Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School Part 24

"Because, if you are really ill, you know," continued Nora, "your sub.

could take your place. Anna Ray can play a great deal better game than you played the first half."

Miriam turned on Nora furiously, and was about to make one of her most violent replies, when the whistle blew and the girls flew to their places.

Julia Crosby and Grace smiled at each other in the most friendly fashion as they stood face to face for the last time that season. There was nothing but good-natured rivalry between them now.

The referee balanced the ball for an instant, her whistle to her lips.

Then the ball shot up, her whistle sounded and the great decisive last half had begun.

Grace managed to bat the ball as it descended in the direction of one of her eager forwards who tried for the basket and just missed it. The juniors made a desperate attempt to get the ball into their territory, but the soph.o.m.ores were too quick for them, and Nora made a brilliant throw to goal that caused the soph.o.m.ore fans to cheer with wild enthusiasm.

It was a game long to be remembered. Both teams fought with a determination and spirit that caused their fans in the gallery to shout themselves hoa.r.s.e. The juniors made some plays little short of marvellous, and five minutes before the last half was over the score stood 8 to 6 in favor of the soph.o.m.ores.

"This game will end in a tie if they're not careful," exclaimed Hippy.

"No, Nora has the ball! She'll score if anyone can! Put her home, Nora!"

he yelled excitedly.

Nora was about to make one of the lightning goal throws for which she was noted, when like a flash Miriam Nesbit seized the ball from her, and attempted to make the play herself. But her aim was inaccurate. The ball flew wide of the basket and was seized by a junior guard. The tie seemed inevitable.

A groan went up from the gallery. Then a distinct hiss was heard, and a second later the entire soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s hissed Miriam Nesbit.

Miss Thompson rose, thinking to call the house to order, but sat down again, shaking her head.

"They know what they are about," she said, for Grace herself did not know the game any better than the princ.i.p.al. "It was inexcusable of Miriam, inexcusable and intentional. In attempting to gratify her own vanity she has prevented her side from scoring at a time when all personal desire should be put aside. She really deserves it."

But the score was not tied after all, for the junior guard fumbled the ball, dropped it and before she could regain possession of it, it was speeding toward Marian Barber, thrown with unerring accuracy by Grace. Up went Marian's hands. She grasped it, then hurled it with all her might, straight into the basket. Five seconds later the whistle blew, with the score 10 to 6.

The soph.o.m.ores had won.

The enthusiastic fans of both cla.s.ses rushed out of the gallery and down the stairs to the gymnasium. Two tall soph.o.m.ores seized Grace and making a chair of their hands, carried her around the gymnasium, followed by the rest of the cla.s.s, sounding their cla.s.s yell at the tops of their voices.

The story of Grace's imprisonment and escape out of the third story window went from mouth to mouth, and her friends eagerly crowded the floor in an effort to speak to her. There were High School yells and cla.s.s yells until Miss Thompson was obliged to cover her ears to deaden the noise.

Miss Thompson made her way through the crowd to where Grace was standing in the midst of her admiring schoolmates. The princ.i.p.al took the young captain in her arms, embracing her tenderly.

Surely no one had ever seen Miss Thompson display so much unrestrained and candid emotion before. There were tears in her eyes, her voice trembled when she spoke.

"It was a great victory, Grace, I congratulate you and your cla.s.s. You have fought a fine, courageous battle against great odds. Many another girl who had climbed out of a third-story window, without even a rope to hold by, would have little strength left to play basketball much less to win the championship. I am very proud of you to-day, my dear," and she kissed Grace right on the deep, red scratch that marred her cheek.

"She is a girl after my own heart," Miss Thompson was thinking, as she hurried to her office. "Grace has faults, of course, but on the other hand, she is as honest as the day, modest about her ability, unselfish and with boundless courage. Certainly she is a splendid influence in a school, and I wish I had more pupils like her."

