Marjorie Dean, High School Junior

“Yes. I have been hoping you would tell me.” Mrs. Dean laid an encouraging hand on the drooping, brown head against her knee.

“Wait a minute.” Imbued with a desperate energy, Marjorie sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She soon returned, the disturbing letters clutched tightly in one hand. “I wish you to read these,” she said. Tendering them to her mother, she drew up a chair opposite Mrs. Dean and sat down.

Silence hung over the cheerful room while Mrs. Dean acquainted herself with the cause of Marjorie’s perturbation. Contempt filled her voice as she finally said: “A most despicable bit of work, Lieutenant. The writer had good reason to withhold her true name. So this explains the solemn face you have been wearing of late. I wouldn’t take it very deeply to heart, my dear. Whoever wrote these letters must possess a most cowardly nature.”

“That’s just what I think,” nodded Marjorie. “You see it really started with the letter Miss Archer received. You know, the one about the algebra problem. The only person I can really suspect of writing any of them is Mignon. But she’s not this sort of coward. Besides, I don’t believe she’d write just this kind of letter. What sort of person do you think would, Captain?”

Before answering, Mrs. Dean thoughtfully reread both letters. “It is hard to say,” she mused. “It looks to me as though the writer of them might have been prompted by jealousy. The second one in particular is full of jealous spite. I suppose you don’t care to let Miss Archer see them.”

“No.” Marjorie shook a vehement head. “I’d rather worry through without that. Perhaps there won’t be any more of them. I hope not. Anyway, I’m glad I told you about them. If another does come, I can bring it to you and not feel so bad over it as if I had to think things out alone. Even if I knew this very minute who wrote them, I don’t know what I’d do about it. It would depend upon who the girl was, whether or not I’d say anything to her. It’s all very mysterious and aggravating, isn’t it?” she added wistfully.

“It’s far worse than that.” Mrs. Dean’s lips set in a displeased line. “Sanford High School appears to harbor some very peculiar girls. I can’t imagine any such thing happening to you at Franklin High. I don’t like it at all. If the rest of your junior year is going to be like this, you might better go away to a good preparatory school.”

“Oh, Captain, don’t say that!” Marjorie cried out in distress. “I couldn’t bear to leave you and General and Sanford High. I’d be terribly unhappy away from home. Please say you didn’t really mean that.” Tears lurked in her pleading tones.

“Now, now, Lieutenant,” came the soothing reply, “don’t be so ready to run out to meet calamity. I only suggested your going away as a means of taking you out of these pits you seem always innocently to be tumbling into. You know that General and I could hardly get along without our girl. It is of your welfare I am thinking.”

Marjorie slipped to her mother’s side and wound coaxing arms about her. “I was afraid this would hurt you. That’s why I hated to tell you. Don’t worry, Captain. Everything will come out all right. It always has, you know. So long as I keep a clear conscience, nothing can really hurt me. I hope I’m too good a soldier to be frightened, just because I’ve been fired upon by an unseen enemy. If I ran away now I’d be a deserter, and a deserter’s a disgrace to an army. So you see there’s only one thing to do; stand by and stick fast to my colors. I’ve got to be a soldier in earnest.”

CHAPTER XV – AN UNWILLING FOLLOWER

Marjorie’s confidential talk with her Captain brought to her a renewal of faith in herself, which carried her along serenely through various small difficulties which continually sprang up in her junior path. One of them was Miss Merton, who seemed always on the watch for an opportunity to belittle the girl she so detested. Still another was the hostile interest Mignon La Salle had again begun to take in her. Hardly a day passed without an angry recital on Jerry’s part of something she had heard against Marjorie, which had originally come from Mignon or Rowena Farnham. Mignon’s ally, Charlotte Horner, was an equal source for provocation. Although she had no special right to do so, she often dropped in on junior basket ball practice merely to find food for adverse criticism of Marjorie. She watched the latter with a hawk-like eye, only to go forth and make capital of any small imperfection in Marjorie’s playing, which she saw or fancied she saw.

