Jane Allen: Right Guard Part 30

As Right Guard, Jane proved herself worthy of the position. She played with a dash and skill that was noticeable even above the good work of the other players. Her mind was too fully centered on the contest to realize this until at the end of the game she was mobbed by a crowd of enthusiastic sophs. They marched her in triumph twice around the gymnasium to the cheering, ringing accompaniment of "Who's Jane Allen?

Right, right, right Guard!"

Jane never forgot that stirring cry of "Right Guard!" It conveyed to her a higher meaning than mere basket-ball glorification. It fell upon her ears as an admonition to do well. To do right, to be right, and to stay right. It was almost as if she had been elected by her own soul to be a guardian of right.

That night the losing freshman team did something unprecedented in the history of Wellington. They entertained their conquerors at dinner at Rutherford Inn. More, Jane was amazed to find herself the guest of honor and had to respond to the highly complimentary toast, "Right Guard Jane," given by Florence Durham, the freshman captain.

So Jane's Thanksgiving holiday came and went in a blaze of well-earned glory. Happy in this unexpected appreciation of herself, which appeared to be steadily growing, she came to feel that things had at last begun to take an upward turn.

With Christmas rapidly approaching and everything still serene, pleasant immunity from the disagreeable was still hers. Neither had Judith met with anything disturbing to her happiness, beyond an occasional spiteful glance from Marian Seaton when she chanced to encounter the latter in the Hall or on the campus.

"I guess Marian has given up the ghost," Judith suddenly remarked to Jane one evening before dinner, as the two sat in their room going over their long Christmas lists. "I believe I ought to send her a consolation present. A wooden tiger on wheels would be nice. I saw some lovely ones in the Ten-Cent Store at Chesterford. All painted with dashing yellow and black stripes and fixed so that they waggle their heads when you touch 'em."

"Don't mention her," grimaced Jane. "You'll break the spell. We've had absolute peace and rest since her last uprising. I wonder if she ever found her ring?"

"I don't believe so. A girl told me not long ago that she saw Marian take the notice from the bulletin board and tear it up. She overheard her say that she might just as well have not posted it, for all the good it had done. That she had hoped that the reward she offered might count.

But evidently it hadn't. Now what did she mean by that?"

"Nothing or everything," shrugged Jane, and again turned her attention to her list of names.

"More likely everything," Judith declared uncharitably. "She probably meant something dark and insinuating. I guess that the only person who could earn the reward would be herself. I can just imagine her returning the ring to herself and paying herself twenty-five dollars reward."

Judith chuckled as she mentally visioned Marian Seaton graciously bestowing a reward upon herself.

Jane smiled a little, also, but made no comment. Engaged in the delightful occupation of planning pleasure for her friends, she did not wish the subject of Marian Seaton to intrude upon it.

"I don't have to worry about my present-buying this year," she presently remarked. "Aunt Mary will buy everything for me that I need. All I have to do is to send her a list of the presents I'm going to give and she will shop for me."

"It was splendid in your father and your aunt to come to New York for the holidays," approved Judith warmly.

"They both knew how disappointed I was last year because I couldn't go home for Christmas," Jane answered. "They are doing this for my special benefit. I surely appreciate it, for Dad loathes the East, and Aunt Mary hates railway traveling. I'm awfully sorry that neither you nor Dorothy can be with us. We'd love to have you, but I know that you want to be with your father, and Dorothy, of course, wants to be at home with her folks."

"Yes, Father wants me at home this year. I'm glad we are to have the full three weeks' vacation. I don't imagine that twelve days business last year worked very well. The girls made such a fuss about it, and a lot of them came back late. I'm going to ask my aunt to give a house party for me at Easter. Then I'll invite all our crowd and we'll have a great old celebration. Christmas is a bad time for a college girl house party. Everyone's anxious to be at home with her own people. Easter's different."

"Yes, that's true," nodded Jane. "What are you going to give our four freshmen, Judy?"

"Long white gloves; a pair apiece," was the prompt reply. "They have none, I know, or they would have worn them at the freshman frolic."

"That will be nice. I know what I'd like to give them. I believe they'd be pleased, too."

"What?" Judith eyed Jane interestedly.

"Furs. Not the most expensive, of course. I wouldn't care to overwhelm them. I thought of black fox m.u.f.fs and scarfs for Kathie and Freda, and gray squirrel for Ida and Marie. None of them have furs. I have four or five sets and a fur coat, too. I feel selfish to have so much, when they have nothing."

"That's perfectly sweet in you, Jane," lauded Judith. "You're always a generous old dear, though."

"Why shouldn't I be generous?" demanded Jane. "Dad wants me to be. He never cares how much money I spend, but he likes to have me think about others. He's a great old giver himself. He says that the only way to take the curse off of having a lot of money is to use it in helping to make the other fellow happy. I wish I could take time to tell you all the kind things he's done with his money. It seems as though the more he gives the more he has."

"If everyone who had money were like him we'd have an ideal world, I guess," declared Judith. "I have quite a lot of money coming to me when I'm twenty-one. I was named for my grandmother and she left it to me.

When I get it I shall try to do as much good with it as I can. I don't want to be selfish. I'm afraid I think too much about my own pleasure, though."

