Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower

Of course Teddy did not like this a bit. Having known Billie practically all his life, he naturally felt that he should have first right to her. And so there was a good-natured rivalry between the boys that amused Billie and Vi and Laura and rather piqued Rose Belser and Connie Danvers and some of the other girls at the school, who thought that Billie had more than her share.

“For,” as Connie declared once to a sympathetic group of girls, “it’s ever so much more fun to be paddled around in a canoe by a boy than to have to paddle yourself, and it’s lots of fun to skate with them because they fairly haul you along. And here when we haven’t nearly enough to go around, Billie goes and takes two of the nicest ones. She’s a darling, of course, but I think she might be content with one!”

And so when Vi had happened to mention innocently that Paul was ever so much fun, Rose Belser, who was preparing for a botany quiz at the other end of the room, looked up and made a face at her.

“How do we know whether he’s any fun or not?” she said. “You had better ask Billie.”

But Billie was too busy studying so that she might be free for the next day’s fun to hear, and Rose’s shot was lost.

As though autumn had regretted giving way to winter so soon, it had been unexpectedly warm that day and the girls had worried for fear a thaw might spoil their sledding. But a cold wind rose in the night and the morning dawned clear and cold enough to suit even them.

As soon as breakfast was over the coasters donned sweaters and caps and mufflers and ran down into the storeroom next the gymnasium to get their sleds. Then up once more and out into the bright morning sunshine, their cheeks glowing with health and their eyes sparkling with anticipation of the fun ahead of them!

There were twenty-five of them in all, but as they filed out of the side door of the school they looked like a small army.

“Isn’t it funny,” giggled Laura to Billie, “how many more of the girls turn out when they know the boys are going to be there?”

“It’s sad but true,” admitted Billie, with an answering chuckle. “After that first heavy snowfall when we said something about an all-girls’ sledding party, they didn’t seem awfully anxious about it. Said it was too early in the season and they hated dragging sleds up the hill.”

“Now I suppose they will expect the boys to do the dragging,” laughed Vi.

When they had climbed almost to the top of the hill that made such a fine toboggan they heard the sound of boys’ voices.

“Goodness, they must have started before breakfast,” said Connie Danvers, who was puffing with the effort to get her plump little body and her heavy sled up the steep incline. “Say, give me a lift, will you, Billie? This hill is so slippery.”

“You mean that you’re getting too fat,” said Laura wickedly, as she reached over and grabbed Connie’s line. “I told you you were eating too much candy.”

Billie reached the top of the hill first and with dancing eyes she looked down at the long, steep, ice-covered incline. The slight thaw of the day before had been the one thing needed to perfect the sledding. For the surface of the snow had melted, then frozen over again, forming a solid coat of ice.

As she took this all in gleefully, the first of the boys emerged from the trees at the foot of the hill and an impish impulse seized her.

With a shout of warning she pulled up her sled, flung herself upon it, gave a little push, and was off! Down the hill she hurtled at a terrific rate of speed, the glaze of ice forming almost no resistance to her flight.

Taken by surprise, the boys had no more than time to get out of the way before she literally dropped among them.

She swung off to the right, where an abrupt rise of ice-covered ground checked her speed, and, after almost reaching the top of this small hill, the back runners of the sled were caught in the ice and she was tumbled head over heels, to land in an undignified heap at the boys’ feet.

Then she sat up, rubbed her head and smiled at them gleefully.

“I went some that time, didn’t I?” she said.

“Yes, and you might have broken your neck, too,” said Teddy, in an awfully gruff voice, as he took both her hands and pulled her to her feet. The other boys were looking on in admiration at Billie’s feat. “Don’t you know you should never have taken that turn to the right? That hill’s too steep.”

“I know it is —now,” said Billie ruefully, feeling, for the first time the horrible suspicion that she had skinned her knee.

“You should have taken one of these paths,” spoke up Chet, pushing his way through the crowd of boys and regarding Billie sternly, as an older brother should. “I thought you knew that.”

“Of course I know that,” returned Billie, mimicking Chet’s tone to perfection. “But will you please tell me how I could take either one of the paths when both of them were chock full of boys?”

The paths about which they spoke branched off from the foot of the hill. One had been an old wagon road which had become overgrown with bushes and stubble and the other was only a foot path. Nevertheless, either one was wide enough to permit easily a sled to pass through and the ground was level for a long enough distance to allow the sleds to come to an easy standstill.

From the top of the hill the girls had been watching Billie’s escapade, and now as she started with the boys up the long slope they looked at one another, smiling.

“Goodness, there she goes again!” sighed Connie plaintively. “She isn’t satisfied with two of the boys any more. Now she has the whole crowd of them!”

CHAPTER IX – INTO SPACE

For a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the best sledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged their sleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeks and, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with the sting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen ground to keep their toes from freezing.

“The best sport ever!” cried Paul.

“All to the merry,” came from Chet. “What do you say, girls?” and he turned to Billie and her classmates.

What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn’t possibly be beaten.

“Can’t be beat!” sang out Chet gaily. “Just like old Ma Jackson’s rag carpet.”

“Ma Jackson’s rag carpet? What do you mean?” asked Laura.

“She couldn’t beat it for fear it would fall apart,” was the sly reply. And then the merry lad had to dodge a hard chunk of snow Laura threw at him.

“Burr-r! isn’t it cold?” cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of her hands and blowing on her numbed fingers. “I’d never know what it was to feel cold if it weren’t for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop your pushing! What do you want now?”

For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly down upon his big bobsled.

“You’ve let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once,” he accused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on the sled. “And now it’s my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows – we’re off!”

And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a giggling protest, they were indeed “off,” flying down the ice-glazed hill at a rate that took her breath away.

“Some speed, eh?” chortled Teddy in her ear. “This old boat of mine has got ’em all beat. I bet we could race them all to a standstill.”

“Why don’t we try?” Billie yelled back at him. “It would be lots of fun. Oh, Teddy, look out!” she shrieked, for they had reached the foot of the hill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billie afterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark.

“Don’t worry,” Teddy said, reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you when you’re with your uncle Ted.”

At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. “Boys did think they were so awfully much!” Then suddenly she cried out:

“Teddy, that’s the wrong path! We have never been down it before.”

“That’s why I’m trying it,” said Teddy recklessly, as he swung down the strange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. “The ground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun.”

Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guess that she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, because never before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.

And the ground was sloping more and more and the sled was going faster and faster with each second. The path was by no means straight, either, and if Teddy had not been pretty good at keeping his head they would most surely have run into something and have had a nasty spill.

“Oh, Teddy, can’t we stop?” asked Billie at last, unable to keep her fright all to herself. “We don’t know where this leads to. Can’t you stop, Teddy?”

“Not very well,” answered the boy uneasily. “We will surely run on to level ground in a minute. Don’t worry.”