The fact that Rowena Farnham was a member of the sophomore team did not add to Marjorie’s happiness. She had no wish to come into such close contact with her, which the approaching games between the two teams would necessitate. From Jerry, the indefatigable news-gatherer, she had learned that Rowena was a skilful, but rather rough player. Knowing her to be utterly without scruple, Marjorie had small reason to believe she could be trusted to play an absolutely fair game against her opponents. Rowena was already becoming an insolent power in the sophomore class. Her extreme audacity, coupled with her good looks and fine clothes, brought her a certain amount of prestige in Sanford High School. She possessed to a marked degree that impudent quality of daring, which is so peculiarly fascinating to school girls.

Although she was not sincerely liked she was admired and feared. She had a fund of clever sayings at her command, which gave her a reputation for brilliancy. The frequent reproof of her teachers rolled off her like water from a duck’s back. She made public sport of whomever she pleased, whenever it pleased her to do so, with a conscienceless air of good humor that rendered her a dangerous foe. She never hesitated to forge her way to whatever she wanted, in a hail-fellow-well-met manner which changed like a flash to insolence with the slightest opposition offered. She was a bully of the first water, but with the glamor of her newness still upon her, the worst side of her nature was yet to be revealed to many.

Marjorie Dean and Jerry Macy, at least, entertained no illusions concerning her. Neither did Mignon La Salle. For once in her life, Mignon was beginning to find herself completely overshadowed by a nature far more hatefully mischievous than her own. True she was Rowena’s most intimate friend. Yet there were times when she inwardly regretted having rushed blindly into such a friendship. Striving ever to rule, now she was invariably overruled. Instead of being leader, she became follower. Rowena criticized, satirized and domineered over her, all in the name of friendship. Had she been anyone else, Mignon would not have borne long with her bullying. She would have speedily put an end to their association. Rowena, however, was one not thus easily to be dropped. In Mignon she glimpsed powers for mischief-making only secondary to her own. She preferred, therefore, to cling to her and was clever enough never to allow Mignon’s flashes of resentment against her high-handedness to mature into open rebellion. Those who knew the French girl for exactly what she was agreed that Mignon had at last met her match. They also agreed that a taste of her own medicine would no doubt do her a great deal of good.

The approach of Thanksgiving also brought with it a stir of excitement for the coming basket ball game, the first to be played in a series of four, which were scheduled to take place at intervals in the school year. The sophomore team had already played the freshman and given them a complete whitewashing. Now they were clamoring to meet the juniors and repeat their victory. The junior team had attended the freshman-sophomore game in a body, thereby realizing to the full the strength of their opponents. Reluctantly, they were forced to admit the brilliancy of Rowena Farnham as a player. She knew the game and she went into it with a dash and vigor that marked her as a powerful adversary. Naturally, it won her an admiration which she determined should grow and deepen with each fresh achievement.

Her doughty deeds on the floor of contest merely imbued the junior team with stronger resolution to win the coming game. They practised with stubborn energy, sedulously striving to overcome whatever they knew to be their weak points. Though manager of all the teams, Ellen Seymour’s heart was secretly with them. This they felt rather than knew. Outwardly, Ellen was impartial. She made them no show of favoritism, but they divined that she would rejoice to see them win. There was no doubt of the smoothness of their team work. Having played basket ball on the freshman and sophomore teams, Marjorie Dean herself knew that the squad of which she was now a member excelled any other of past experience. Fairly confident that it could hold its own, she looked impatiently forward to the hour of action.

To set one’s heart too steadfastly on a particular thing, seems sometimes to court disappointment. On the Thursday before the game an unexpected state of affairs came to pass. It started with a notice on the bulletin board requesting the presence of the junior team in the gymnasium at four o’clock that afternoon. It was signed “Ellen Seymour, Manager.” Naturally, the juniors thought little of it. They were accustomed to such notices. Ellen, no doubt, had some special communication to make that had to do with them. But when five minutes after four saw them gathered in the gymnasium to meet their manager, her sober face warned them that the unusual was afoot.

“Girls, I have something to ask of you which you may not wish to do. I am not going to urge you to do it. You are free to choose your own course. As it especially concerns you, yours is the right to decide. Two girls of the sophomore team are ill. Martha Tyrell has come down with tonsilitis, and Nellie Simmons is threatened with pneumonia. Both are in bed. They can’t possibly play on Saturday. The sophs are awfully cut up about it. They wouldn’t mind using one sub, but two, they say, is one too many. They have asked me to ask you if you are willing to postpone the game until these girls are well again.”

