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

“You always could explain things so much better than the rest of us, Billie,” she said, by way of excuse, it is to be supposed – and then the door closed again.

It was good for Billie at that moment that she had been blessed with a sense of humor. Otherwise, she might have been a little put out.

As it was, she took it as a joke on her and turned back resignedly to her task of telling why they had come to proud Polly Haddon.

The latter was pacing the floor anxiously. Then, as a little moan came from the next room, she flew to the patient, leaving Billie entirely alone.

The latter regarded the hamper uncertainly for a moment, then, with a sigh, she lifted it from the floor to the rickety kitchen table.

“I’ll let her see all the good things first,” she decided wisely, as she removed the cover from the basket, exposing to view its inviting contents. “Then maybe she’ll be too busy looking at them to be angry.”

So busy was she that she did not hear Mrs. Haddon reënter the room. Neither did she know that the latter was staring unbelievingly over her shoulder till a slight exclamation of wonder made her start and whirl round suddenly.

“Where did you get all that?” asked the woman, her eyes still fixed on the contents of the basket. “And what is it for?”

“It’s – it’s for you – if you will take it, please,” stammered Billie, in her surprise and confusion saying what came first to her mind. “We – we thought maybe – maybe the kiddies would like the beef tea and milk and – and – things – ” she finished weakly, thinking resentfully that the girls, or one of them anyway, might have stayed and helped her out.

But after all, she need not have worried. For an instant the look that Billie had expected and dreaded flared into Polly Haddon’s eyes – a look of outraged pride. But then the woman thought of the children – and she had no pride.

“You said you brought some beef tea?” she repeated, bending eagerly over the basket. “And milk?”

“Two quarts of milk,” cried Billie, joyfully, the relief she felt singing in her voice. “And we made the beef tea fresh this morning. Why – why – what’s the matter?”

For Polly Haddon’s black eyes had filled with tears and she had turned away impatiently to hide them. Beneath the worn old shawl, her thin shoulders shook in an effort to suppress her hysterical sobs.

Then Billie ran to her and put her young arms around her and Polly Haddon, who had struggled so long and so bravely alone, clung to the girl hungrily while she fought for self-control.

“It’s so long!” she said huskily, “so long since any one did anything for us – for my babies – ” Her voice broke, and for a minute she just clung to Billie and let tears wash some of the bitterness from her heart. Then she straightened up suddenly, wiped the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief that Billie had slipped into her hand, and holding the girl off at arm’s length regarded her intently.

“It seems,” said the woman softly, while Billie looked up at her out of clear, grave eyes, “that when things get as bad as they can be the Lord sends somebody to help. This time he sent you. Hark! What’s that?”

It was only the restless turning of a feverish little body in bed, but the mother was instantly alert.

“The beef tea!” she directed, and Billie quickly handed her one of the bottles. “He has had hardly any real nourishment since day before yesterday,” Polly Haddon went on as she poured the liquid into one of the pans on the stove and sniffed of it hungrily. “Strong beef tea is just what the little fellow needs.”

Billie wondered while she watched Mrs. Haddon with pitying eyes. No nourishment for almost two days! Why, if they had not come the children might have starved to death!

“Where are the two little girls?” she asked, remembering suddenly that she had seen no sign of them.

Mrs. Haddon said nothing for so long that Billie began to think she had not heard her question. Then the woman turned and faced the girl, holding a steaming cup of beef broth in her hand.

“I’ve kept them in bed, too,” she said. “I was afraid they had caught cold, and then, too – one feels less hungry if one doesn’t move about.”

Then abruptly she turned and once more left the room. Billie would have followed, but the thought that perhaps Polly Haddon would not wish her to held her back. The woman had accepted the food for her children’s sake, because they were practically starving. But in spite of that she was very proud. Perhaps she would not wish to have Billie see the poverty-stricken bareness of the rooms beyond. So Billie stayed in the kitchen and waited.

