Jane Allen: Right Guard Part 22

"To make the soph.o.m.ore team?" asked Christine.

"Yes."

An eager light sprang into Jane's gray eyes.

"You'll make it, Jane," predicted Barbara. "You can outplay us all. Some of us are going to lose out, though. There are five of us here who are going to try for it. Judy, Adrienne, you, Christine and I. Of course we can't all make it. Quite a lot of sophs are going to try for it this year besides us. Marian Seaton will be one of them, I suppose."

"She'll make it, if any of her friends happen to be judges at the try-out," commented Judith sagely. "I hope Dorothy Martin will be chosen as one of the judges. She can be depended upon to do the fair thing.

Miss Hurley was awfully unfair last year. I wish Dorothy'd be chosen as our manager."

"We ought to do a little practicing, girls," urged Jane. "Let's start in to-morrow afternoon, provided we can have the gym. I understand the freshman team have been monopolizing it ever since their try-out last week."

"Who's on the freshman team?" asked Ethel curiously.

"I don't know. Haven't been over to see them work," Jane replied. "Have any of you?" She glanced about the round table at her friends.

A general shaking of heads revealed the fact that no one had.

"It's queer, but somehow I can't get interested in the freshmen,"

confided Barbara Temple. "A lot of them acted awfully stand-offish toward me on the night of the dance."

"I noticed the same thing!" exclaimed Christine in surprise. "I thought it was my imagination. Those four girls you folks brought were sweet, though."

"They are dandy girls," interposed Judith hastily, and immediately launched forth in praise of the Bridge Street freshmen.

Though she could have very quickly explained the strained att.i.tude of the freshman cla.s.s to Christine and Barbara, she held her peace. She decided, however, to have a talk that night with Jane. It was not fair that these two loyal friends should be kept in the dark about what bade fair to affect them unpleasantly.

That she was not alone in her opinion became manifest when, toward nine o'clock, Alicia, Ethel, Adrienne, Jane and herself bade Christine and Barbara good night and went on across the campus toward Madison Hall.

"Jane," began Judith abruptly, "I think we ought to tell Christine and Barbara about that freshman business. I didn't want to say a word until I'd put it up to you girls."

"Yes, I suppose we ought to tell them." Jane spoke almost wearily. "I didn't say anything about it to-night because I hated to drag it all up again. If you see either of the girls to-morrow, Judy, you'd better explain matters. I don't want to. I'm sick of the whole business."

"I'm heartily sick of my roommate. I can tell you that," said Alicia.

"If I had known when that girl walked into my room that she was Marian Seaton's cousin I should have refused to room with her. She's completely under Marian's thumb. Whatever Marian tells her to do she does. You'd think after what happened the other day that she'd be too angry ever to speak to me again. Well, she isn't. She tries to talk to me whenever we're together. She told me yesterday that I had made a terrible mistake in giving up Marian for you girls."

"Marian put her up to that," declared Judith.

"Of course she did," nodded Alicia. "Elsie had the nerve to tell me that Marian felt dreadfully over the horrid way I'd treated her. She blames Jane for it, and says she'll get even with her for it. I blame myself for being so hateful last year. Jane showed me how to be the person I'd always wanted to be, but was too cowardly then to be it."

"Jane is of us all the loyal friend," broke in Adrienne. "Sometimes she wears the fierce scowl and has the look of the lion, yet I am not afraid of her. See, even now she scowls, but she will not eat us. She scowls thus to hide the embarra.s.sment."

The bright moonlight betrayed plainly the deep scowl between Jane's brows to which Adrienne had called attention.

"Imp, you're a rascal." Jane's brows immediately smoothed themselves.

"You know altogether too much about me. I was embarra.s.sed. That's a fact. What Alicia said made me feel rather queer because I don't think I deserved it. I can't be the person I want to be myself, let alone showing anybody else. That's what has been bothering me right along. I'd like to be able to rise above caring whether or not Marian Seaton tries to get even with me."

"You can't do it, Jane, and be just to yourself," Alicia said very positively. "I know Marian a great deal better than I wish I did. She'll never stop trying to work against you as long as you're both at Wellington. She'll never let a chance slip to make trouble for you. I'd advise you to be on your guard and the very next time she tries anything hateful, go to Miss Rutledge with the whole story of the way she's treated you ever since you came to college."

