The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Part 28

"Silence!" exclaimed Miss Carrington. "I would not believe either of you.

You are both disgracing your cla.s.smates and Central High."

A sibilant hiss rose in the back of the room. The girls were more angry at this outburst of the teacher than all of them dared show.

Dorothy burst into a fit of weeping. She covered her face with her hands and ran out of the room. Dora, defying Miss Carrington, muttered:

"Ugly, mean thing!"

Then she ran after her sister. The room was in tense excitement. Miss Carrington saw suddenly that she positively had n.o.body on her side. She began to question the girls immediately surrounding the twins' seats.

"You saw her answer for her sister, Miss Morse?"

"I did not," declared Jess icily.

"Were you not looking at Dorothy, Laura?" asked the teacher.

"No, Miss Carrington. I was looking at Dora."

"And Dora answered!" cried the usually gentle and retiring Nellie Agnew.

"Why----Miss Grimes!" exclaimed the disturbed teacher. "You know that Dorothy was answering for her sister?"

"Oh, no, Miss Carrington," denied Hester.

"But you looked at her?"

"Yes."

"What for?" snapped the teacher.

"Why," drawled Hester, "that pin Dorothy wears in her blouse was on crooked and it attracted my attention."

That was the second thing about Hester Grimes. She was not alone a dunce when it came to acting, she was a prevaricator as well.

CHAPTER XXI

AND A THIRD THING

What might have happened following this explosion of bad temper and ill-feeling, had Mr. Sharp himself not entered the room, n.o.body will ever know. Miss Carrington had been led into a most unjust and unkind criticism of the Lockwood twins. She had been deliberately led into it by Hester Grimes. She knew Hester had done this.

The other girls knew it, too; and they all, the young folks, believed that the teacher had been most cruel and unfair.

Mr. Sharp could not have failed to appreciate the fact that there was a tense feeling in the room that never arose from an ordinary recitation in mediaeval history. But he smilingly overlooked anything of the kind.

"Pardon me, Miss Carrington--and you, young ladies," he said, bowing and smiling. "I have been in the senior cla.s.ses, and now I am here to make the same statement I made there, and that I shall make to the soph.o.m.ores later.

May I speak to your cla.s.s, Miss Carrington?"

Miss Carrington could not find her voice, but she bowed her permission for the princ.i.p.al to go on.

"Several of you young ladies," said Mr. Sharp, "are to take part in the play on Friday evening. Your work, in school, I fear, is being scamped a bit. Do the best you can; give your interest and attention as well as you may to the recitations.

"But I wish to announce that, until after this week, we teachers will excuse such failures as you may make in your work; only, of course, all faults will have to be made up after the holidays. We want you to give the play in a way to bring honor upon the school as a whole.

"I have enjoyed your last two rehearsals, and feel confident that, with a few raw spots smoothed over, you will produce 'The Rose Garden' in a way to please your friends and satisfy your critics. The faculty as a whole feel as I do about it. Go in and win!"

The little speech cleared the atmosphere of the cla.s.s-room immediately. It did not please Miss Carrington, of course; but the girls felt that they could even forgive her after what Mr. Sharp had said.

Dora and Dorothy Lockwood had been insulted and maligned. They did not appear again at that recitation.

"But do you think old Gee Gee would say that she was wrong, and beg their pardon?" demanded Bobby, at recess. "Not on your life!"

"I don't know that a teacher in her situation could publicly acknowledge she was utterly in the wrong," Laura observed thoughtfully.

"I would like to know why not?" demanded Jess Morse.

"Why, you see, the fault really lies upon the conscience of one of us girls," said Laura, looking significantly at Hester.

The latter turned furiously, as though she had been waiting for and expecting just this criticism. But surely she had not expected it from this source. All the girls were amazed to hear Laura speak so harshly.

"Oh, Laura!" murmured Jess. "Now you have done it! She's going to blow up!"

"And she'll leave us flat on the play business," groaned Bobby.

Hester came across the reception room to Laura with flashing eyes and her face mottled with rage.

"What is that you say, Laura Belding?" she demanded.

"I will repeat it," said Laura firmly. "The whole trouble is on your conscience. You deliberately led Miss Carrington astray."

"Oh! I did, did I?"

"You most certainly did. Miss Carrington was both cruel to Dora and Dorothy and unfair. But you knew her failing, and you led her to believe that Dorothy was answering the question she put to Dora. No wonder Miss Carrington was angered."

"Is that so?" sneered Hester. "And who are you, to tell me when I'm wrong?"

"Somebody has to tell you, Hester," said Jess sweetly, for she was bound to take up cudgels for her chum.

"And you can mind your business, too, Jess Morse!" snarled Hester.

"Dear, dear!" Nellie begged. "Let us not quarrel."

Yet for once Mother Wit seemed determined upon making trouble. Usually acting as peacemaker, the girls around her were amazed to hear her say:

"You are quite in the wrong, Hester. And you know it. You should beg Miss Carrington's pardon; and you should ask pardon of all of us, as well as of Dora and Dorothy, for disgracing the cla.s.s."