It was with difficulty that Grace extricated herself from her admiring friends and, accompanied by her chums, made for the locker room to don street attire.

Now that it was all over the reaction had set in, and she began to feel a little tired, although she was almost too happy for words. She walked along, dimly alive to what the girls were saying.

Nora was still upset over Miriam Nesbit's lawless attempt to score, and sputtered angrily all the way down the corridor. "I should think Miriam Nesbit would be ashamed to show her face in school, again, after this afternoon's performance," Nora declared.

"Did you see what David did?" queried Jessica.

"Yes, I did," said Anne.

"What was it?" asked Grace, coming out of her day dream.

"The minute the girls began to hiss Miriam, he got up and walked out of the gymnasium," Jessica replied. "I believe he was so deeply ashamed of what she did that he couldn't bear to stay."

"Well, he found Grace, and rescued her in time for the game," said Anne.

"That must be some consolation to him. I don't see how you got locked in, Grace. Are you sure you didn't close the door after you. It has a spring lock, you know."

"I thought I left it open," mused Grace, "but I might have unconsciously pulled it to."

"It is very strange," replied Anne, in whose mind a vague suspicion had taken root. Then she made a mental resolve to do a little private investigating on her own account.

When Grace reached home that night she found two boxes awaiting her.

"Oh, what can they be?" she cried in great excitement, for it was not every day that she found two imposing packages on the hall table, at the same time, addressed to her.

"Open them and see, little daughter," replied Grace's father, pinching her unscratched cheek.

The one was a large box of candy from her cla.s.smates, the contents of which they helped to devour the next day.

The other box held a bunch of violets and lilies of the valley. In this were two cards, "Mrs. Robert Nesbit" and "Mr. David Nesbit."

"Poor old David!" thought Grace, as she buried her nose in the violets.

"He is trying to atone for Miriam's sins."

CHAPTER XX

A PIECE OF NEWS

After the excitement of the famous game came a great calm. The various teachers privately congratulated themselves on the marked improvement in lessons, and were secretly relieved with the thought that basketball was laid on the shelf for the rest of the school year.

Miriam Nesbit left Oakdale for a visit the Monday after the game, and did not return for two weeks. The general opinion seemed to be that she was ashamed of herself; but the expression on her face when she did return was not indicative of either shame or humility. She was more aggressive than before, and looked as though she considered the whole school far beneath her. She refused to even nod to Grace, Nora, Anne or Jessica, while Julia Crosby remarked with a cheerful grin that she guessed Miriam had forgotten that they had ever been introduced.

During the Easter holidays, Tom Gray came down and his aunt gave a dinner to her "adopted children" in honor of her nephew. Nora gave a fancy dress party to about twenty of her friends, while Grace invited the seven young people to a straw ride and a moonlight picnic in Upton Wood.

The days sped swiftly by, and spring came with her wealth of bud and bloom. During the long, balmy days Grace inwardly chafed at schoolbooks and lessons. She wanted to be out of doors. As she sat trying to write a theme for her advanced English cla.s.s, one sunny afternoon during the latter part of April, she glanced frequently out the window toward the golf links that lay just beyond the High School campus. How she wished it were Sat.u.r.day instead of only Wednesday. That very day she had arranged to play a game of golf with one of the senior cla.s.s girls, who had made a record the previous year on the links. Grace felt rather flattered at the notice of the older girl, who was considered particularly exclusive, and rarely if ever paid any attention to the lower cla.s.s girls. She had accidentally learned that Grace was an enthusiastic golfer, and therefore lost no time in asking her to play.

"I was awfully surprised when she asked me to play," confided Grace to her chums on the way home from school that afternoon.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Jessica. "She ought to feel honored to think you consented. You are really an Oakdale celebrity, you know."

"Please remember when you are basking in the light of her senior countenance that you once had friends among the soph.o.m.ores," said Nora in a mournful tone.

"I consider both those remarks verging on idiotic," laughed Grace. "Don't you, Anne?"