to cheer.

"That I am proud of all the players. It was a splendid game," she finished, when the thoughtful ones had hushed the rest.

Then they cheered again. The soph.o.m.ore team were carrying their captain around the gym on their shoulders; the freshmen, gathered in a brave little group, were winking hard and cheering with the rest. The gallery was emptying itself with incredible rapidity on to the floor. The stage was watching, and wishing--some of it--that it could go down on the floor and shriek and sing and be young and foolish generally.

Betty and Helen ran down with the rest. "Helen," whispered Betty on the way, "I don't care what happens, I will, I will, I will make them sing to me some day. Oh Helen, don't you love 19--, and aren't you proud of it and of T. Reed?"

At the foot of the stairs they met the three B's. "Come on, come on,"

cried the three. "We're going to sing to the soph.o.m.ores," and they seized upon Betty and bore her off to the corner where the freshmen were a.s.sembling. Left to herself Helen got into a nook by the door and watched. It was queer how much fun it was to watch, lately.

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them:"--she had read it in the library that morning and it kept running in her head. Was it selfish and conceited to want to be worth something to her college--to long to do something that would give her a place among the girls? A month ago Theresa had stood with her high up on the bank and watched the current sweep by. Now she was in the stream; even Betty Wales envied her; she had "achieved greatness." Betty wanted to be sung to. Well, no doubt she would be, in spite of the "interruptions"; she was "born great." Helen aspired only to write a song to be sung. That wasn't very much, and she would try hard--Theresa said it was all trying and caring--for she must somehow prove herself worthy of the greatness that had been "thrust upon" her.

Betty was in the centre of an excited group of freshmen. Christy Mason was there too; probably they were planning for the serenade. "She won't mind if I go," thought Helen. She would have liked to speak to Theresa, but she had delayed too long; the teams had disappeared. So she slipped out alone. There would be a long, quiet evening for theme work--for Helen had elected Mary's theme course at mid-years, though no one in the Chapin house knew it.

Betty did not get home till quarter of ten, and then she went straight off to find Katherine and Rachel. "I came to see if there's anything left of Rachel," she said.

"There's a big b.u.mp on my forehead," said Rachel, sitting up in bed with a faint smile. "I'm sure of that because it aches."

"Poor lady!" Betty turned to Katherine. "You got your chance, didn't you? I felt it in my bones that you would. Wasn't it all splendid?"

"Yes indeed," a.s.sented the contestants heartily.

"It made me feel so energetic," Betty went on eagerly. "Of course I felt proud of you and of 19--, just as I did at the rally, but there was something else, too. You'll see me going at things next term the way T.

Reed went at that ball."

"You're one of the most energetic persons I know, as it is," said Rachel, smiling at her earnestness.

"Yes," said Betty impatiently. "I fly around and make a great commotion, but I fritter away my time, because I forget to keep my eyes on the ball. Why, I haven't done anything this year."

Katherine pulled Betty down beside her on the couch. "Child, you've done a lot," she said. "We were just considering all you've done, and wondering why you weren't asked to usher to-day. You've sub-subed a lot and you know so many girls on the team and are such good friends with Jean Eastman."