Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma

“Mebbe it would be runnin’ away like you say, mebbe it would be quittin’. Jest the same,” her voice rose passionately, “I’d ruther be horsewhipped than stand another week like the one I’ve just gone through!”

Billie waited a moment, then reached out and touched Edina’s clenched fist where it rested on her voluminous skirt.

“Suppose you tell me something about yourself,” she suggested. “I think I can help you. I want to. I owe you something, you know, for saving my life.”

Edina hesitated for a moment; then began in a low, monotonous voice to tell the drab story of her life.

“Seems like we’ve always been poor, Paw and Maw and me,” began Edina. “Ever since I was a little shaver, I can’t remember anything but poverty. Paw was what you’d call a prospector.”

“Gold?” asked Billie.

“No, oil. He had some property and he was always sure there was oil on it. Seems to me I can never remember the time he wasn’t drillin’ holes somewheres tryin’ to strike a gusher.

“Maw and me we got fed up with it, what with bein’ holed up in the same little neck of the woods all the time and never goin’ nowheres nor havin’ nothing. There were days we went hungry – ”

The droning voice broke off suddenly and Billie had a startlingly clear vision of that tragic little family, dying of monotony, starving a good deal of the time, with nothing but a vision to sustain them.

“The worst of it was,” the quiet voice continued, “that I never got much schoolin’ and I always wanted it. I thought it would be heaven if the time ever come – came – when I could go to a real school like other girls and learn the sort of things that were put in books —

“It just goes to show,” said Edina, after another pause, “that things ain’t never the way you’d expect they’d be. When Paw struck oil – ”

“He did?” ejaculated Billie.

“I thought me and Maw must be the happiest pair on earth. When Paw said I could come East and go to school here, I thought I’d die, I was that crazy with joy. And now here I am – and – and you see how it is. I can’t hardly go back and face Maw, seems like.”

Billie was thinking swiftly.

“If your father has struck oil on his property, he must be making a good deal of money, Edina.”

“Guess so.” The girl shrugged indifferently. “Paw said if the gusher kept on gushin’ we’d probably be millionaires before we got through. But what good’s it goin’ to do me,” hopelessly, “if I ain’t even goin’ to git an education out of it? I’m – goin’ back home – to-morrow.”

Billie came to a swift decision.

“You are going to do no such thing, Edina Tooker! You are going to stay right here at Three Towers Hall, and before long the girls will be begging your pardon for ever having dared to laugh at you!”

CHAPTER VIII

BILLIE AGAINST HER WORLD

There was a moment of silence broken only by the night sounds of the woods and the gentle lapping of the lake against the shore.

Then Edina Tooker drew a long, tremulous breath.

“It – sounds like – a fairy tale,” she said huskily. “Seems like I’d have to change a lot to have that happen.”

“So you will,” said Billie Bradley eagerly. She was beginning to warm to her plan as it took form in her mind. “Not in yourself, you understand, but in, well, in externals – like clothes, for instance.”

There! It was out! Even in the darkness Billie could guess at the hot flush that mantled the face of the girl from the West. As the silence continued and Edina sat with clenched hands, staring out toward the lake, Billie began to fear she had gone too far – that Edina’s fierce pride would resent the insinuation in her friendly suggestion.

In a moment, however, Edina’s quiet voice put her fears to rest.

“Everything about me’s wrong. Don’t you think I know that? All I need is eyes in my head to tell me I don’t stack up against these girls here with their purty clothes and their airs and graces. We’re a hundred – a thousand miles apart.”

“Would you like to be like them, Edina – look like them, I mean?”

For the first time the girl showed animation.

“Oh, would I just!” she breathed. “Would I just! But I don’t know how. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Well, I would,” said Billie. “I’ll guarantee to make you over into a perfect picture of the modern schoolgirl, Edina Tooker, as soon as – well, as soon as we can get a day off to do some shopping.”

“Would you help me?” asked Edina, in a stifled tone. “Would you?”

“You’d be surprised,” Billie retorted gaily. “I hope you have some sort of indelible identification mark on you, Edina Tooker. Otherwise, when I get through with you, you won’t know yourself!”

There was no doubt but that the girl from Oklahoma, Billie’s “rough diamond,” was dazzled by the prospect.

“It don’t seem hardly possible, but if you could fix me up like you say, I’d be grateful to you all the rest of my life.”

“There’s only one condition,” said Billie severely; “and that is that you will agree to do exactly as I tell you, that you will let me have my own way about everything. It’s the only way I can get results.”

“Done!” cried Edina, and reached out a big rough hand that almost crushed Billie’s little one in its grip. “You’re sure a good sport and I’m sorry for the way I – I talked to you before.”

“That’s all right.” Billie began to gather up the remnants of the basket lunch. “We’d best be getting back to the Hall or they will be sending out a posse in search of us. Besides, I promised Vi I’d help her with her math.”

As the two girls approached the Hall, Edina walking close to Billie, her eyes downcast and sullen, they found that the school grounds were almost deserted.

The groups of girls had broken up and scattered indoors, most of them for study, some few of them for reading or other diversions, some merely to enjoy that half hour or so of school gossip they all found so enjoyable.

Billie found that a few of her friends still lingered in the grounds. Laura and Vi with Connie Danvers and Ray Carew were discussing the tennis tournament which was to be an exciting feature of the fall term.

These girls turned interested and speculative eyes toward Billie and her companion.

Edina would have avoided Billie’s friends. She murmured something under her breath about having to get back to her dormitory; but Billie seized her hand and drew her on toward the group of amused and interested girls.

“You promised you’d do as I say,” she reminded her companion. “And the first thing you’ve got to learn is never to run away from any situation. You’ve got to square your chin and look it straight in the eye.”

Billie marched straight up to her friends, Edina’s big, rough hand clenched tightly in her own.

“Girls,” she said, in her forthright fashion, “Edina Tooker and I have decided to be friends. We are going to be the best of pals from now on. And I am depending upon all my friends to be nice to her.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. The girls did not like Edina Tooker. Nevertheless, they knew that if Billie took her up, sooner or later they would all be forced to accept her. Not too graciously, they bowed to the inevitable.

“Anything you say goes with me, Billie,” Laura observed.

“Me, too,” said Vi.

“Welcome to the fold, Edina,” drawled Ray Carew.