“Well, I thought I’d seen some excitement before,” declared Betty Wales, struggling to settle herself more comfortably on the scant ten square inches of space allotted her by the surging, swaying mass of girls behind. “But I was mistaken. Even the rally was nothing to this. Helen, do you feel as if they’d push you under the railing?” “A little,” laughed Helen, “but I don’t suppose they could, do you?” “I guess not,” said Betty hopefully, “but they might break my spine. They’re actually sitting on me, and I haven’t room to turn around and see who’s doing it. Oh, but isn’t it fun!” The day of the great basket-ball game had come at last. A bare two hours more and the freshman team would either be celebrating its victory over the sophomores, or bravely shouldering its defeat; and the college had He divided interest with a sprightly little lady in a brilliant purple gown, whose arms were so full of violets and daffodils and purple and yellow ribbons that she looked like an animated flower bed. She smiled and nodded at the sophomore gallery from behind In the gallery were the students, seniors and sophomores on one side, juniors and freshmen on the other, packed in like sardines. The front row of them sat on the floor, dangling their feet over the edge of the balcony–they had been warned at the gym classes of the day before to look to their soles and their skirt braids. The next row kneeled and peered over the shoulders of the first. The third row stood up and saw what it could. The others stood up and saw nothing, unless they were very tall or had been lucky enough to secure a place on a stray chair or a radiator. The balcony railings and posts were draped with bunting, and in every hand waved banners and streamers, purple and yellow on one side, red and green on the other. In the middle of each side were grouped the best singers of the classes, ready to lead the chorus in the songs which had been written for the occasion to the music of popular Most of the girls had been standing in line for an hour waiting for the gymnasium doors to open, but a few, like Betty and Helen, had had reserved seat tickets given them by some one on the teams. These admitted their fortunate holders by a back door ahead of the crowd. All the faculty seats were reserved, of course, and the occupants of them were still coming in. As each appeared, he or she was met by a group of ushers and escorted ceremoniously across the floor, amid vigorous hand-clapping from the side whose colors were in evidence, and the singing of a verse of “Balm of Gilead” adapted to the occasion. Most of these had been written beforehand and were now hastily “passed along” from a paper in the hands of the leader. The rhymes were execrable, but that did not matter “Oh, there’s Miss Ferris!” cried Betty, “and she’s wearing my ro–goodness, she’s half covered with roses. Helen, see that lovely green dragon pennant!” “Here’s to our Miss Ferris, drink her down!” sang the freshman chorus. “Here’s to our Miss Ferris, drink her down! Back by the door there was a sudden commotion, and the sophomore faction broke out into tumultuous applause as a tall and stately gentleman appeared carrying a “shower bouquet” of daffodils with a border and streamers of violets. “Here’s to Dr. Hinsdale, he’s the finest man within hail! sang the sophomores. “There is a team of great renown,” began the freshmen lustily. What did the “They’re coming!” cried Betty eagerly. “Only the sophomore subs,” amended the junior next to her. “So please don’t stick your elbow into me.” “Excuse me,” said Betty hastily. “Oh Helen, there’s Katherine!” Through the door at one side of the stage the freshman subs were coming, through the other the sophomores. Out on the floor of the gym they ran, all in their dark blue gym suits with green or purple stripes on the right sleeves, tossing their balls from hand to hand, throwing them into the baskets, bouncing them adroitly out of one another’s reach, trying to appear as unconcerned as if a thousand people were not applauding them madly and singing songs about them and wondering which of them would get a chance to play in the great game. In a moment a little whistle blew and the subs found their places on the edge of the stage, where they sat in a restive, eager row, each girl in readiness to take the field the moment she should be needed. He grinned cheerfully at the stage and the gallery, gallantly faced the junior-freshman side, and waving his green plume aloft yelled, “Hip, hip, hurrah for the freshmen!” at the top of a pair of very strong lungs. Then he raced off to find the seat which had been the price of his performance between two of his devoted admirers on the sub team, while the gallery, regardless of meaningless prohibitions and forgetful of class distinctions, cheered him to the echo. All of a sudden a businesslike air began to “Oh, I almost wished they’d sing for a while more,” sighed Betty. “Do you?” answered Helen absently. She was leaning out over the iron bar of the railing with her eyes glued to the smallest freshman centre. “Why?” “Oh, it makes me feel so thrilled and the songs are so clever and amusing, and the mascots so funny.” “Oh, yes,” agreed Helen. “The things here are all like that, but I want to see them play.” “You mean you want to see her play,” corrected Betty merrily. “I don’t believe you care for a single other thing but T. Reed. Where is she?” Helen pointed her out proudly. “Oh, what an awfully funny, thin little “But she can,” said Helen stoutly. “Don’t I know it? I guarded her once–that