The Girls of Central High at Basketball: or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery

“Meaning me?” demanded Bobby, shaking her curly head, and grinning impishly at the bigger girl.

“Who else would I mean, Miss?” pursued Hester.

“I couldn’t slander you, Hessie,” said the mischief-loving Bobby.

“You are a trouble-maker all the time, Bobby Hargrew – ” began the older girl, but Bobby broke in with:

“If I made anywhere near as much trouble as you do about this gymnasium, Hessie, I’d talk soft.”

“Now, Bobby,” cautioned Nellie Agnew, laying a quick hand upon the smaller girl’s arm and drawing her away.

But Hester, quite beside herself, lifted her palm and struck at Bobby. Perhaps the agile girl dodged; or maybe Nellie deliberately stepped forward. Anyhow, the stroke intended for Bobby landed full upon Nellie’s cheek. Hester was strong and her hand heavy. The print of her palm left a white patch for a moment upon the plump cheek of the doctor’s daughter.

“Now you’ve done it, Hessie!” cried Bobby, angrily. “See what you’ve done!”

“I didn’t – ” began Hester, rather startled by the result of her blow; but the tears of anger and pain had sprung to Nellie’s eyes and for once the peacemaker showed some spirit.

“It served you just right! You’re always interfering,” flashed out Hester.

“You are a bad and cruel girl,” said Nellie, sobbing, but more in anger than pain.

“Bah! you run and tell Mrs. Case now. That will be about your style.”

“I shall tell my father,” said Nellie, firmly, and turned away that her enemy might not exult longer in her tears.

“And he’s our physician and I guess he’ll have something to say about your actions, Hessie!” cried Bobby Hargrew. “You’re not fit to play with nice girls, anyway.”

“And you’re one of the ‘nice’ ones, I suppose, Miss?” scoffed Hester.

“I hope I am. I don’t lose my temper and queer my team-mates’ play. And nobody ever caught me doing mean things – and you’ve been caught before. If it wasn’t for Gee Gee favoring you, you’d have been asked to leave Central High before now,” cried Bobby.

“That’s so, too,” said one of the twins, quite as angry as Bobby, but more quietly.

“I should worry!” laughed Hester, loudly and scornfully. “What if I did leave Central High? You girls are a lot of stuck-up ninnies, anyway! I hate you all, and I’ll get square with you some day – you just see if I don’t!”

It was perhaps an empty threat; yet it was spoken with grim determination on Hester Grimes’s part. And only the future could tell if she would or would not keep her promise.

CHAPTER II – THE KERNEL IN THE ATHLETIC NUT

The Girls’ Branch Athletic League of Central High had been in existence only a few months. Gymnasium work, folk dancing, rowing and swimming, walking and some field sports had been carried to a certain point under the supervision of instructors engaged by Centerport’s Board of Education before the organization of the girls themselves into an association which, with other school clubs, held competitions in all these, and other, athletics for trophies and prizes.

Centerport, a lively and wealthy inland city located on the shore of Lake Luna, boasted three high schools – the East and West Highs, and the newer and large Central High, which was built in “the Hill” section of the town, the best residential district, on an eminence overlooking the lake and flanked on either side and landward, as well, by the business portions of the city. The finest estates of the Hill district sloped down to the shore of the lake.

Public interest had long since been aroused in the boys’ athletics; but that in girls’ similar development had lagged until the spring previous to the opening of our story.

In the first volume of this series, entitled “The Girls of Central High; Or, Rivals for All Honors,” was related the organization of the Girls’ Branch, and the early difficulties and struggles of a group of girl sophomores, most of whom were now on the roster of the basketball team as named in our first chapter. Laura Belding was the leading character in that first volume, and her quick-wittedness and loyalty to the school and to the athletic association really brought about, as has been intimated, the building of a fine gymnasium for the girls of Central High and the preparation of the athletic field connected therewith.

In “The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna; Or, The Crew That Won,” the second volume of the series, was narrated the summer aquatic sports of the girls and their boy friends; and in that story the Lockwood twins, Dora and Dorothy, came to the fore as champion canoeists among the girls, as well as efficient members of the crew of the eight-oared shell, which won the prize cup offered by the Luna Boat Club to the champion shell rowed by high school girls.