Her eyes strayed nervously to an alarm clock that ticked away on a shelf over the sink. She wished the girls would come with the doctor. If little Peter was as sick as his mother thought he was, every minute might be precious. And besides that, they must get back to school.

Then she heard the girls’ voices mingled with the gruff tones of a man – the doctor, of course – and her heart jumped with relief. The next moment the door was flung open and Laura and Vi came in, followed by an immense man who seemed to completely fill the narrow doorway. Then Polly Haddon appeared in the doorway between the two rooms, an empty cup in her hand. At sight of the doctor she set down the cup and motioned him eagerly into the other room.

The latter glanced curiously at Billie, flung his hat on the kitchen table in passing, and disappeared with Mrs. Haddon into the sick room.

“Just luck that we happened to catch the doctor on his way out,” panted Laura, for the big man had hustled the girls back to the cottage on a run. “Say, Billie,” she added, her eyes lighting on the opened hamper, “I see you did the trick. Any bones broken?”

“Tell us about it,” begged Vi.

“I’ll tell you on the way home,” said Billie, her eye once more on the clock. “Miss Walters told us not to stay long, you know. We were to come right back.”

“Gracious, look at the time!” cried Laura, in consternation, following Billie’s eyes to the clock. “Miss Walters will think we have eloped.”

“I wish we could wait and see what the doctor says,” protested Vi, hanging back, and just then Billie raised a warning finger.

“Listen,” she said.

The doctor had raised his voice for a moment and his words came clearly to the girls where they stood near the door.

“The boy is very sick, Mrs. Haddon,” he said. “It will take good nursing to pull him through and plenty of nourishing food.” He lowered his voice again and the rest of what he said was lost in a meaningless murmur.

In the kitchen the girls stared at each other.

“Plenty of nourishing food,” whispered Billie. “Where is he going to get it?”

“I guess,” said Laura, as she opened the door, “it is up to us!”

CHAPTER VII – SETTLING A SCORE

The girls walked back to school in a rather thoughtful frame of mind. They were sorry for poor Mrs. Haddon, and they were worried about little Peter.

“The sandwiches and milk and things that we brought this morning will last them a little while,” Billie said. “But I don’t suppose Miss Walters would want us to take them food every morning.”

“Oh, and that reminds me!” cried Laura. “You haven’t told us yet what happened after we ran for the doctor and left you alone with Mrs. Haddon.”

“There isn’t very much to tell,” said Billie. “She didn’t want to touch the basket at first, but when she thought of the kiddies she changed her mind. She said that the children hadn’t had any real nourishing food since the day before yesterday.”

The girls were silent for a moment, letting this last remark of Billie’s sink in. Then it was Billie who broke the silence.

“I wonder,” she said, “how they have ever managed to get along up to this time. They must have had something to live on.”

“Why,” said Vi, wrinkling her forehead thoughtfully, “the doctor said something about Mrs. Haddon having to give up her work because of ill health. Didn’t he, Laura?”

“Yes,” said Laura, stuffing her hands deeper into her pockets. “He seems dreadfully sorry about poor little Peter. I heard him mumble something about troubles always coming in a heap.”

“Oh,” said Billie, with a big long sigh, “if somebody could only stumble across those inventions someway or other! Then we could all be happy again.”

For a moment her classmates stared at Billie blankly. They had all but forgotten about the invention. Somehow, Mrs. Haddon’s tale of a nearly won fortune had seemed unreal and vague to them – almost like a fairy story. And now here was Billie bringing it all up again and even talking about finding that knitting machine model!

“If it doesn’t always take you to think up impossible things, Billie Bradley,” said Vi.

“Just the same,” Laura spoke up unexpectedly, “you must admit that lots of times Billie has done what we would think was impossible to do.”

“Goodness, have you got ’em, too?” asked Vi, with a giggle. “We all know Billie’s a wonder, but I don’t think she is going to find an invention that has been missing for a long time. Probably it wouldn’t be any good, anyway. All rusted and everything.”

