Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman Part 8

"I wish we had more time to talk," sighed Marjorie, reluctantly, as she came to her street. "I'd love to hear more about the dance."

"We'll tell you all there is to tell after school," promised Jerry. "Oh, no, we can't either. You'll have to go to that old basketball practice.

What a nuisance it is. And to think you have to play on the team with Mignon, Muriel and Susan, after the way they've treated you. Why don't you resign?"

"I don't believe I'll play next term," said Marjorie, slowly, "but I feel as though I ought to stay on the team for the rest of this term.

Our game with the soph.o.m.ores is set for two weeks from to-morrow; then, I believe we are to play against two teams from nearby towns. It wouldn't be fair to leave the team now, after having practiced with it."

"I don't believe I'd bother my head much about that part of it," sniffed Jerry, "I'd just quit."

"No, you wouldn't, Geraldine Macy," laughed Irma. "You might grumble, but you wouldn't be so hateful."

"You don't know how hateful I can be," warned Jerry. "Some other girls are likely to find out, though."

"Good-bye. I must not stop here another second," declared Marjorie.

"Good-bye!" floated after her as she walked rapidly toward home.

"How goes it, Lieutenant?" asked her father, who, with her mother, was already seated at the table as she entered the dining-room.

"Pretty well, thank you, General," she replied, touching her hand to her curly head.

"I haven't heard you say a word about school for at least a week, my dear," commented her mother. "Has the novelty of Sanford High worn off so soon?"

"No, indeed, Captain," returned Marjorie, earnestly. "I'm finding out new things every day." She did not add that some of the "new things" had not been agreeable, nor did she volunteer any further information concerning her school. This touch of reticence on the part of her usually talkative daughter caused her mother to look at her searchingly and wonder if Marjorie had something on her mind which in due season would be brought to light. The subject of the dance returning to the young girl's thoughts, she began at once to talk of it, and her enthusiastic description of the coming affair served to allay her mother's vague impression that Marjorie was not quite happy, and she entered into the important discussion of what her daughter should wear with that unselfish interest belonging only to a mother.

When Marjorie returned to school that afternoon she felt happier than she had been since her advent into Sanford High School. The thought of the coming dance brought with it a delightful thrill of antic.i.p.ation.

She had always had such good times at the school dances given by her boy and her girl chums of B----. She hoped she would enjoy this Hallowe'en frolic. She wondered if the "Terrible Trio" would be there. She smiled over Jerry's appropriate appellation, then frowned at herself for countenancing it. Good soldiers didn't indulge in personalities.

That afternoon she found it hard, however, to concentrate her thoughts on her studies, and when Miss Atkins asked her on what day the Pilgrim Fathers landed in America, she absent-mindedly replied "Hallowe'en," to the great joy of her cla.s.s. During her physiology hour she managed to keep strictly to the subject; but she was impatient for the afternoon to pa.s.s so that she could go to Miss Arnold for her invitation.

Her eyes sparkled, however, when, on returning to the study hall, she saw lying on her desk a square white envelope addressed to her.

"Oh, here it is," she thought delightedly. "I'm so glad. I wonder if Constance has hers."

She tore open the end of the envelope with eager fingers and drew out a folded sheet of note paper. But the light died out of her face as she read:

"My dear Miss Dean:

"For some time the members of the freshman team have been dissatisfied with your playing, and have repeatedly urged me to allow Miss Thornton to play in your position on the team. Not wishing to seem unfair, Miss Randall and I watched your work at practice Wednesday afternoon and agreed that the requested change would be best. As manager of the freshmen team, their welfare must ever be my first consideration. I therefore feel no hesitation in asking you for your resignation from the team.

"Yours sincerely,

"MARCIA ARNOLD."

A sigh of humiliation that was half a sob rose to Marjorie's lips. Her chin quivered ominously. Suddenly a dreadful thought flashed across her brain. Suppose Mignon and the others were watching her to see how she received the bad news. Marjorie's desire to cry left her. She leaned back in her seat and a.s.sumed an air of indifference far removed from her real state of mind. Then she calmly refolded the letter and placed it in its envelope with the impa.s.sivity of a young sphinx.

Later that afternoon, as Mignon La Salle strolled out of school between her two satellites, Susan and Muriel, she was heard to declare with disappointed peevishness that that priggish Miss Dean was either too stupid to resent or too thick-skinned to feel a plain out-and-out snub.

CHAPTER X

A BLUE GOWN AND A SOLEMN RESOLVE

The next day in school was a particularly trying one for poor Marjorie.