“I don’t see why we should,” objected Captain Muriel Harding. “I don’t believe they’d do the same for us. Of what use are subs, if not to replace absent players?”

“That’s what I think,” put in Daisy Griggs. “It’s too provoking. Everyone is looking forward to the game. If we don’t play we’ll disappoint a whole lot of people. It’s very nervy in the sophs to ask us to do such a thing. Besides, we are crazy to wear our new suits.”

Ellen smiled quizzically. “Remember, you are to do as you please about it,” was all she said, betraying neither pleasure or displeasure at the ready protests.

“I suppose the sophomores will think us awfully mean if we don’t do as they ask,” ventured Rita Talbot.

“Oh, let them think,” declared Susan Atwell impatiently. “It’s the first time I ever heard of such a thing. They must be terribly afraid we’ll beat them.”

“That’s just the point.” At this juncture Marjorie broke into the discussion. “If we insist on playing and win, they might say we won because we had them at a disadvantage. That wouldn’t be much of a victory, would it?”

“That’s so.” Muriel reluctantly admitted the force of Marjorie’s argument. “I know at least one of them who would say just that.”

“Mustn’t be personal,” gently chided Ellen. Nevertheless, there was a twinkle in her blue eyes. The sophomore who had come to her had insinuated what Marjorie had voiced. “I’ll give you ten minutes to talk it over. I promised to let the sophomores know to-night. The girl who came to me is waiting in the senior locker room for your answer.”

“I’m ready to decide now,” asserted Marjorie. “For my part I’m willing to postpone the game.”

“We might as well,” conceded Captain Muriel ruefully. Marjorie’s point had gone home. “If we win we want it to be a sweeping victory.”

One by one the three other interested parties agreed that it seemed best to yield gracefully to the plea.

“Now that you’ve all spoken I’m going to tell you my opinion,” announced Ellen. “I am glad that you are willing to do this. It becomes you as juniors. No one can say that you have been anything but strictly generous. You deserve a crown of victory for being so nice about this.”

Ellen’s conclusion brought a smile to five faces. Her remark might be construed as a declaration of favor toward them.

“I believe you’d love to see us win the whole four games, Ellen Seymour,” was Muriel’s frank comment.

“As your august manager, my lips are sealed,” Ellen retorted laughingly. “Now I must leave you and put an anxious sophomore out of her misery. While you are waiting for the sick to get well you can put in some more practice.” With this injunction she left them.

Once out of the gymnasium, her smile vanished. The anxious sophomore was Rowena Farnham. Ellen cherished small liking for this arrogant, self-centered young person whose request had been more in the nature of a command. Personally, she had not favored putting off the game. Had illness befallen a member or members of any team on which she had formerly played, no such favor would have been asked. Nothing short of incapacitation of the whole squad would have brought forth a stay in activities. Yet as manager she was obliged to be strictly impersonal. True, she might have exercised her authority and herself made the decision. But she had deemed the other way wisest.

On entering the senior locker room she was still more annoyed to find Mignon La Salle with Rowena. If Ellen disliked the latter, she had less love for the tricky French girl. “Birds of a feather,” she mentally styled them as she coldly bowed to Mignon. Her chilly recognition was not returned. Mignon had not forgiven her for the try-out.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” inquired Rowena, satirically pleasant. Her manner toward dignified Ellen verged on insolence.

“The junior team are willing to postpone the game,” informed Ellen briefly. She intended the interview to be a short one.

“They know on which side their bread is buttered,” laughed the other girl. “I suppose they weren’t specially delighted. Did they make much fuss before they gave in?”

“As I have delivered my message, I will say ‘good afternoon,’” Ellen returned stiffly.

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” drawled Rowena. “When I ask a question, I expect an answer.”

“Good afternoon.” Ellen wheeled and walked calmly from the locker room. Rowena’s expectations were a matter of indifference to the disgusted manager. She, at least, was not to be bullied.

Mignon La Salle laughed unpleasantly. “You were foolish to waste your breath on her.” She wagged her black head in the direction of the door, which had just closed behind Ellen. “You didn’t impress her that much.” She snapped her fingers significantly.

Smarting under the dignified snubbing Ellen had administered, Rowena hailed Mignon as an escape valve. “You keep your remarks to yourself,” she blustered. “How dare you stand there laughing and snapping your fingers? No wonder people say you’re two-faced and tricky. You’re so deceitful you don’t know your own mind. One minute you come whining to me about this Seymour snip, the next you take sides with her.”

“I wasn’t standing up for her and you know it,” muttered Mignon. As always, Rowena’s brutally expressed opinion of herself had a vastly chastening effect on the designing French girl. Rowena never minced matters. She delivered her remarks straight from the shoulder, indifferent to whether they pleased or displeased. Mignon’s disregard for sincerity and honor suited her admirably. She was equally devoid of these virtues. Mignon made an excellent confederate. Still, she had to be kept in her place. Her very love of subtle intrigue made plain speaking abhorrent to her. On occasions when Rowena mercilessly held before her the mirror of truth, she invariably retired in confusion. At the same time she entertained a wholesome respect for the one who thus dared to do it. This explained to a great extent the strong influence which Rowena exerted over her. She was not happy in this new friendship. More than once she had meditated ending it. Fear of the other’s furious retaliation was a signal preventative. Rowena, as a friend, was greatly to be preferred to Rowena as an enemy.

As she sulkily viewed the Titian-haired tyrant, who knew her too well for her own peace of mind, she wondered why she had not flung back taunt for taunt. Perhaps Rowena made a shrewd guess regarding her thoughts. Adopting a milder tone she said brusquely: “Oh, quit pouting and come along. None of these stupid girls are worth quarreling over. I suppose that Marjorie Dean, the big baby, told Miss Seymour something hateful about me. That’s the reason she acted so frosty.”

At the mere mention of Marjorie’s name Mignon’s elfish face grew dark. She and Rowena had at least one bond in common, they both despised Marjorie Dean. Mignon reflected that no scheme she had devised for humbling the former had ever borne lasting fruit. Rowena might succeed where she had failed. Rowena had sworn reprisal for the affair of the algebra problem. Undoubtedly, she would seize upon the first opportunity for retaliation. With such a glorious prospect ahead of her, Mignon craftily decided to stick to Rowena and share in her triumph.

CHAPTER XVI – A TINY CLUE

The end of the week following Thanksgiving brought the two temporarily disabled sophomore basket ball players back to school. The day after their return a notice appeared on the bulletin board stating that the junior-sophomore game would be played on the next Saturday afternoon. From all sides it received profound approbation and the recent postponement of the contest served to give it greater importance. The sophomore team had been highly delighted with the respite, and gratefully accorded the credit to Rowena Farnham, who reveled in her sudden advance in popularity.

The juniors had little to say to the world at large. Among themselves they said a great deal. One and all they agreed that the victory of the coming game must be theirs. They yearned to show the public that in postponing the game they had merely postponed the glory of winning it. Though they knew the strength of the opposing team, they confidently believed themselves to be even stronger. How it happened, none of them were quite able to explain, but when the fateful hour of conflict arrived the victor’s crown was wrested from them. A score of 18-16 in favor of the sophomores sent them off the field of defeat, crestfallen but remarkably good-natured, considering the circumstances.

Behind the closed door of their dressing room, with the jubilant shouts of the sophomores still ringing in their ears, they proceeded to take stock of themselves and their triumphant opponents.

“There is no use in talking, that Rowena Farnham is a wonderful player,” was Muriel Harding’s rueful admission. “She could almost have won the game playing alone against us.”

“She’s a very rough player,” cried Daisy Griggs. “She tears about the floor like a wild Indian. She gave me two or three awful bumps.”

“Still, you can’t say she did anything that one could make a fuss about,” said Rita Talbot slowly. “I guess she’s too clever for that.”

“That’s just it,” chimed in Susan Atwell crossly. “She’s as sharp as a needle. She goes just far enough to get what she wants without getting into trouble by it. Anyway, they didn’t win much of a victory. If that last throw of Marjorie’s hadn’t missed the basket we’d have tied the score. It’s a pity the game ended right there. Three or four minutes more were all we needed.”

“I was sure I’d make it,” declared Marjorie rather mournfully, “but a little before, in that big rush, I was shoved forward by someone and nearly fell. I made a slide but didn’t quite touch the floor. All my weight was on my right arm and I felt it afterward when I threw the ball.”

“Who shoved you forward? That’s what I’d like to know,” came suspiciously from Susan. “If – ”

“Oh, it wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Marjorie hastened to assure her. “It was just one of those provoking things that have to happen.”

