Jane Allen, Junior Part 16

"Your night of terror," finished Judith. "I don't wonder. Anyone might be sore and achey from running that Bingham Fire Brigade. I would love to have seen Dozia at the spigot," and Judith went through some fire antics. "Come along, Jane; we'll give the recruits a try-out," she decided the next moment, "but don't ask me to put them through the paces again tomorrow, for that's to be an afternoon off, if I can arrange it."

"Oh," said Jane tritely.

"Yes, oh," repeated Judith most impressively and with a grimace that supplied more than mere punctuation.

Jane laughed and pushed the big girl ahead of her with sudden playful force.

"Choo-choo! the fire is out and we're going home," she laughed.

"This is just about the speed of the little red hose cart."

"Wait a minute!" called Judith, halting so suddenly she almost threw Jane. "I would rather be the driver if you don't mind."

"Young ladies!" protested one of the faculty, Miss Roberts, she who taught English and looked the part. "Is not that rather boisterous for indoor play?"

The culprits choked an appropriate reply and resumed the usual "indoor" behavior.

"One thing I hate knowledge for," remarked Jane, "it makes one so inhuman."

"Yes, doesn't it? We may break our precious necks in the gym and be buried with military honors but we 'da.s.sent' skin a shin anywhere else. System, of course," witheringly from Dozia.

"Quick!" exclaimed Jane. "There are Nettie and Janet heading this way. They'll want me to tell the whole of last night's experience over again. Let's get at practice and preclude the recitation. I feel like singing the story to the tune of the 'Night Before Christmas,' it's getting so monotonous." "You have no appreciation for thrills, Jane Alien," eluded Judith. "That yarn will stand telling for months to come. I've noticed your variations, however, and can see the effort wearies you. But say, d.i.n.ksy, tonight is the night and Lenox is the place. After that, if you like, I'll take up the thread of your famous ghost story, and you may refer all inquiries to me." The last word of this peroration was all but lost on stone walls, for the oncoming horde seized Jane and, exactly as she feared, demanded further details of the big night.

"And did you really see a ghost?" begged Winifred Ayres with a perfectly flagrant relish of the sordid details.

"Packs of 'em," evaded Jane.

"Safety in numbers," remarked Nettie Brocton. "That's my mother's argument for large gatherings. All right, Jane, we'll let you off, but we have our opinion of such utter selfishness. There's the scrub team all lined up outside the gym. I suppose they also are waiting to hear the story."

"Save me from my audience!" wailed Jane, falling into convenient arms. "Why not install a ghost in Madison if you are all so keen on it? I can't see how you expect one paltry spook to cover the entire campus."

"Oh, Jane! Miss Allen, Jane!" called the girls from that basketball line. "We've decided to beg off from practice this afternoon, if you don't mind. We all want to go to the village to see the sights." It was Inez Wilson who acted as spokesman and Inez was quite capable of organizing "a lot of fun" in seeing the village sights.

"What's new?" demanded Judith.

"Oh, something," insinuated Mabel Peters.

"Are we debarred? Too old and cranky or something like that?" teased Jane. Her hair was bursting from her cap like an over-ripe thistle, and her cheeks were velvety in a rich glow of early winter tints.

She hardly looked too old even for skipping rope just then.

"Of course everyone may come who wants to," Inez condescended, "but juniors usually don't enjoy henning (shopping)."

"I adore it," insisted Jane. "Do let us tag on and we'll buy the peanuts. But this really was to be an important afternoon at the baskets. However do you children expect to maintain the honor of Wellington if you do not keep fit? Now when I was center--"

"Hear! Hear! Hear!" interrupted Mabel. "Remember that famous song, 'I know a girl and her name was Jane'!"

"A rebold ribald rowdy!" shouted a chorus.

But Jane was escaping--running down the walk with hands clapped over her ears to shut out the memories of her earlier years when that refrain was quite too popular to be enjoyable.

Outside the big gate an auto horn honked, and the students drew back to give the big car approaching full sweep of the country roadway.

Then another horn sounded, and from the opposite direction a smart little run-about was seen cutting in at high speed. Both drivers saw their danger and both jammed brakes. The big car rolled to the gutter while the runabout picked up speed and shot by safely. This brought the touring car to the curb where the Wellingtons stood watching, and a glance at the seats showed these occupants:

Dol Vin driving, Shirley Duncan at her side, and a rather elderly country couple spread over the big back seat.

"Shirley's folks!" whispered Inez. "We heard they were in town seeing the sights, and hoped we would run across them." This was evidently the "something" hinted at in the soph's outline of the "henning" party.

Dolorez Vincez was too clever to show embarra.s.sment, and Shirley Duncan was too cruel to hide it. She plainly was urging the driver on.

"That's your college, darter, ain't it?" the girls could hear the elderly woman ask Shirley, but they did not hear the latter's answer. Dolorez called, "h.e.l.lo, girls," as she swung her car out again in the dusty roadway, and the "darter" deprived that little woman of her coveted information.

"She said h.e.l.lo!" announced Judith.

"Sweet of her," remarked Jane, but she was thinking of Shirley's absence from Lenox on the night of the fire, and wondering if the indifferent freshman had been absent during all the day as well?

"Hurry, hurry!" begged Mabel Peters. "What a lark to meet them at the drug store. They'll be sure to want hot chocolate."

"I would guess at tea," drawled Judith, "but it's sure to be some sort of drink. Come along and we may get a chance to return that cordial h.e.l.lo."

"I'm not going," suddenly determined Jane. "All go along if you like but I'm not going to lap up any more of that sickening chocolate.

I've taken the pledge until next allowance day," and she turned back to Wellington entrance.

Judith, quick to interpret Jane's moods, knew the excuse covered a more serious consideration and stepped back to ask "why?"

"That daughter is ashamed of those country parents," Jane made chance to answer Judith, "and it would be horrid to spoil their opinion of us. Delay the girls a while and Dol will have gone through town safely."

"But isn't it dreadful she has such influence over that rebel freshman?" commented Judith, slowly following the flock of students headed for the village. "How are we going to stop it?"

"I don't know," confessed Jane, "but we must stop it some way. Just because she has a claim on my--patronage is no reason why she should disgrace Wellington. You go along with the youngsters, Judy, and I'll go right up to the office now and unburden my conscience."

Jane's red haired disposition was a.s.serting itself. "Think of the hair bleaching, then the police farce, and now out riding with that traitor. I'm going to tell Miss Rutledge the whole thing!" and no argument of Judith's could dissuade her.

She turned back into the college grounds and struck a gait calculated to bring her up to that office in short order, and was more than half way through the campus when a small voice called out her name.

"Miss Allen!"

She turned to a side path, following the call, and faced Sally Howland.

"Just a minute, Miss Allen, please," pleaded the strange little freshman. Jane waited till she reached her, then smiled into the serious face of Sally.

"h.e.l.lo, girlie," Jane greeted her. "What's the excitement?"

"You were so splendid last night, Miss Allen," panted Sarah Howland, "and I am so ashamed to have to deceive you as you must see I am doing." A flush suffused her pale face and she dropped her eyes in pained self-consciousness. "But just--now--for this little while--I can't see what else I am going to do!" she stopped and her hands twitched miserably at her knitted scarf. Evidently the attempt at confession was more difficult than she had antic.i.p.ated.

"Don't distress yourself, dear," Jane soothed. "I realize you know something of the queer happenings at Lenox, and I can see you have some strong motive for withholding the explanation. There is a reason, of course, and I have faith in your sincerity. After all, Wellington is quite a little city in itself, and we are bound to meet queer problems here. I am on my way to the office now to get one off my mind."

"Oh, please, Miss Allen, don't report--Shirley Duncan," she stumbled and stuttered over the name. "I know she is doing queer things but she is such a--a country girl, and has never had any chances--"

"Did you know her before she came to Wellington?" asked Jane directly.