is, I tried to. She’s a perfect wonder. See, there’s Rachel up by our basket. Katherine says she’s fine too. Helen, they’re going to begin.” The assistant gym teacher had the whistle now. She blew it shrilly. “Play!” called Miss Andrews, and tossed the ball out over the heads of the waiting centres. A tall sophomore reached up confidently to grab it, but she found her hands empty. T. Reed had jumped at it and batted it off sidewise. Then she had slipped under Cornelia Thompson’s famous “perpetual motion” elbow, and was on hand to capture the ball again when it bounced out from under a confused mass of homes and centres who were struggling over it on the freshman line. The freshmen clapped riotously. The sophomores looked at each other. Freshman teams were always rattled, and “muffed” their plays just at first. What did this mean? Oh, well, the homes The freshmen were shouting and thumping as if they had never heard that it was unlady-like (and incidentally too great a strain on the crowded gallery) to do so. Miss Andrews blew her whistle. “Either the game will stop or you must be less noisy,” she commanded, and amid the ominous silence that followed she threw the ball. This time T. Reed missed her jump, and the tall sophomore got the ball and tossed it unerringly at Captain Marion Lawrence, who was playing home on her team. She bounded it off in an unexpected direction and then passed it to a home nearer the basket, who on the second trial put it in. The sophomores clapped, but the freshmen smiled serenely. Their home had done better, and they had T. Reed! The next ball went off to one side. In the “And T. Reed is just splendid,” added Helen. Everybody was watching the gallant little centre now, but she watched only the ball. Back and forth, up and down the central field she followed it, slipping and sliding between the other players, now bringing the ball down with a phenomenal quick spring, now picking it up from the floor, now catching it on the fly. The sophomore centres were beginning to understand her methods, but it was all they could do to frustrate her; they had no effort left for offensive tactics. Generally because of their superior practice and team play, the sophomores win the inter-class game, and they do it in the first half, when the frightened freshmen, overwhelmed by the terrors of their unaccustomed situation, let the goals mount up so fast that all they can hope to do in the second half is to lighten their defeat. What business had T. Reed to be so cool and collected? If she kept on, there was strong likelihood of a freshman victory. But she was so small, and Cornelia After a long and stubborn battle, the freshmen scored another point. But in the next round the big sophomore guard repeated her splendid ’crossboard play, and again Marion Lawrence caught the ball. Ah! Captain Lawrence is down, sliding heavily along the smooth floor; but in an instant she is up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes with one hand and making a goal with the other. “Time!” calls Miss Andrews. “The goals are three to two, fouls not counted.” The line-men gather to compare notes on those. The teams hurry off to their rooms, Captain Lawrence limping badly. The first half is finished. A little shivering sigh of relief swept over the audience. The front row in the gallery struggled to its feet to rest, the back rows sat down suddenly for the same purpose. “Oh, doesn’t it feel good to stretch out,” said Betty, pulling herself up by the railing “Why no, I don’t think so,” answered Helen vaguely. “It was so splendid that I forgot.” “So did I mostly, but I’m remembering good and hard now. I ache all over.” She waved her hand gaily to Dorothy King, then caught Mary Brooks’s eye across the hall and waved again. “T. Reed is a dandy,” she said. “And Rachel was great. They were all great.” “How do you suppose they feel now?” asked Helen, a note of awe in her voice. “Tired,” returned Betty promptly, “and thirsty, probably, and proud–awfully proud.” She turned upon Helen suddenly. “Helen Chase Adams, do you know I might have been down there with the subs. Katherine told me this morning that it was nip and tuck between Marie Austin and me. If I’d tried harder–played an inch better–think of it, Helen, I might have been down there too!” “I couldn’t do anything like that,” said Helen simply, “but next year I mean to write a song.” “Betty Wales,” called Christy Mason from the floor below. Betty leaned over the railing. “Don’t forget that you’re coming to dinner to-night. We’re going to serenade the team. They’ll be dining at the Belden with Miss Andrews.” Kate Denise joined her. She had never mentioned the afternoon in Eleanor’s room, but she took especial pains to be pleasant to Betty. “Hello, Betty Wales,” she called up. “Isn’t it fine? Don’t you think we’ll win? Anyway Miss Andrews says it’s the best game she ever saw.” “Betty Wales,” called Dorothy King from her leader’s box, “come to vespers with me to-morrow.” Betty met them all with friendly little “That would be enough for most people,” said Helen. “Oh, I hope not,” said Betty soberly. “I don’t amount to anything.” She slipped down into her place again. The teams were coming back. “See Laurie limp!” “Their other home–the one with the red hair–looks as fresh as a May morning.” “Well, so does T. Reed.” “We have a fighting chance yet.” Thus the freshman gallery. But the second half opened with the rapid winning of three goals by the sophomores. Cornelia Thompson had evidently made up her mind that nobody so small as T. Reed should get away from her and mar the reputation of her famous “ever moving and ever present” elbow. The other freshman centres “Play!” called Miss Andrews for the fourth time. T. Reed’s eyes flashed and her lips shut into a narrow determined line. Another freshman centre got the ball and passed it successfully to T. Reed, who gave it a pounding blow toward the freshman basket. A sophomore guard knocked it out of Rachel Morrison’s hands, and it rolled on to the stage. There was a wild scuffle and the freshman balcony broke into tumultuous cheering, for a home who had missed all her previous chances had clutched it from under the president’s chair and had scored at last. A moment later she did it again. There was a pause while a freshman guard was carried off with a twisted ankle and Katherine Kittredge ran to her place. Then the sophomores scored twice. Then the freshmen did likewise. “Time!” called Miss Andrews sharply. The game was over. “Score!” shrieked the galleries. “There is a team of great renown.” They were beaten, of course, but they were proud of that team. “The freshmen score one goal on fouls. Score, six to eight in favor of the purple,” announced Miss Andrews after a moment. “And I want to say—” It was unpardonably rude, but they could not help interrupting to cheer. “That I am proud of all the players. It was a splendid game,” she finished, when the thoughtful ones had hushed the rest. Then they cheered again. The sophomore team were carrying their captain around the gym on their shoulders; the freshmen, gathered in a brave little group, were winking hard and cheering with the rest. The gallery was emptying itself with incredible rapidity on to the floor. The stage was watching, and wishing–some of it–that it could go down on the floor and shriek and sing and be young and foolish generally. Betty and Helen ran down with the rest. At the foot of the stairs they met the three B’s. “Come on, come on,” cried the three. “We’re going to sing to the sophomores,” and they seized upon Betty and bore her off to the corner where the freshmen were assembling. Left to herself Helen got into a nook by the door and watched. It was queer how much fun it was to watch, lately. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them:”–she had read it in the library that morning and it kept running in her head. Was it selfish and conceited to want to be worth something to her college–to long to do something that would give her a place among the girls? A month ago Theresa had stood with her high up on the bank and watched the current sweep by. Now she was in the stream; even Betty Wales envied her; she had “achieved greatness.” Betty wanted to be sung to. Well, no doubt she would be, in Betty was in the centre of an excited group of freshmen. Christy Mason was there too; probably they were planning for the serenade. “She won’t mind if I go,” thought Helen. She would have liked to speak to Theresa, but she had delayed too long; the teams had disappeared. So she slipped out alone. There would be a long, quiet evening for theme work–for Helen had elected Mary’s theme course at mid-years, though no one in the Chapin house knew it. Betty did not get home till quarter of ten, and then she went straight off to find Katherine and Rachel. “I came to see if there’s anything left of Rachel,” she said. “There’s a big bump on my forehead,” said Rachel, sitting up in bed with a faint smile. “I’m sure of that because it aches.” “Poor lady!” Betty turned to Katherine. “Yes indeed,” assented the contestants heartily. “It made me feel so energetic,” Betty went on eagerly. “Of course I felt proud of you and of 19–, just as I did at the rally, but there was something else, too. You’ll see me going at things next term the way T. Reed went at that ball.” “You’re one of the most energetic persons I know, as it is,” said Rachel, smiling at her earnestness. “Yes,” said Betty impatiently. “I fly around and make a great commotion, but I fritter away my time, because I forget to keep my eyes on the ball. Why, I haven’t done anything this year.” Katherine pulled Betty down beside her on the couch. “Child, you’ve done a lot,” she said. “We were just considering all you’ve done, and wondering why you weren’t asked to usher to-day. You’ve sub-subed a lot and you know so many girls on the team and are such good friends with Jean Eastman.” “Oh, I don’t know Miss Eastman much,” she said quickly. “And as for substituting on the subs, that was a great privilege. That wasn’t anything to make me an usher for.” “Well, all the other girls who did it much ushered,” persisted Katherine. “Christy Mason and Kate Denise and that little Ruth Ford. And you’d have made such a stunning one.” “Goosie!” said Betty, rising abruptly. “I know you girls want to go to bed. We’ll talk it all over to-morrow.” As she closed the door, Rachel and Katherine exchanged glances. “I told you there was trouble,” said Katherine, “and mark my words, Eleanor Watson is at the bottom of it somehow.” “Don’t let’s notice it again, though,” answered the considerate Rachel. “She evidently doesn’t want to tell us about it.” “Oh, no, I wrote a theme,” said Helen with what seemed needless embarrassment. But the theme was a little verse called “Happiness.” She got it back the next week heavily under-scored in red ink, and with a succinct “Try prose,” beneath it; but she was not discouraged. She had had one turn; she could afford to wait patiently for another, which, if you tried long enough and cared hard enough must come at last. |