Marjorie Dean Part 20

Mignon ran to her station resolved on vengeance. Four girls followed her to their places divided between two fears. Awe of Miss Archer and the disaster that would surely overtake them if they persisted in their former tactics acted as a spur to their sleeping consciences. Fear of Mignon became a secondary emotion. They vowed within themselves to play fairly and they kept their vow.

The second half of the game opened very well for Marjorie's team. She pa.s.sed the ball to Susan Atwell, who scored, thereby winning a salvo of hearty applause from the gallery. The watchful spectators had not been blind to the unfair methods of the grays. Two goals followed in their favor. So far the grays had done nothing. Unnerved by Marjorie's just censure and the fear of exposure, they paid little heed to Mignon's glowering glances and frantic signals. They played in a half-hearted, diffident fas.h.i.+on, quite the opposite of their whirlwind sweep during the first half. The black and scarlet girls soon brought the score up to 14 to 10 in their favor, and from that moment on had things decidedly their own way. Time after time Mignon cut in desperately for the basket to receive a pa.s.s, but on each occasion her team-mates made a wild throw. Marjorie's team, however, played with perfect unity, working in several successful signal plays. Try as she might, the French girl could do nothing to arouse her players. Their pa.s.sing became so delinquent that once or twice it brought derisive groans from the male spectators in the gallery. As the second half neared its end, Muriel Harding made a sensational throw to basket that aroused the gallery to wild enthusiasm.

It also served to take the faint remaining spirit from the disheartened grays, and the game wound up with a score of 30 to 12 in favor of the black and scarlet girls. They had won a complete and sweeping victory over their unworthy opponents.

It was a proud moment for Marjorie Dean, as she stood surrounded by a flock of jubilant boys and girls, who had rent the gallery air with appreciative howls, then hustled from their places aloft to offer their congratulations to the victors.

"I'm so glad you won, Marjorie," cried Ellen Seymour. Lowering her voice, she added: "I could see a few things. I'm not the only one. But what happened to them? They actually played fairly in the second half--all except Mignon. But she couldn't do much by herself."

Marjorie smiled faintly. "We must have discouraged them, I suppose. We never before worked together so well as we played in that second half.

Wasn't that a wonderful throw to basket that Muriel made?"

"Splendid," agreed Ellen warmly. "I predict an easy victory for the soph.o.m.ores on Thanksgiving Day."

Marjorie breathed relief. "Are you coming to see us play, or are you going away for Thanksgiving?" was her tactful question.

Ellen plunged into a voluble recital of her Thanksgiving plans, quite forgetting her curiosity over the sudden change of tactics of the defeated grays. Several girls joined in the conversation, and thus the talk drifted away from the subject Marjorie wished most to avoid.

In Mignon's dressing room, however, a veritable tornado had burst. Four sullen, gray-clad girls bowed their heads before the storm of pa.s.sionate reproaches hurled upon them by their irate leader. They were seeing and hearing Mignon at her worst, and they did not relish it. It may be set down to their credit that not one of them took the trouble to answer her. Beyond a mute exchange of meaning glances, they ignored her scorn, slipping away like shadows when they had changed their basket ball suits for street apparel. Outside the high school they congregated and made solemn agreement that now and forever they were "through" with Mignon.

Several friends of the latter, including Miss Dutton, the referee, dropped into the dressing room, and to them Mignon continued her tirade.

But the face of one hitherto ardent supporter was missing. Mary Raymond had fled from the school the moment the game was ended. For once she had seen too much of Mignon. She had tried to force herself to believe that she was sorry for the latter's deserved defeat, but, in reality, she was glad that Marjorie's team had won. She determined to go home and wait for her chum. She would confess that she was sorry for the past and ask Marjorie to forgive her.

Putting her determination into swift action, she left the high school behind her almost at a run. Once she had reached home she paused only to hang her wraps on the hall rack, then posted herself in the living-room window, an anxious little figure. When Marjorie came she would open the hall door for her. She would say, "I surrender, Lieutenant. Please forgive me." She smiled a trifle sadly to herself in antic.i.p.ation of the forgiving arms that Marjorie would extend to her. She was not sure she merited forgiveness.

But when at last Marjorie came in sight of the gate, Mary vented an exclamation of pain and anger. Marjorie was not alone. Up the walk she loitered, arm-in-arm with Constance Stevens. The old jealousy, forgotten in Marjorie's hour of triumph, swept Mary like a blighting wind. She turned and fled from the hated sight that met her eyes, a deserter to her good intentions.