Jane smiled at this rueful confession. Judith was generous to a fault.

She was always far happier in giving than in receiving.

"You're not selfish, Judy," she a.s.sured. "We all think a good deal more about our own fun than we should, perhaps. We spend lots of money on spreads and dinners and treats. I've been thinking seriously about it lately. After Christmas, I'm going to invite our crowd to our room some evening and propose something that I believe we might agree to do. You needn't ask me what it is, for I sha'n't tell you."

"All right, don't," grinned Judith. "I've enough on my mind now to keep me busy until after the holidays. I was never curious, even in my infancy. If I was, I don't recall it. In fact, I don't remember much about that particular period of my young life. I was born absent-minded, you know, and have never outgrown it."

"You've done pretty well this year," smiled Jane. "You haven't committed a single crime, so far, along that line."

"Shh!" Judith warned. "Praise is fatal. I'll surely do something now to offset it. I'm on the verge. Only yesterday noon I laid my little leather purse on my wash stand. After cla.s.ses I met Mary Ashton on the campus and invited her to go to the drugstore with me to have hot chocolate. When I went to pay for it, I took my little silver soap dish out of my coat pocket. I'd grabbed it up and stuffed it in there instead of my purse. You can imagine how silly I felt! Mary had to pay for our chocolate. So I know that I'm on the verge. This Christmas rush has gone to my head. I'm going to make you censor every last package I send. I'm not to be trusted," Judith ended with a deep sigh.

"I'll keep my eye on you," promised Jane, much amused at the affair of the soap dish.

"Thank you; thank you!" Judith responded with exaggerated grat.i.tude.

"Now I must leave you. I promised Mrs. Weatherbee to go to her room before dinner. She just finished a perfectly darling white silk sweater she's been knitting for her niece. It has a pale blue collar and it's a dream. She wants to try it on me. I am about the same build as her niece."

With this Judith departed, leaving Jane in rapt contemplation of her Christmas list. She was well satisfied with the selection of gifts she purposed to lay on the altar of friendship. She hoped she had forgotten no one. She decided to write at once to her Aunt Mary, who was already in New York, and enclose a list of the articles she wished her aunt to purchase for her.

Judith presently returned to dwell animatedly on the beauties of the silk sweater.

"It's the sweetest thing ever," she glowed. "It's awfully becoming to me. It's all finished and after dinner I'm going to take it out to mail for Mrs. Weatherbee. I told her I didn't know whether I could be trusted with it or not. I might run away with it."

"Are you going to take it to the postoffice?" asked Jane. "If you are I have a letter I wish you'd mail there for me. I'd go with you but I have a frightfully long translation in French prose for to-morrow. I can't spare the time."

"Oh, I'm only going as far as the package box at the east end of the campus. Mrs. Weatherbee's going to weigh and stamp the package here and send it special delivery instead of registering it."

"Then you can drop my letter in the post box. That is, if I finish it before the dinner gong rings."

Glancing up at the clock, which showed a quarter to six, Jane hastily resumed her writing. The gong sounding before the letter was completed, Judith obligingly volunteered to "hang around" after dinner until it was ready for mailing.

"Now don't put this letter in your coat pocket, Judy," cautioned Jane, when half an hour after dinner she delivered it into Judith's keeping.

"If you do, you'll forget it, mail the package and come marching back to the Hall with my letter still in your pocket. I'm anxious for it to be collected to-night; then Aunt Mary will get it some time to-morrow."

"I'll mail it. Don't you worry," Judith a.s.sured. "I'll carry it in my hand every step of the way. It's raining. Did you know it? I hope it will turn to snow by to-morrow. I like the weather good and cold around Christmas time."

"Oh, well, it's over a week until Christmas. We'll probably have plenty of snow by then," Jane commented. "Better take your umbrella."

"Never!" refused Judith. "One package and a letter are about as much as I can safely carry at a time. I might jam the umbrella into the package box and come home with Mrs. Weatherbee's package held over my head. Let well enough alone, Jane. I'll wear my raincoat and run for it."

Slipping on her raincoat and pulling a fur cap over her head, Judith took the letter and started off, stopping in the matron's room for the package she had offered to mail.

"Whew!" was her salutation on reappearing in her room perhaps twenty minutes later. "Maybe it isn't raining, though, and it's as dark as can be. I put your letter and the package under my coat and made a mad dash for the mail box. Got rid of them both in a hurry, and made a still madder dash back home. Another time, I'll consult the weather before I offer my n.o.ble services as runner. Any way, your letter is on its way.

So is the sweater, and the girl who gets it is lucky."

"I'm ever so much obliged to you, Judy. I hope Aunt Mary sends my stuff right away, so that I'll have it on hand to give before I go to New York. It won't take more than two days to buy it. Allowing three for it to arrive, I'll have it in good season, I guess."

The next few days were fraught with considerable anxiety for Jane, until the arrival of numerous huge express packages, set her doubts at rest.

Then a busy season of wrapping and beribboning gifts ensued. The blessed fever of giving was abroad at Wellington and the cheerful bustle and stir of Christmas pervaded every nook and corner of college.