“Listen to those shrieks of joy,” grumbled Muriel, as a fresh clamor began out in the gymnasium. “Oh, why didn’t we beat them?”

“Never mind,” consoled Marjorie. “There’d be just as much noise if we had won. You can’t blame them. Next time it will be our turn. We’ve still three more chances. Now that we’ve played the sophs once, we’ll know better what to do when we play them again. We really ought to go out there and congratulate them. Then they would know that we weren’t jealous of them.”

“I’d just as soon congratulate a big, striped tiger as that Rowena Farnham. She makes me think of one. She has that cruel, tigerish way about her. Ugh! I can’t endure that girl.” Muriel Harding made a gesture of abhorrence.

“Come in,” called Marjorie as four loud knocks beat upon the door. “It’s Jerry, Connie and Irma,” she explained, as the door opened to admit the trio.

“Better luck next time,” cheerfully saluted Jerry Macy. “You girls played a bang-up, I mean, a splendid game. I was sure you’d tie that score. You had a slight accident, didn’t you, Marjorie?”

“Yes. Did you notice it?” Marjorie glanced curiously at Jerry’s imperturbable face.

“I always notice everything,” retorted Jerry. “I hope – ”

Marjorie flashed her a warning look. “It wasn’t anything that could be avoided,” she answered with a finality that Jerry understood, if no one else did. “I move that we go down to Sargent’s and celebrate our defeat,” she quickly added. “Have a seat, girls. It won’t take us long to get into our everyday clothes.”

“Such a shame,” bewailed Daisy Griggs. “After we’ve gone to the trouble of having these stunning suits made, then we have to be robbed of a chance to parade around the gym as winners. Anyway, they’re a whole lot prettier than the sophs’ suits. I didn’t like that dark green and blue they had as well as ours.”

“They stuck to the sophomore colors, though,” reminded Rita. “It’s a wonder that Rowena Farnham didn’t appear in some wonderful creation that had nothing to do with class colors. It would be just like her.”

Despite their regret over losing the game, the defeated team, accompanied by Jerry, Constance, Irma and Harriet Delaney, who afterwards dropped in upon them, set off for the all-consoling Sargent’s in fairly good humor, there to spend not only a talkative session, but their pocket money as well.

It was not until Jerry, Constance and Marjorie had reluctantly torn themselves from their friends to stroll homeward through the crisp December air that Jerry unburdened herself with gusto.

“Marjorie Dean,” she began impetuously, “do you or don’t you know why you nearly fell down in that rush?”

“I know, of course,” nodded Marjorie. “Someone swept me forward and I almost lost my balance. It’s happened to me before. What is it that you are trying to tell me, Jerry?”

“That someone was Row-ena,” stated Jerry briefly. “Isn’t that so, Connie?”

“It looked that way,” Connie admitted. “I thought she played very roughly all through the game.”

“If it were she, I don’t believe she did it purposely,” responded Marjorie. “Even if she did, I’m not going to worry about it. I rather expected she might. Mignon used to do that sort of thing. You remember what a time we had about it last year. But her team and ours were concerned in it. That’s why I took it up. As it was only I to whom it happened this time, I shall say nothing. I don’t wish to start trouble over basket ball this year. If I spoke of it to Ellen she would take it up. You know what Rowena Farnham would say. She’d declare it was simply a case of spite on my part. That I was using it only as an excuse for not being able to throw that last ball to basket. Then she’d go around and tell others that we were whining because we were beaten in a fair fight. I might better say nothing at all. The only thing for us to do is to keep our own counsel and win the next game.”

“I guess your head is level,” was Jerry’s gloomy admission. She was as much distressed over their defeat as were the juniors themselves.

“Marjorie’s head is always level,” smiled Constance Stevens. “I am almost certain that you girls will win the next game. Luck just happened to be with the sophomores to-day. I don’t think they work together as well as you. Miss Farnham is a much better player than the others. Still, I imagine that she might not always do so well as she did in this game. If she saw that things were going against her, she would be quite likely to get furiously angry and lose her head.” Quiet Constance had been making a close study of Rowena during the game. Raised in the hard school of experience, she had considerable insight into character. She seldom criticized openly, but when she did, her opinions were received with respect.