"I couldn't do that. Not for myself, I mean. If it were something hateful she'd done to one of you girls, I could. I would have truly gone to Miss Rutledge or even Prexy with that paper, because it was injurious to Judy and Imp; not because of myself."

"Never mind, Jane. I am here to protect you," Judith reminded gaily.

"I'd fight for you as quickly as you'd fight for me. Just remember that."

Judith began the little speech lightly. She ended with decided purpose.

"I know it, Judy."

Walking as she was beside her roommate, Jane slipped an affectionate hand within Judith's arm.

"If Marian plays on the team with you girls, then look out," further advised Alicia. "She'll do something to stir up trouble, you may depend upon it. I know I'm croaking, but I can't help it."

"Wait till she makes the team," grinned Judith. "She may find herself outplayed at the try-out. If she does, little Judy won't weep. No, indeed. I'll give a grand celebration in honor of the joyful event."

"I, also, will shed few tears," Adrienne drily concurred. "Ah, but I shall look forward to that most grand celebration! So at last this very wicked Marian shall perhaps be the cause of some little pleasure to us."

Jane could not resist joining in the laugh that greeted this nave a.s.sertion. She wished she could feel as little concern about the matter as did Judith and Adrienne. Alicia's warning against Marian had taken hold on her more strongly than she could wish.

To Jane it seemed almost in the nature of a prophesy of disaster. She found herself inwardly hoping with her friends that Marian would not make the team. Instantly she put it aside as unworthy of what she, Jane Allen, desired to be. A good pioneer must forge ahead, surmounting one by one each obstacle that rose in the path. Again it came to Jane in that moment, out under the stars, that it could make no difference to her what Marian Seaton did or did not do to her, so long as she, an intrepid pioneer, steadily kept to work at clearing her own bit of college land.

She had earlier expressed this conviction to Dorothy. Later it had been swept away by bitter doubts as to whether she could continue to maintain a lofty indifference toward Marian's spiteful activities. Would she be obliged eventually to descend to Marian's level and fight her with her own weapons? She had more than once, of late, darkly considered the question. Now she knew that so long as Marian's spleen directed itself against her, and her alone, she could never do it. She would fight for her friends, but never for herself.

CHAPTER XIX

RANK INJUSTICE

At half-past four o'clock on the Wednesday following the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s elections, the soph.o.m.ore basket-ball try-out took place in the gymnasium. Twenty girls of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s had elected to enter the lists, while the usual number of freshmen and upper cla.s.s spectators lined the walls of the big room.

Among the ten bloomer-clad girls who were finally picked for the deciding tussle, five wore the dark green uniforms that had identified them the previous year as the official freshman team. They were Judith, Jane, Adrienne, Christine Ellis and Marian Seaton. Among the other five contestants, Barbara Temple and Olive Hurst, both of last year's practice team, had survived. The other three girls were disappointed aspirants of the previous year's try-out, who had st.u.r.dily returned to the lists for a try at making the soph.o.m.ore team.

When the shrill notes of the whistle sent the ten into deciding action, it became immediately evident that it would be nip and tuck as to the winners. In every girlish heart lived the strong determination to be among the elect. In consequence, the zealous ten treated the spectators to a most spirited exhibition of basket-ball prowess.

When it had ended, the players ran off the floor, breathlessly to await the verdict. With the exception of two of them, opinion was divided.

Regarding these two, there was no doubt in the minds of the watchers that Jane Allen and Adrienne Dupree, at least, had made the team. They were distinctly eligible.

Each in her own fashion had shown actual brilliancy of playing. The others had done extremely well. How well was a matter which must be left to the three judges to decide.

While the ten impatiently waited for the decision, over in the judges'

corner a spirited discussion was going on between Dorothy Martin and the two seniors who were officiating with her in the capacity of judges. One of them, Selina Brown, had already been appointed as basket-ball manager of the teams for the year.

"I do not agree with you, Miss Brown," Dorothy was protesting, her fine face alive with righteous vexation. "In my opinion, Miss Stearns has completely outplayed Miss Seaton. In fact she has always been the better player of the two. Granted, Miss Seaton is an excellent player, but Miss Stearns outcla.s.ses her. I say this in absolute fairness. Try them out again and you will see, even if you don't now."

"I am sorry to be obliged to differ with you regarding Miss Stearns, but Miss Seaton must be my first and last choice. Miss Nelson quite agrees with me. Do you not?"