CHAPTER XX

HOISTING THE FLAG OF TRUCE

Thanksgiving Day walked in amid a flurry of snow, accompanied by a boisterous wind, which roared a bleak reminiscence of that first Thanksgiving Day on a storm rock-bound coast, when a few faithful souls had braved his fury and gone forth to give thanks for life and liberty.

Despite his challenging roar, the boys of Weston High School played their usual game of football against a neighboring eleven and emerged from the field of conquest, battered and victorious, to rest in the proud bosoms of their families and devour much turkey. In the afternoon, the long-talked-of game of basket ball came off between the soph.o.m.ores and the freshmen. It was an occasion of energetic color-flaunting, in which black and scarlet banners predominated. It seemed as though almost every one in Sanford High School, with the exception of the freshmen themselves, was devoted heart and soul to the soph.o.m.ores. The rumor of the unfair treatment they had received in the deciding practice game had been noised abroad, and Marjorie and her team mates were in a fair way to be lionized. A packed gallery, much jubilant singing and frantic applause of every move they made, spurred the black and scarlet girls to doughty deeds, and, although it was a hard-fought battle, in which the freshmen played for dear life, the soph.o.m.ores won.

Altogether, it was a day long to be remembered, and Marjorie lived it for all that lay within her energetic young body and mind. Only the one flaw that marred its perfection and left her sober-eyed and retrospective when the eventful holiday was ended. She felt that one word of commendation from Mary would have been worth more than all the praise she had received from admiring friends. But Mary was as stony and implacable as ever, giving no sign of the surrender which Constance Stevens had unconsciously nipped in the bud.

Just how Mary spent that particular Thanksgiving Day Marjorie did not learn until long afterward. She knew only that Mary had left the house directly after dinner, merely stating that she intended making several calls, and was seen no more until ten o'clock that night, when she flitted into the house like a ghost and vanished up the stairs to her own room.

After Thanksgiving, basket ball echoes died out in the growing murmur of coming Christmas joys, and like every young girl, Marjorie grew impatient and enthusiastic over her holiday plans. She did not chatter them as freely to General and Captain when at table as had been her custom each year in the happy days when only they three had been together. As her formerly lovable self, Marjorie would have felt no reserve in Mary's presence, but this strange, new Mary with her white, immobile face and indifferent eyes, chilled her and killed her desire to exchange the usual gay badinage with her General, which had always made meal-time a merry occasion.

"I don't like Mary's effect on our little girl, Margaret. Of late, Marjorie is as solemn as a judge," remarked Mr. Dean one evening as he lingered at the dinner table after Mary and Marjorie had excused themselves and gone upstairs on the plea of studying to-morrow's lessons. "I counseled Marjorie, the night I took her to Devon Inn to dinner, to let matters work out in their own way. That was some time ago. Perhaps I'd better take a hand and see what I can do toward ending this internal war. Christmas will soon be here. We can't have our Day of Days spoiled by one youngster's perversity."

"I have thought of that, too," returned Mrs. Dean, smiling, "and I have a plan. I shall need your help to carry it out, though."

When she had finished the laying out of her clever scheme for a congenial Christmas all around, Mr. Dean threw back his head in a hearty laugh. "It's decidedly ingenious, and in keeping," was his tribute.

"I'll help you put it through, with pleasure. But after Christmas----"

He paused, his laughing eyes growing grave.

"After Christmas our services as peace advocates may not be needed,"

supplemented Mrs. Dean. "At least, I hope they may not. I am still of the opinion, however, that Mary must be left to repent of her own folly.

If she is coaxed and wheedled into good humor she will never realize how badly she has behaved."

"I suppose that is so. But, naturally, I am more interested in healing our poor little soldier's hurts than in trying to bring a certain stubborn young person to her senses. We will try out our idea. It will insure one satisfactory day, I hope. Unless I prove a poor diplomat."

Although Marjorie's blithe voice was too frequently stilled in Mary's presence, she was uniformly sunny when she and her Captain were alone together. Now fairly familiar with Sanford, Mrs. Dean had made it a part of her daily life to seek and a.s.sist certain families among the poor of the little northern city. Now that Christmas was so near she was making a special effort to gladden the hearts of those to whom life had seemed to grudge even daily bread. She had contrived wisely to interest Marjorie in this charitable work, with the idea of taking her mind from the bitter disappointment Mary's change of heart had brought her, and had been touched and gratified at the unselfish eagerness with which Marjorie had taken up the work. The latter had aroused Jerry Macy's, as well as Constance Stevens', interest in planning a merry Christmas for the poor of Sanford. Constance was particularly desirous of helping. She would never forget the previous Christmas Eve, when, laden with good will and be-ribboned offerings, Marjorie had smilingly appeared at the little gray house where Poverty reigned supreme and helped her transform Charlie's rickety express wagon into a veritable fairy couch, piled high with the precious tokens of unselfish love. She felt that the only way in which she might show her lasting grat.i.tude for the gifts of that snowy Christmas Eve was to share her blessings with others who were in need, and she quickly became Marjorie's most faithful servitor.