“That wouldn’t make any difference,” Billie pointed out promptly. “As long as they had the model to copy from they could make any number of new machines just like it.”

“All right, rave on, Macduff!” cried Laura, who was just beginning to read Shakespeare and who annoyed the other girls by insisting upon quoting him – incorrectly – upon all occasions. “If you can find this old thing and get a fortune out of it for Mrs. Haddon and the kiddies and twenty thousand nice little dollars for yourself, honey, nobody’ll be gladder than me.”

“I,” corrected Violet sternly. “Don’t you know me is bad grammar?”

“Well, me’s a bad girl,” said Laura irrepressibly, and the girls giggled.

A few minutes later they came within sight of the school and found to their dismay that it was lunch hour.

“Do you mean to say we have been gone all morning?” cried Laura, stopping short at the familiar sight of the girls pouring out on the campus for a breath of air before their studies should commence again. “Goodness, Miss Walters will murder us.”

“Oh, come on,” cried Billie, hurrying the girls along. “Haven’t we been on an errand of mercy – and everything? She can’t kill us for that, even if we were a long time about it.”

Greetings and laughing gibes were flung at the girls as they hurried across the snow-covered campus, but they did not stop to answer. They wanted to see Miss Walters, explain why they were so late, and get a bite of something to eat before the afternoon classes began.

They had almost reached the door when a voice called to Billie from overhead. She looked up unsuspectingly and received an avalanche of snow right in the face, almost blinding her and sending her staggering back against her chums.

Sputtering and choking, she dashed the snow from her eyes and looked up to see who had done such a mean thing. There at a window just over her head was the grinning face of Amanda Peabody. In a flash Billie realized that it had been Amanda who had pushed the snow from the window ledge upon her.

“Want some more?” asked that disagreeable person in response to Billie’s stare. “There’s just a little bit left,” and she made a gesture as if to push the rest of the snow from the windowsill down upon Billie’s upturned face.

But Billie did not wait to see whether she would really have done it. With a cry she made for the door of the school, pushing through a group of the girls who had gathered at the first sign of a fracas. Laura and Vi followed, fuming.

As usual, instead of staying and facing the consequences of her own deeds, Amanda tried to get away. But Billie was too quick for her. The former reached the door of the room just as Amanda darted through it, bent upon escape.

Her eyes blazing, Billie seized the girl’s arm and hurried her through the hall, Laura and Vi assisting, and a delighted crowd following close behind.

“You let me go – you big cowards, you!” spluttered Amanda, almost crying with rage and fright. “You let me go, Billie Bradley! I’ll tell Miss Walters.”

“Go ahead and tell Miss Walters, you miserable sneak!” cried Billie, giving the girl a contemptuous shake. “But you won’t tell her till I’m through with you.”

“What are you going to do?” whined Amanda, too scared now even to bluster. “I won’t do it again, honest I won’t. Only let me go.”

“Don’t you do it, Billie,” cried one of the girls in the following crowd. “Don’t let her off so easy.”

But Billie had no intention of letting her enemy off easily. Having now reached the outside door, she shoved it open, at the same time motioning to Vi and Laura to let go of Amanda.

Then she dragged the whimpering, whining girl over to a spot where the wind had formed the snow into a small drift. Into this she flung the protesting girl, and the next instant was upon her, washing her face with the snow, and it is safe to say that no girl ever had her face so thoroughly washed before. And the crowd of girls behind Billie cheered her on gleefully.

There is no telling just how long Billie might have kept it up, for she was enjoying herself immensely, if Laura had not brought her to her senses. The latter leaned down, took a firm grip of the belt on Billie’s coat and jerked her to her feet.

“Better let her go,” she warned. “We will have Miss Walters or one of the teachers out here in a minute. Come on, Billie. She’s had enough.”

So Billie reluctantly stepped back while Amanda picked herself out of the snow, wiped her red and dripping face on her sleeve, and pushed through the laughing, mocking crowd of girls toward the school.

She stopped just before she reached the door, however, and faced her tormentors, her face distorted with rage.

“You think you’re smart, all of you!” she cried furiously, then added, as her eyes fell on Billie, who had drawn a handkerchief from her pocket and was wiping her hands carefully. “And you, Billie Bradley, standing there grinning! Some day I’ll make you grin out of the other side of your mouth. Just wait!”

“Would you like your face washed again?” Billie demanded, darting forward threateningly. “Come on, let’s get it over with – ”

But Amanda did not wait for the threat to be carried out. She scuttled precipitately into the Hall amid delighted giggles from the girls.

Amanda, fairly choking with rage at the laughter, stopped and shook her fist in the direction of it. Then, with all sorts of plans in her heart for “getting even,” she went on toward the dormitory.

CHAPTER VIII – JUST LIKE BILLIE!

Several days followed during which the girls settled down earnestly to their studies. For scholarship was held very high at Three Towers Hall, and any one who did not stand well in class was apt to find herself not only in ill favor with the teachers but with the students as well.

The girls had reported to Miss Walters the result of their visit to Polly Haddon, and the principal had seemed unusually interested and sympathetic.

“Now that you girls have taken the Haddon family under your wing,” she had said, smiling at the chums, “I think we shall have to see the thing through – at least until the mother is strong enough to begin work again. But in the meantime,” she had added, with a nod of the head that meant dismissal, “I don’t want interest in the Haddon family to make my girls neglect their studies. I expect great things of you this year.”

And so the girls, “feeling warm all over,” as they always did after a talk with Miss Walters, went back to their work, confident in the thought that the Haddons would not be left to starve, at least.

“Saturday we will go over ourselves and see how little Peter is,” said Billie, as, pencil in hand, she prepared to wade into a geometry problem. “Listen, Laura,” she added, looking up at her friend hopefully, “if you will help me with this geometry I’ll coach you in history. Is it a go?”

Laura declared it was a “go,” and so they settled down to work. But no amount of work could keep their thoughts from straying time and again to the Haddon family and the mystery of the stolen invention.

As the girls who have read the former adventures of Billie Bradley already know, Billie and her chums had been admitted to the “Ghost Club,” a secret society to which only the most popular girls and those who stood highest in their studies were admitted.

The membership had never exceeded fifteen, for the girls knew that to have too large a membership would only cheapen the club. Rose Belser was the president of it, and Connie Danvers and several other of the girls’ good friends were members. Caroline Brant had been asked to join long before, but had refused because she thought it would take too much time from her studies.

Last year’s Commencement had taken two of the club’s members, so that now the girls were watching the freshmen for good material. They were very careful in choosing, however, for it was far easier to get members into the club than it was to get them out.

The club was to have its first real meeting in two weeks, and it was at that meeting that the names of prospective members were to be tentatively submitted to the president. After that, a period of close watching, and then – the fun of initiations.

But first came news that ran through the Hall like wildfire. Some of the boys from Boxton Military Academy were coming over to the big hill behind the Three Towers Hall for the first real sledding of the year, and they had invited as many of the girls as they knew – and their friends – to meet them there.

Chet and Teddy and Ferd were coming over, of course, and as the day approached, anticipation grew accordingly until the girls could think and talk of nothing but the fun they were going to have.

“I wonder if Teddy will bring Paul Martinson with him,” said Vi, after trying vainly for half an hour to fix her mind on an essay she must hand in the next morning. “He’s ever so much fun, don’t you think?”

It was in Paul Martinson’s motor boat, which he had named the Shelling in honor of Captain Shelling, who was master of the Military Academy, that the boys had visited the girls on Lighthouse Island the summer before.

Paul Martinson was a splendid-looking, fine boy whom all the girls liked – Rose Belser, in particular – but who, himself, seemed to prefer Billie. Like Teddy, Paul thought that Billie was the “very best sport” he knew, and declared that “a fellow can have more fun with her any day than he can with another boy.”

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.