It was decidedly hard for the sore-hearted little freshman to believe that Miss Arnold's motive in asking her to resign from the team had been purely disinterested. She was reasonably sure that she had Mignon to blame for the humiliation. Jerry Macy had told her of Miss Arnold's respect for Mignon's father's money, and that Miss Archer's thin-lipped, austere-looking secretary was one of the French girl's most devoted followers.

The wave of dislike which had swept over Marjorie upon first beholding Marcia Arnold had, as the days pa.s.sed, intensified rather than lessened.

Jerry, too, could not endure the secretary. "I never could bear her,"

she had confided to Marjorie. "I'm glad she's a junior. I'll have two years of comfort after she's gone. I suppose she deserves a lot of credit for keeping up in her studies and earning money as a secretary at the same time, but I'd rather have a nice wriggly snake, or a cheerful crocodile for a friend if it comes to a choice."

Marjorie was equally certain that Miss Arnold did not like her. She had had occasion to ask the secretary several questions and the latter's manner of answering had been curt, almost to rudeness. The desired resignation was yet to be written. Marjorie had purposely delayed writing it until the last hour of the afternoon session. She wished to think before writing. It took her the greater part of the hour to compose it, although, when it was finally copied on a sheet of note paper she had brought to school for that purpose, it covered little more than one side of the sheet.

While she was addressing it for mailing, she suddenly remembered that she had not yet asked Miss Arnold for her Hallowe'en invitation. Should she hand the secretary her resignation instead of mailing it? She decided that the more dignified course would be to mail it. As to the invitation for the dance, she was ent.i.tled to it; therefore she was not afraid to demand it. She wondered if Constance had received hers, and, when her new friend returned from cla.s.s, Marjorie managed to catch her eye and question her by means of a sign language known only to schoolgirls. A vigorous shake of Constance's fair head brought forth more signs, which, when school was dismissed, resulted in a determined march upon Miss Archer's office by the two friends, reinforced by Jerry and Irma, who had managed to join Marjorie and Constance in the corridor.

"That's just why we waited," announced Jerry, wagging her head emphatically when Marjorie explained her mission. "We wondered if she'd given them to you. You let me do the talking. She won't have a word to say when I'm through."

"Hush, Jerry!" cautioned Irma. "She'll hear you."

They were now entering Miss Archer's living-room office. Marcia Arnold, who was seated before her desk, intent on the book she held in her hand, raised her eyes and regarded the quartette with a displeased frown. Then she addressed them in peremptory tones.

"Please make less noise, girls. Your voices can be plainly heard in Miss Archer's office and she is too busy now to be disturbed." This last with a view to discouraging any attempt on their part to see the princ.i.p.al.

"We didn't come to see Miss Archer," was Geraldine Macy's calm retort.

"We came to see you about Miss Dean's and Miss Stevens' invitations for the dance. They haven't received them."

"I know nothing whatever about them," snapped Miss Arnold, picking up her book as a sign of dismissal.

"You ought to know. The invitations were given to you by the boys'

committee," was Jerry's pertinent reminder. "You sent them the list of names, didn't you? Perhaps you accidentally left out these two names."

This was a malicious afterthought on Jerry's part, but it had a potent effect on Marcia Arnold. A tide of red rose to her sallow face. For a second her eyes wavered from the four pairs searchingly upon her. Then she answered with elaborate carelessness: "It is just possible that these two names have been omitted. I will go over my list and see."

"Yes, do," advised Jerry, laconically. Then she slyly added: "It seems funny, doesn't it, that when 'D' and 'S' are so far apart on the alphabetical list, they should both happen to be overlooked? If the girls don't receive their invitations by to-morrow night I'll speak to my brother about it. He's the president of the junior cla.s.s, you know, and he'll take it up with the committee. Come on, girls."

The three young women obediently following her, Jerry marched from the room with the air of a conqueror. True to her prediction, Marcia Arnold had found nothing to say to the stout girl's parting shot.

"There really wasn't much use in our going. I'm afraid we weren't very brave. We shouldn't have stood like wooden images and let you fight our battles, Jerry. It was awfully dear in you, but I do hope Miss Arnold won't think Constance and I are babies," demurred Marjorie.

"What do you care what she thinks as long as she hunts up your invitations?" asked Jerry, with superb contempt. "What she thinks will never hurt either of you."

The belated invitations were delivered to the two freshmen by Miss Arnold herself the next day, greatly to Jerry's satisfaction.

"I saw her give them to you, girls," she whispered to Marjorie on the way to the English cla.s.s. "She looked mad as a hatter, too. She thought she'd hold back your invitations until the last minute; then maybe you would get mad and not go to the dance."

"But why should she wish to keep us from going?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly.