  “Could I hire any of you ladies to swim for me next Tuesday?” inquired Clarice, popping out of the back door and perching on the porch railing. It was Saturday morning. Patricia, Anne, Frances, Katharine, and Betty had washed their hair, and were strung along the sunny top steps drying it, preparatory to going to town for a wave. “None of us were keen enough about that swimming exam to be looking for chances to try it twice,” replied Katharine decidedly. “You ought not to mind it,” drawled Anne sleepily; “you’re a regular mer—maid,” her last word cut short by a huge yawn. “Look out, Anne,” cried Frances, grabbing her by the shoulders, “you’ll be sound asleep in a minute and roll down the steps.” “It’s this strong sunlight,” said Anne, leaning comfortably back against Frances’ knees, and closing her eyes. “What’s the matter with you doing your own swimming?” asked Betty, glancing up at Clarice through a tangle of brown hair. “Can’t. Don’t know enough about it,” replied the girl nonchalantly, swinging one foot. “I hate it.” “Do you mean to say that you’ve been in gym class all this year, and don’t know yet how to swim?” inquired Katharine bluntly. “Guilty!” “I should think Professor Wilson would have killed you off long ago,” remarked Frances. “He’s such an irritable creature.” “Yes,” agreed Clarice, “and also so near-sighted that he doesn’t know half the time who’s in the pool and who’s out of it. Haven’t you noticed how dependent he is on his class books?” “Then can’t you take a chance on his being too near-sighted to see that you can’t swim?” asked Betty. “No such luck! All women may look alike to him, but not all strokes in swimming.” “How did you manage all term?” inquired Patricia, shaking her yellow mop of hair vigorously. “Oh, he was always hollering at me.” There were two divisions of the Sophomore Gymnasium class. Clarice was in the second, while all the rest of the Alley Gang were in the first. To be able to swim was absolutely necessary for promotion to the Junior class at the end of the year, and the second week in May had been assigned for the final tests. Professor Wilson, a critical, quick-tempered little man, was an excellent teacher, but he did not like women and never bothered to get acquainted with the individual members of his classes, which did not at all add to his popularity. “When I can swim out of doors by myself, I think I shall like it,” commented Anne, “but not while Professor Wilson dances around the rim of the pool snapping like a turtle.” “That’s the way I feel about it,” agreed Patricia. “Why don’t we go out to Green Lake some Saturday and try our skill?” “Let’s go next Saturday,” proposed Katharine enthusiastically. “We’ll go in the morning, and have a roast.” “Who?” asked Betty. “Us and the rest of the Gang. Everybody willing, hold up the left foot,” directed Katharine. A laughing scramble ensued during which Clarice nearly fell off the railing. When they had settled back into their former positions, Patricia suggested hesitatingly, “Let’s take Rhoda. She’s so very nice to all of us.” “Good idea,” agreed Katharine promptly. “But who’d take her place?” questioned Betty doubtfully. “Could she get off for the whole day?” “I think so. That day she was ill, Sue Mason subbed for her; and she probably would again. Sue doesn’t have many dates,” said Frances. “I wish we could invite her, too, then,” said Patricia slowly. “It must be pretty lonely to be among so many girls, and not be in on their good times.” “I know, but you can’t start asking people from upstairs,” protested Anne. “If you do, there’ll be no stopping place.” “What’s the matter with Sue, anyhow?” asked Patricia. “Mostly her queer ways,” replied Clarice quickly. “Last year she was always rapping on people’s doors and asking them to keep quiet so she could study. Then she complained to the Dean every so often about how long some of the girls kept her out of the bathroom. She also felt it her duty to report the maid several times for being late in distributing the clean linen. In short, Sue just disapproved of the way everything was run, and got herself in most awfully wrong. She belongs in some boarding house, not in a dorm.” “How did she happen to come back here, since she found so much fault with the place?” inquired Patricia. “Don’t know. Maybe she found out that she liked it after all. Hasn’t opened her mouth this year, so the girls upstairs say; but she queered herself for good and all last year,” replied Clarice carelessly. “But to return to my original question, can’t I interest any of you in helping me out?” “I don’t know what we could do,” began Anne. “Go into the pool for me when my name is called,” answered Clarice boldly. “There’s a ten in it for anybody who will.” “You’re surely not in earnest,” said Patricia, pushing back her hair to look directly at the girl on the railing above her. Patricia was so easily embarrassed for others, frequently an embarrassment in which the “others” took no part. “Why shouldn’t I be?” retorted Clarice. “Why, Clarice!” cried Frances reprovingly. “I can’t help it if you are shocked. If it were as necessary for any of you to be graduated from this institution as it is for me, you’d go the limit, too!” Clarice’s tone was defiant, but as she slid off of the railing and hurried into the house, Patricia who was still watching her saw sudden tears fill the girl’s hard, black eyes. Anne shrugged her shoulders as the back door banged. Frances raised her eyebrows and looked troubled. Betty and Katharine nonchalantly continued the business of hair drying. Patricia sighed—“I wish we could help her out,” she said thoughtfully. “I know a little of what graduation means—” “Then why doesn’t she work?” demanded Betty sharply. No one was able to answer that question, so after a moment they began to discuss plans for the picnic. In the meantime a girl who had been sitting quietly at an open window above the back porch left her room and went in search of Clarice. By four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, the swimming tests were over and the gym was filled with chattering girls discussing the probabilities of success and failure. “I won’t draw a full breath until I see the list posted,” declared Frances, as she left the building with Anne and Patricia. “I imagine we all passed,” observed Anne placidly. “Wish I knew how poor Clarice came out,” said Patricia. “Yet I hate to ask her right out.” “Haven’t heard her mention the subject since Saturday morning,” said Frances. “Have you?” Both girls shook their heads. “Maybe she took some time to practice, and managed to pull through,” suggested Anne. “Clarice can do almost anything if she tries.” “I truly hope so,” said Patricia fervently. That evening the Alley Gang was in such a furore over arrangements for the picnic that the test was not even mentioned. “Isn’t the water going to be awfully cold so early in the season?” objected Jane, when the question of “eats” had been satisfactorily settled, and that of bathing was under discussion. “If the day is fairly warm, and we go in where it’s sunny, I think it will be all right,” replied Katharine. “All right for an out-door girl like you,” retorted Betty, with a shiver, “but it doesn’t sound altogether attractive to me.” “Then stay out of it,” advised Katharine sensibly. “Yes; anybody who doesn’t want to go in can get busy around the fireplace and have a big feed all ready for us. We’ll be starved.” “Never saw you when you weren’t, France,” called Clarice, who just then appeared in the doorway of Jane’s room where the girls had congregated. “Know anybody who runs up to the Varsity Shoppe any oftener than you do?” retorted Frances quickly. “Don’t quarrel, children,” admonished Jane. “We can all do our share when it comes to eating.” “By the way,” inquired Anne, “what did Rhoda say when you asked her? Will she go?” “She wasn’t quite sure,” replied Patricia, “but will let us know on Friday.” “Say,” interrupted Frances, leaning forward to look at Patricia, “does anybody know why she goes over to Mrs. Brock’s early in the morning?” Patricia glanced at Jane and Ruth before she replied with a laugh, “I’m sure I don’t.” “How do you know she does go?” demanded Lucile quickly. “Saw her, this very morning.” “What were you doing, awake before the bell rang?” inquired Anne. “My shade was flapping; and if there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a flapping shade. I got up to fix it.” “What time was it?” queried Ruth. “Five o’clock.” “You dreamed it,” jeered Lucile. “I did not!” “Maybe she was just coming home from a party,” suggested Mary’s mild voice. “I saw her one morning, too,” admitted Hazel. “I got up at five to study, wrapped a blanket around me, and was curled up in a chair beside the window cramming French verbs—” “Now I know that you were asleep, too,” interrupted Lucile. “When I saw Rhoda,” continued Hazel, throwing a pillow at Lucile, “she was coming out of the back door of Big House. When she passed our window, I said ‘Hello!’ and she jumped a foot.” “What did she say?” asked Jane. “Nothing; she just glanced up, put her finger on her lips, and hurried into the Hall. She is always so smiling and good-natured, but she didn’t look at all pleased to see me.” “How did she get in without ringing the bell?” inquired Clarice eagerly. Everybody laughed. “That interests you most, doesn’t it?” inquired Lucile sweetly. “She went around to the laundry door,” explained Hazel. “I think she has a key for it.” “That’s an idea!” cried Clarice. “Why can’t we borrow that key some night when we want to go out?” Four stone steps led down from the path on the east side of the dormitory to a small door which opened directly into the laundry, located under Frances’ and Katharine’s room. “And spend the rest of the night in the laundry?” exclaimed Hazel. “An ironing board for a bed doesn’t appeal to me.” “Why not come up?” inquired Anne idly. “Because, darling, Dolly herself locks that door at the head of the stairs on her eleven o’clock round every night,” replied Ruth. “Then I don’t see how Rhoda gets up,” said Frances, frowning in perplexity. “Oh, bother Rhoda!” cried Hazel impatiently. “Let’s plan how we’re all of us and our luggage going to get out to Green Lake and back, when we’ve only two cars available.” “Pat and I can take the eats and a couple of girls to guard them, and then come back for the rest of you,” proposed Mary, who owned the only other car in the Gang. “That’s a good idea,” approved Anne; and so the matter was settled. Saturday proved to be one of those warm, sunny days which often usher in an early summer. “See that haze on the hills?” said Katharine, as they were packing the cars in the driveway. “That means heat. We’ll be able to swim after all. Isn’t it fine that we all passed the test, even Clarice?” “Didn’t look much like a picnic at this time yesterday,” observed Patricia with a shiver at the recollection. “Wasn’t it a cold, dismal day?” “It sure was! Who’s going on this load?” inquired Anne, turning to the girls who were bossing the job of loading. “Katharine and Frances will go with Pat,” responded Jane, “and I’ll keep Mary company. Don’t any of the rest of you wander off and have us hunting all over for you when we come back. All aboard who’s going aboard!” By eleven o’clock the whole Gang, including Rhoda, was swarming over the picnic grounds situated on a wooded hill overlooking Green Lake, an oblong body of very deep water. At one end, the lake was bordered by flat, treeless meadows, and the low shore line provided a fairly good sandy beach. At the other end, heavily wooded land sloped down to the water on all sides, giving it a gloomy, deep green cast. A rough path followed the irregular stretch of water on the east side, and wound on up the hill into the woods where a depression between two steep slopes formed a small picnic ground. The few tables, benches, and stone ovens which occupied the space were unclaimed today; so the girls had their choice. They decided on a table from which they could look through an opening in the trees, directly down onto the still, green water. “Swim first,” announced Katharine, after the food had been placed upon one table, and the extra wraps upon another. “Will our things be safe here alone?” inquired Betty doubtfully, when they were ready to go down to the lower end of the lake. “I’ll stay with it,” offered Rhoda. “Oh, no,” protested Anne. “Come on down with us and swim.” “I can’t swim,” replied Rhoda, “and I don’t care for bathing. I brought a book along, and I’d just as soon as not stay here and read until you come back.” Seeing that the maid really meant what she said, Anne followed the rest of the girls who were already half way down the hill. “Where’s Rhoda?” asked Patricia, looking around, when they reached the beach and were about to dive into the water. “I should think she’d like at least to come and watch us,” said Patricia, when Anne had explained. “I’ll go up after a while and bring her down.” Swimming in the open was very different from swimming in a tank, and after fifteen minutes of strenuous exercise the girls came out to lie on the sand in the warm sun for a little rest. “Lend me your cloak, Anne,” requested Patricia, “and I’ll run up for Rhoda.” “Don’t believe she’ll come,” replied Anne, handing Patricia her woolly bath cape. “I’ll make her. The things will be all right. There isn’t a soul here today, except us.” Wrapping the cape closely around her, Patricia started briskly along the path toward the picnic grounds. Rhoda was sitting on a big stone, half way down one of the sloping sides of the depression, in a pool of sunlight which some broken branches let through. So deeply interested was she in her book, that she did not see Patricia until the girl stood right in front of her. “I came back to get you,” panted Patricia. “We don’t like to have you up here all by yourself. That’s no fun. Come on!” taking the book out of the maid’s hands. “I really don’t mind,” began Rhoda. “But we do,” Patricia cut her short, putting out both hands to help her up from the stone. Laughing a little in protest, Rhoda got up and the two started down the hill. “Why, there’s Clarice,” said Patricia, stopping short in surprise, as she caught sight of the girl, swinging carelessly along beside the lake just below them. “She’s all dressed. I thought she was with the rest of the crowd. I wonder what happened.” “She’s too near the ragged edge,” exclaimed Rhoda sharply. Hearing voices, Clarice looked up without checking her pace. Her foot struck a hole in the bank beside the path, and with a cry she slid down into the lake. Dropping Anne’s cloak, Patricia dashed down the hill and dove into the water. A treacherous current had immediately swept Clarice away from the bank and was bearing her out toward the center of the lake. “No use to call for help,” thought Patricia; “the rest of the girls are too far away. Lucky that Clarice learned to swim after all; for she’ll be able to help herself a little. She’s gone down!” Striking out frantically, with legs and arms, Patricia made what speed she could toward the place where she had seen Clarice disappear. Fear and necessity gave her extra strength and speed, so that she was near enough to Clarice when the girl came up to seize her by the collar of her sweater. With the irresistible inclination of a drowning person, Clarice tried to throw her arms around Patricia, who knew that meant disaster for both of them. “Stop that!” she snapped. “Swim!” “I can’t,” moaned Clarice, frantic with fear. “You’ve got to! We’ll both drown if you don’t. Put your hand on my shoulder and strike out as I do. If you try to grab me around the neck, I’ll leave you.” Clarice pulled herself together and tried to obey. It seemed to Patricia as if they made no progress at all, so weighed down was she with Clarice’s weight. Just one more stroke, she said to herself, when it seemed as if she could go no farther. Now one more. That wasn’t so bad. Now another. Encouraging herself, straining each muscle to the utmost, she at last reached the bank where Rhoda stood with one arm wound around the tree trunk and the other extended to help them scramble up the rough stones, slippery with moss. As soon as they were safe again, Clarice threw herself flat on the ground and burst into a violent fit of tears. “Let her cry,” advised Rhoda, as Patricia bent over the sobbing girl. “She’ll get over the shock more quickly.” “But she’ll take cold,” objected Patricia, throwing Anne’s cloak over the prone figure. “And so will you,” added Rhoda, removing her own coat, preparatory to wrapping it around the shivering girl beside her. “You keep that. I’ll get my own,” protested Patricia, running up the hill to where the wraps were piled on one of the tables. Pulling her long brown coat from under several others, she wrapped it around her and returned to Clarice and Rhoda. The former was still weeping with her face hidden in a bed of ferns. “Clarice, get up!” ordered Patricia sternly. “No sense in having pneumonia just because you won’t control yourself. Get up, I said.” Taking her firmly by the arms, with Rhoda’s help she raised the girl and wrapped Anne’s cape more closely around her. “It’s a judgment on me!” quavered poor Clarice, as they led her up the hill. “What’s a judgment?” demanded Patricia rather sharply. “Being drowned because I cheated.” “But you aren’t drowned,” objected Patricia, laughing in spite of herself. Clarice was such a child! “I would have been, if it hadn’t been for you. I’ll never cheat again; I’m sure of that.” “How and when and where did you cheat?” inquired Patricia, puzzled. “Swimming test. A girl from upstairs went in when my name was called, passed, and Professor Wilson never knew the difference. She’s about my size.” Patricia was speechless. What should one say under such circumstances? She shrank from the holier-than-thou attitude; yet to remain quiet might be taken as approval. “What can we do about dry clothing for her, Miss Randall?” inquired Rhoda, saving the situation. “I don’t know,” replied Patricia in a worried tone. “I guess I’d better drive her home to get some. It won’t take long.” “I’d rather stay home, if you don’t mind,” said Clarice, drying her eyes. “Why?” “Oh, because.” “It would be just as well if she’d take a hot bath and go right to bed,” advised Rhoda. “Shall I come, too, to help you?” “Oh, no,” said Clarice quickly. “I’ll be all right.” “And you’ll do as Rhoda suggests?” asked Patricia. Clarice nodded and went toward Patricia’s car, while Patricia said to Rhoda in a low tone: “If any of the girls come back while I’m gone, tell them Clarice didn’t feel very well and I took her home. No point in letting them in on poor Clarice’s story.” “You’re quite right,” agreed Rhoda. “Patricia,” said Clarice, when they were on their way out of the parking section, “I don’t know how to thank you.” “Don’t bother about it. I’m glad I happened to be there.” “Should I tell about the test?” inquired Clarice slowly after being silent for several minutes. “I’ve made up my mind to learn to swim before college closes for the summer.” “Good! Then under those circumstances, you’ll be getting your promotion fairly; and it seems to me that any revelation of your—your—” “My cheating,” supplied Clarice frankly. “Would involve too many people. You see, Professor Wilson’s near-sightedness would be revealed, and perhaps cause his dismissal; the girl who subbed for you would be drawn into it, and probably get into trouble—perhaps even be dropped; then the girls in your section who know about it—” “There aren’t any.” “How’s that?” “We were called out of the dressing room one at a time, according to numbered cards; and nobody paid any attention to who was out. It’s such a large section.” “I see. Well, anyhow, since you’re going to correct the wrong, as far as possible, I can’t see any object in broadcasting the story. That reminds me, I asked Rhoda to tell the girls that you didn’t feel very well and I had taken you home. So the three of us will keep our own counsel.” “Pat, you’re just the best sport I ever knew!” “What’s the matter with Clarice?” inquired Hazel, an hour later, as they all sat around the table disposing of steak, potatoes, sugared buns, fried cakes, and coffee. “She had a chill,” replied Patricia calmly, opening a box of marshmallows; “but she attended to it in time, so I think she’ll be all right tomorrow.” The subsequent devotion of the black sheep to swimming aroused much comment among the members of the Alley Gang. Many were the theories advanced, but the girl kept her own secret and worked doggedly until she was as proficient as most of her companions. |
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