Lake Luna was a beautiful body of water, all of twenty miles in length, with Rocky River flowing into it from the west at Lumberport, and Rolling River carrying off her overflow at the east end of the lake, where stood the third of the trio of towns – Keyport. Both Lumberport and Keyport had a well conducted high school, and the girls in both were organized for athletics as were the three chief schools of Centerport.

South of Centerport was a range of low hills, through which the two railroads which tapped the territory wound their way through deep cuts and tunnels. In the middle of the lake was Cavern Island, a very popular amusement park at one end, but at its eastern end wild and rocky enough. The northern shore of the lake was skirted by farms and deep woods, with a goodly mountain range in the distance.

The girls who had been in the first class at basketball practice began to troop out of the gymnasium in their street apparel. Chetwood Belding and his chum, Lance Darby, were waiting for Laura and Jess Morse. With them was a gangling, goose-necked youth, dressed several degrees beyond the height of fashion. This was Prettyman Sweet, the acknowledged “glass of fashion and mould of form” among the boys of Central High.

“Hullo! here’s Pretty!” cried Bobby Hargrew, dancing out behind Laura and Jess. “You’re never waiting to beau me home, are you, Mr. Sweet?”

“I – oh – ah – ” stammered Purt, in much confusion. “It weally would give me pleasure, Miss Bobby; but I weally have a pwior engagement – ah!”

Just then Hester and Lily came out of the door. Bobby dodged Hester in mock alarm. Lily stopped in the shelter of the doorway to powder her nose, holding up a tiny mirror that she might do it effectively, and then dropping both mirror and “powder rag” into the little “vanity case” she wore pendant from her belt.

Purt Sweet approached Miss Pendleton with a mixture of diffidence and dancing school deportment that made Bobby shriek with laughter.

“Oh, joy!” whispered the latter to Nellie, who appeared next with the Lockwood twins. “Purt has found a shrine before which to lay his heart’s devotion. D’ye see that?” pointing derisively to Lily and young Sweet turning the first corner.

Hester was strolling away by herself. Nellie said, quickly:

“Let’s not go this way. I don’t want to meet that girl again to-night.”

“Much obliged to you, Nell, for taking my slapping. But Hester never really meant to hit me, after all. You got in the way, you know.”

“You’d better behave,” said one of the twins admonishingly. “You made this trouble, Bobby.”

“There you go!” cried Bobby, with apparent tears. “Nobody loves me; Hester tried to slap me, and Pretty Sweet wouldn’t even walk with me. Oh, and say!” she added, with increased hilarity, “what do you suppose the boys are telling about Pretty now?”

“Couldn’t say,” said Dora Lockwood. “Something ridiculous, I venture to believe.”

“It’s funny,” giggled Bobby. “You see, Purt thinks he’s really getting whiskers.”

“No!” exclaimed Dorothy.

“Sure. You watch him next time you have a chance. He’s always feeling to see if his side-tapes have sprouted. He has got a little yellow fuzz on his upper lip – honest!

“Well, Purt went into Jimmy Fabro’s shop the other day – you know, that hair-cutting place right behind Mr. Betting’s store, on the side street? Well, Purt went in and took a chair. Jimmy was alone.

“‘What you want – hair cut again this week, Pretty?’ asked Jimmy.

“‘No – o,’ says Purt. ‘Sh – sh – shave.’

“Jimmy grunted, dropped back the chair, muffled Purt up in the towels, and then squinted up and down his victim’s cheeks. Finally he mumbled something about being ‘right back’ and ran into Mr. Belding’s and came back with a watchmaker’s glass stuck in his eye. Then he squinted up and down Purt’s face some more and finally mixed a big mug of lather – and lathered Purt’s eyebrows!”

“Oh! what for?” demanded Dora Lockwood.

“That’s what Purt asked him,” giggled Bobby. “Jimmy said in his gruff way:

“‘I’m hanged if I can see hair anywhere else on your face, Pretty. You want your eyebrows shaved off, don’t ye, Pretty?’ So, Chet says, Purt’s been trying to shave himself since then in a piece of broken mirror out in the wood shed, and with a jack-knife.”

Although Nellie Agnew laughed, too, at Bobby’s story, she was in no jolly mood when she parted from the other girls and entered Dr. Agnew’s premises.