Good-natured Jerry was also keen to bestow her time and world goods in the Christmas cause, and almost every afternoon when school was over the three girls conspired together in the cause of happiness. Marjorie unearthed a trunk of her childish toys from an obscure corner of the garret, and a great mending and refurbis.h.i.+ng movement ensued. Jerry, not to be outdone, canva.s.sed among her friends for suitable gifts to lay at the shrine of Christmas, which rose to life eternal when three wise men placed their reverent offerings at the feet of a Holy Child long centuries before. While Constance Stevens drew largely on a sum of money, which her indulgent aunt had placed in the bank to her credit and enjoyed to the full the blessedness of giving.

"Maybe we haven't been busy little helpers, though," declared Jerry Macy one bl.u.s.tering afternoon, as the three girls sat in the Deans'

living room, surrounded by ribbon-bound packages of all shapes and sizes. "Truly, I never had such a good time before in all my life."

"That's just the way I feel," nodded Constance, as she tied an astounding bow of red ribazine about an oblong package that suggested a doll, and consulted a fat note book, lying wide spread on the library table, for the address of the prospective possessor. "Marjorie, will you ever forget how happy Charlie was last year?"

"Dear little Charlie!" Marjorie's lips smiled tender reminiscence of the tiny boy's jubilation over his wonderful discovery that Santa Claus had not forgotten him. "His Christmas will be a merry one this year, even to the good, strong leg that he hoped Santa would bring him."

"He can't possibly be any happier than he was _last_ Christmas morning,"

was Constance's soft reply. "And it was all through you, Marjorie."

"Oh, I wasn't the only one. Your father and you and Uncle John gave him things, and Delia popped the corn for his tree, and, don't you remember, Laurie Armitage brought you the tree and the holly and ground pine?"

Constance flushed slightly at the mention of Lawrence Armitage. A sincere boy and girl friends.h.i.+p had sprung up between them that promised later to ripen into perfect love.

"That reminds me," broke in Jerry bluntly. "I've something to tell you, girls. Hal told me. He's my most reliable source of information when it comes to news of Weston High. Laurie is writing an operetta. He's going to call it 'The Rebellious Princess,' and he would like to give a performance of it in the spring. There's to be a big chorus and Professor Harmon is going to pick a cast from the boys and girls of Weston and Sanford High Schools."

"Who is Professor Harmon?" asked Constance curiously.

"Oh, he's the musical director at Weston High," answered Jerry offhandedly. "He looks after the singing and glee clubs there, just as Miss Walters does at Sanford High. You can sing, Connie, and Laurie knows it. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd get the leading part."

"I'd be more surprised if I did," laughed Constance, "considering that I don't even know Professor Harmon when I see him."

"Laurie will introduce you to him, I guess," predicted Jerry confidently. "Hal said something about a try-out of voices. I can't remember what it was. I'll ask him when I go home."

"I don't believe I could even sing in a chorus," laughed Marjorie. "I haven't a strong voice."

"You can look pretty, though, and _that_ counts," was Jerry's emphatic consolation. "That's more than I can do. I can't see myself s.h.i.+ne, even in a chorus. I don't sing. I shout, and then I'm always getting off the key," she ended gloomily.

Constance and Marjorie giggled at Jerry's funny description of her vocal powers. The stout girl's brief gloom vanished in a broad grin.

"Two more days and Christmas will be here!" exclaimed Marjorie with a joyous little skip, which caused a pile of packages on the floor near her to tumble in all directions.

"Easy there!" warned Jerry. Secretly she was delighted at her friend's lightsome mood. Marjorie had been altogether too serious of late.

Privately, she had frequently wished that Mary Raymond had never set foot in Sanford.

The early December dusk had fallen when, the last package wrapped, Constance and Jerry said good-bye to Marjorie. "I'll be over bright and early Christmas morning," reminded Constance. "Remember, you are coming to Gray Gables on Christmas night, Marjorie. Charlie made me promise for you ahead of time. I'd love to have you come, too, Jerry."

"Can't do it. Thank you just the same, but the Macys far and near are going to hold forth at our house and poor little Jerry will have to stay at home and do the agreeable hostess act," declared Jerry, looking comically rueful.