The Girls of Central High on Track and Field Part 3

They ran for cover, and the broad branching limbs of the huge cedar Eve had selected faithfully covered them as the brief spring shower went drumming by.

Meanwhile Laura was saying, more thoughtfully:

"We've got to give our best attention to the inter-cla.s.s and inter-school athletics when school opens again, girls, if we want Central High to stand first at the end of the year. You know we are being beaten right along by the East High and Keyport Just think!

Central High only Number 3 in points that count when the June field day comes. We can't stand for that, can we?"

"I should say not!" cried Bobby. "But we beat 'em last year on the water."

"And we stand first in basketball," added Dora Lockwood.

"But the fact remains we haven't got the championship of the League cinched by any manner of means," returned Laura. "Eve is going to win, I believe, in the shot-putting contests. Mrs. Case says that is on the doubtful list of girls' athletics. But throwing weights isn't going to hurt Eve, or Hester Grimes, that's sure. And look at that girl at Va.s.sar! She put the shot thirty-two feet and three-quarters of an inch when she was only sixteen. Eve can do almost as well."

"I don't know about that, Mother Wit," said the big girl, laughing. "But I'll do my best."

"And your best will beat them all, I believe."

"She'll beat Magdeline Spink, of Lumberport, I know," cried Bobby. "And _she_ did all the big 'throws' last year--baseball, basketball, putting the shot, and all of 'em."

"I hope you are right, Bobby," returned the country girl, smiling. She was proud of her strength and physique. Her outdoor life since she was a little child, and what she had inherited from a long line of peasant ancestors was coming into play now for the benefit of Central High's athletic score.

"Now, don't sit down there on the damp ground, Jess. You'll get a case of rheumatism--and a bad case, too."

"Oh, I hope not!" cried Jess, jumping up. "I shouldn't know what to do for it."

"You'd have to take mud baths," giggled Dorothy.

"That road below is in fine shape for that purpose, then," said Jess, looking through the pouring rain at the puddles in the roadway.

"You'd have to wear flannels," said Dora.

"Hah!" cried Bobby. "That's it. Flannels are a sure cure. You know,

"'Although it caused within his home A very serious schism, He still insisted flannel-cakes Were good for rheumatism.'"

"Go on!" exclaimed Jess, laughing. "You sound like 'Alice in Wonderland.'"

"Say, rather, 'Bobby in Blunderland,'" added Laura. "But to get back to athletics----"

"'To return to our muttons,'" quoth Bobby, unrepressed.

"We have a chance to win the championship--our school has--if we can bring the relay teams up to the mark, and win the jumping events. It is on field and track that we have got to gain the points. No doubt of that."

"Then our track teams need strengthening--much," said Nellie Agnew, thoughtfully.

"I should say so!" exclaimed Bobby. "I could put on one of Lil Pendleton's peg-top skirts and beat most of the junior runners right now!"

"If it's as bad as that, we have all got to go into the track athletics, and pull up our score," declared Laura.

"Hurrah!" cried Dorothy, suddenly. "It's stopped raining."

"That little shower didn't even wet under the bushes," said Eve, with satisfaction.

"Let's get along, then, before another comes and washes us away," said Bobby. "Straight ahead, Evangeline?"

"Yes. Right down to that dead oak you see on the lower hillside."

"Good! A mark is set before me, and if my luck holds good I'll reach it.

But why prate of 'luck'? Is there such a thing?"

"Give it up. What's the answer?" asked Dora Lockwood, directly behind her.

"Luck is a foolish thing--or a belief in it is," complained Bobby. "List to my tale of woe:

"Why wear a rabbit foot for luck Or nail a horseshoe on the sill?

For if upon the ice you slip You'll surely get a spill.

"Why cross your fingers in the dark To keep the witches from your track, When if, in getting out of bed, You step upon a tack?"

"Don't sing us any more doggerel, but lead on!" commanded Laura.

Bobby was first at the dead tree. There she stopped, not for breath, but because, below her, in a sheltered hollow, where a spring drifted away across a gra.s.sy lawn, there was an encampment. She held up her hand and motioned for silence.

There were three large, covered wagons such is Gypsies usually drive. A dozen horses were tethered where the young gra.s.s was particularly lush.

A fire over which a big kettle of some savory stew bubbled, burned in the midst of the encampment. There were two gaudily painted canvas tents staked on the green, too, although from the opened doors of the wagons it was evident that the Gypsies, at this time of year, mainly lived within their vehicles.

"Oh!" exclaimed Bobby, when the other girls were crowding about her, and looking as hard as she was at the camp. "This is what the girl we saw, ran away from."

CHAPTER IV--THE GYPSY QUEEN

"Isn't that romantic?" cried Jess, under her breath. "Wouldn't you like to live in the open like that, Laura?"

"Sometimes. Then again I might want a steam-heated house," laughed Mother Wit.

"And see that darling little baby!" gasped Nellie Agnew, as a little fellow in gay apparel ran out of one of the tents.

A young woman followed him. She had black hair, and very black eyes, and wore a necklace, and earrings, and bracelets galore. When she ran after the crowing little one the tinkling of these ornaments was audible to the group of girls on the hillside.

This gaily dressed woman caught up the laughing child, and as she turned her gaze went over his head and struck full upon the seven girls.

She set the little boy down quietly, said something to him, and he ran to cover like a frightened chicken. She spoke another word--aloud--and two men and three other women appeared from the wagons, or tents. They all gazed up at the half-frightened girls.

"Come down, pretty young ladies," said the gaily bedecked Gypsy woman, in a wheedling tone. "We will not harm you. If you cross our palms with silver we may be able to tell you something pleasant."

She spoke English well enough; but her address mainly was a formula used; to attract trade.