Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School Part 8

"Don't wait," whispered Anne. "If we run, we can get away, now, while he is so angry." At that they all took to their heels, David following after them, much relieved to have given Anne's father the slip without further disagreeable argument.

No one spoke until they had reached the Pierson cottage and had seen Anne safely to the front door.

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed at last, trying not to cry. "I wouldn't for anything have had it happen, and just when you were all beginning to like me a little. Will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you, Anne!" cried Grace. "It wasn't your fault. We are only awfully sorry for you."

"We will just forget all about it, and never speak of it to anyone,"

promised Jessica, taking the girl's hand kindly.

"But I want you to understand that I was right in not going," protested Anne. "Some day I will explain."

"Of course you were right," said David, "and I hope you will never be persuaded to go."

"Thank you, all, a thousand times!" came gratefully from Anne; "and good night." Then she disappeared into the cottage.

"Well, this was a night's adventure," observed Grace, as they started homeward.

"I am afraid Anne's father is a night's adventurer," muttered David. "He looks mightily like one of those strolling actors who go barnstorming through country towns."

"Poor Anne! Do you suppose he wants her to barnstorm?" asked Nora.

"I haven't a doubt of it," replied the young man. "I think you girls had better adopt that poor child and look after her."

"We have already," answered Grace. "Didn't Miriam tell you about it?"

"Miriam? No; she never tells me anything. Besides, what has she to do with it?"

The girls were silent.

"By the way," continued Grace, "speaking of barnstorming, we want to ask your advice, David. The soph.o.m.ores played a mean trick on us the other day at the old Omnibus House."

"I heard something about the Black Monks of Asia," answered David, laughing.

"Can't your inventive brain devise a scheme of revenge?" went on Grace.

"If we don't get even with them soon, the story will be all over town."

"Well," replied David, "I can tell you a secret I happened to have overheard when one of the soph.o.m.ores was calling on Miriam. I was an eavesdropper entirely by accident, but what I heard might help some. The soph.o.m.ores are going to give an initiation mask ball a week from Sat.u.r.day night. Only the cla.s.s and a few outsiders, among them Miriam, are to be present. Everybody is to be in fancy dress, and disguised out of all recognition. Can't you work up a scheme with that to go upon, girls?"

"We certainly can," cried Nora. "It's the chance of a lifetime."

"Just wait and see!" exclaimed Grace.

"By the way, David, you didn't happen to overhear the pa.s.sword, did you?" asked Jessica.

"I did," he replied. "Nothing escaped me, for I was caught in a trap.

You know I don't care for that large, husky young damsel who leads the soph.o.m.ores, and if I had made my presence behind the screen known, I should have had to speak to her. So I just sat still and said nothing.

The pa.s.sword is 'Asia.'"

"They are trying to rub it in, I suppose," cried Grace. "But I think they won't be so ready to use that word after their old ball is over."

"If you want any help," offered David as he left Grace at her front door, "you know where to come for it, don't you?"

"You're a true brick, David!" said Grace. "Good night."

CHAPTER VI

THE SOPh.o.m.oRE BALL

There was an undercurrent of excitement in the air on the day of the soph.o.m.ore ball.

The soph.o.m.ores themselves were full of secrets, whispering around in groups, their faces grave with self-important expressions. This was to be their annual Initiation Ball, and many new members, after receiving initiation into the various soph.o.m.ore societies, were to be invited to the gymnasium, which had been turned over to the cla.s.s for the evening.

There was no end to the fun of these b.a.l.l.s, according to feminine gossip, for no male was ever admitted and only three invitations were issued to girls of other cla.s.ses. It was, in fact, to be nothing but fun and frolic, and every costume had been planned weeks ahead.

One teacher was asked to be present to keep order in case of intrusion, for the gymnasium door, on that famous night, was always besieged by youths from the Boys' High School, who roared and jeered as each cloaked and masked figure rushed under the archway and disappeared.

The freshmen, all through the day, were unusually quiet. They kept to themselves and had little to say. Miriam and her three particular friends were carefully avoided by their cla.s.smates. Miriam, herself, felt the snub at once. Had she, after all, made a mistake, and was she losing ground in the cla.s.s? But her vanity was like a life buoy to her sinking hopes. She refused to see that the other girls regarded her with growing dislike.

When school was over, that afternoon, six girls strolled down the High School walk arm in arm. They were Grace and her three chums and two other girls who were popular in the freshman cla.s.s.

Anne's small figure seemed almost dwarfed next to Grace, who towered half a foot above her. Ever since Anne's trying scene with her father, Grace had been doubly tender and kind to her, until the young girl seemed to expand under the happy influence.

"Well, girlies, dear, we are the chosen six. I hope we shall be a credit to the cla.s.s."

"Don't talk so loudly, Nora. I feel as if we were surrounded by spies to-day. Everybody has been so mysterious and queer."

"One thing is practically certain," whispered Grace: "I believe it was Miriam who told the soph.o.m.ores about the Omnibus House. Why else did they invite her to their ball?"

"We can never prove it, though," said one of the others, "unless we get her up a tree some day and make her admit it."

"Remember, Anne," cautioned Grace, when they came to the cross street leading to the Pierson cottage, "eight o'clock sharp at my house! And don't bother about things. We shall have more than enough among us."

At half-past eight that night the sound of a stringed orchestra floated out on the breeze as the door of the gymnasium swung back and forth to admit disguised soph.o.m.ores, who each whispered the countersign to the doorkeeper, after running the gauntlet of the waiting crowd, and slipped in.

The music was furnished by a troupe of women players especially engaged to play in this Adamless Eden. What would not the crowd of waiting boys have given for one glimpse of the ball room, where ballet girls, clowns and courtiers, Egyptian snake charmers, Mephistopholeses and Marguerites, priests and priestesses of the Orient, all whirled madly together?

Every door had been locked and bolted and every downstairs window securely closed. Ventilation was obtained through the half-open windows opening on the upper gallery, which ran around the four sides of the gymnasium. The doors to this gallery had also been locked and the only way to reach it was by steps leading up from the gymnasium.

Six masked and hooded figures swung down High School Street together, talking and laughing in low voices. The smallest of the six appeared to stumble over her feet, and once tumbled in the road. Her friends gayly helped her up, when it was disclosed that she wore a pair of boy's shoes much too large for her.

"If we don't break our necks stumbling over these brogans," whispered the tallest girl, "we'll be lucky."

As a matter of fact, each one of the six maskers was wearing a pair of men's shoes.