The Girls of Central High: or, Rivals for All Honors

“I don’t know whether it could be called wholly an accident. I shall look into it very closely,” said the other teacher, shaking her head and biting her lips.

“Poor Bobby!” repeated Laura Belding to her chum, as they went out of the school building. “She is so enthusiastic over games and athletics, too. It will be dreadful deprivation for her.”

“Do you suppose she really threw that burning punk into the papers?” asked Jess.

“Why – I suppose so. Of course, she’ll be given a chance to say whether she did or not. But how else could the fire have started?”

But Miss Morse had no answer to make to that.

CHAPTER V – WHOM DO YOU BELIEVE?

The Beldings lived in a nice house on Whiffle Street, with quite a big plot of ground about it – room for a lawn in front, a tennis court at the side, and a garden in the rear, out of which a rustic gate opened into the street where the Hargrews lived. Mr. Belding owned the house and, with his business as jeweler, was considered, as fortunes went in Centerport, a wealthy man. But the family lived with old-fashioned simplicity.

Mrs. Belding was, Laura knew, just the dearest mother who ever lived; yet she had been brought up as a girl in a country community, had never had interests any broader than her own home while her children were small, and now that Laura and Chetwood were almost “grown up” – or, at least, felt they were – Mother Belding scarcely understood their plans and aspirations. The new organization was “too much” for her, as she frequently said.

“Why, how ridiculous!” Mrs. Belding once said, upon coming home from a shopping tour. “They show me exactly the same style of garment both for Laura and myself. No difference save the size, I declare! And at Laura’s age I had not even begun to put my hair up, and my skirts had not been lengthened.”

“Changes – changes! Don’t let them worry you, Mother,” said her husband, comfortably.

“Well, Milly and Frank are left us, anyway – they’re still children,” sighed the troubled lady. “But I must admit that Laura and Chet are too much for me!”

Not that either of her older children gave her real cause for worriment or complaint. Chet was his father’s chum and confidant; he could not go far wrong under such guidance. And Laura was a very sweet tempered and practical girl. Indeed, it was Laura’s shrewd outlook upon and her keen appreciation of things that had never entered her mother’s mind as a girl, that so startled Mrs. Belding.

At supper that night Chet was full of the ball game that his father and he had attended that afternoon.

“Well, the East High fellows beat the West High boys, just as everybody said they would. They’ve got the battery – Hanks and Doolittle – and Merryweather and Ted Doyle are some punkins with the stick. Why, Ted is a bear-cat! But I believe we Central High fellows can put up a game that will hold them for a while. I want to see Central High win the pennant this year.”

“What is a battery?” sighed his mother. “Why ‘punkins’ and ‘stick’? Is this Ted you speak of really a subject for side-show exhibition, or are you ‘nature-faking’ when you call him a ‘bear-cat’? And why should the playing of you and your friends at baseball, Chetwood, ‘hold them’ for any length of time? Please elucidate?”

Laura and the younger children burst out laughing, and the older daughter said:

“English is a funny language, isn’t it?”

“The American brand of it is,” said Mr. Belding, who was also smiling.

“That is not English,” remarked the mother, with scorn. “Such expressions have no relation to good English. But I grant you that the slang language is very funny, indeed.”

“Aw, mother, the trouble with you is you don’t understand athletics. Every game has its own technical phrases, so to speak. You ask Laura to explain. I hear Central High girls are going in for ’em. Going to compete for all honors with the other schools, eh, Laura?”

“We hope to,” returned his sister.

“How did the meeting go, daughter?” asked Mr. Belding, with interest.

Laura recited the work accomplished. “Of course,” she said, “we shall found our association on the constitution of the Girls’ Branch Athletic Association. Then we can compete for trophies with inter-county and inter-state teams, as well as with the local teams. Mrs. Case says that there will be an association at both Lumberport and Keyport.”

“Do you approve of all this disturbance about girls’ athletics, James?” asked Mrs. Belding.

“It’s for after-hours. It won’t interfere with their school work. It can’t, in fact,” said the jeweler, “for only those pupils who stand well in both their studies and in deportment can take part.”

“And poor Bobby!” cried Laura, suddenly. “It does seem as though she was fated to have bad luck. She won’t be able to join, even if Miss Carrington has her way,” and she told the family about the fire in the principal’s office.

“A very careless girl,” said Mrs. Belding, yet not sternly, for she loved jolly, harum-scarum Bobby Hargrew.

“You were a brave kid, Laura, to think of the water bowl,” said Chet, with enthusiasm.

“I object, Chetwood!” exclaimed his mother. “Neither your father nor I are caprine, hollow-horned ruminants. Your sister, therefore, cannot be a ‘kid.’”

“Oh, Mother!” complained Chet. “You won’t let a fellow talk.”

“I would much prefer to hear a young gentleman converse,” returned Mrs. Belding, though smiling. “And I agree with you that our Laura is both brave and quick-witted.”

“She’ll get along in the world,” said Mr. Belding, with a satisfied smile. “But I’m sorry Tom Hargrew’s girl is in trouble.”

“Of course, I haven’t seen her since Miss Carrington sent her home,” Laura said. “Nobody has heard her side of the story.”

“Of course, she set the papers afire,” Chet observed.

“It seems impossible that it could be otherwise. Thoughtless child!” said their mother.

“But I want to wait and hear Bobby’s story. If she says she didn’t, and knows she didn’t, I shall believe her,” spoke Laura.

“You will not take circumstantial evidence into consideration, then?” laughed her father.

“Not against Bobby’s word,” returned Laura, confidently. “Bobby just couldn’t tell a falsehood. It isn’t in her. That is why she so often gets into trouble in school. She cannot even act deceit.”

“Short and Long is like that,” said Chet. “And he’s going to be barred from athletics if he doesn’t have a care. We would be in a mess if we lost our shortstop. Old Dimple – ”

“Professor Dimp, you refer to?” interjected his mother.

“Oh, yes!” sighed Chet. “He can’t take a joke. And Billy is full of them. Yesterday he got into trouble with Dimple – er – Professor Dimp. The professor had written something on the board – I forget the sentence; but it had the word ‘whether’ in it. Billy read it as though it was ‘weather.’ ‘Ha!’ snapped Dimple in his very nastiest way, ‘how do you spell “weather,” Master Long?’

“Of course, Short and Long saw his mistake right off, and drawled:

“‘W-i-a-t-h-i-a-r.’

“‘Sit down! You’ve given us the worst spell of weather we’ve had this spring. Recitation zero,’ snaps Dimple. Now, wasn’t that mean – for just a little joke?”

“It seems to me,” said his father, “that the professor had the best of the joke. There’s some wit to that Professor Dimp, after all. And your friend, Billy, is too old for childish pranks, even if he is such a little fellow.”

The topic of the girls’ athletics and the new association was discussed in many homes in Centerport that evening. Nor was it tabooed from conversation on Sunday. By Monday morning, when the pupils of Central High gathered for classes, the girls, at least, were in a buzz of excitement. But they had an added topic of interest, too. The fire in the principal’s office on Saturday afternoon was much discussed.

Laura and Jess, with some of the other girls, surrounded Bobby Hargrew the moment she appeared.

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“What are they going to do about it?”

“Is Mr. Sharp awfully mad?”