CHAPTER XXII—JANE ALLEN: CENTER

The day of the final practice game—that which was to decide which team would have the honor to play the Breslins, found every member of all teams fairly quivering with anticipation.

Jane, Judith, Dozia and Drusilla held a little preliminary meeting at which the team’s respective places were arranged. Judith, still incapacitated, was to serve as a scorer, and Norma Travers to take her place as forward.

“I am not afraid of any one but Dolorez Vincez,” remarked the ever-wise Drusilla. “She has a form all her own.”

“Yes, Dol is a wonderful player,” agreed Jane. “I wonder where she got such fine training.”

“She never speaks of her former school,” Dozia commented with a meaning not specified in her actual words.

“What do you mean, Dozia? Have you an idea there is a dark mystery, in the former school days, of the dashing Dol?” asked Jane.

“I would not be surprised if that just about described it, Janey,” said Dozia with a wag of her “roped” head. Dozia’s braids were the pride of her classmates, and the despair of Dozia. They were wonderful braids, like the milkmaids of old, and in color a challenging brown. Judith gave them that shade.

“Mercy me!” exclaimed Judith. “Pray, we do not stumble on any more mysteries or our athletics may as well be shelved. It seems to me this year is mostly squabbles and mysteries.”

“Well, I did not intend to say anything about it,” confided Dozia. “But I am sure, there is something more than queer about Dolorez. Naturally, one hates so to take exception to the girls who are foreigners. It always looks like prejudice.”

“Yes, that is the way I feel,” said Jane. “But I have noticed Dolorez runs out a lot after dark, and just when the rest of us are busy at books. I heard her remark a couple of times she was hurrying to catch the mailman, but it seems strange she should so often be late with her letters.”

“Yes, and did you notice she does not come back quickly?” Dozia asked significantly.

“Oh, well, let us leave Dol to her own troubles. We have enough of our own for this afternoon,” suggested Jane. “I guess we have everything arranged. Judith, your limp is perfectly fetching, just needs a stick and an eyeglass.”

“Mean thing! When you sprain your throat I shall offer gum drops,” flashed back Judith.

As a basketball team the girls were first-class noise makers, and if there were any other ways of racketing than those operated, Bedlam itself must have held the copyright.

For this, the final tryout, the great gym was crowded with spectators, as well as with the units of the various teams. Teams One and Two were to play for place, and that place was to take up the big game with the Breslins—the event of greatest importance in the whole basketball season.

The players of most interest were the centers: Jane and Drusilla played center for Team One, and Marian and Dolores occupied the ring for Team Two. Jane was jumping center and Marian her opponent.

Little confusion resulted from the application of the new rules, and nothing of spectacular interest occurred until the end of the first half. Then two fouls were called simultaneously—and both on Dolorez Vincez. She had grabbed Minette by the shoulders just as Minette was making a goal, and the next foul came on top of that, called on the same Dolorez, who executed another particularly rough play in which Jane went to the floor. For a moment after this accident there was a standstill—then taking advantage of the foul called, Drusilla caged the ball making the second point, and winning the goal Jane had tried for.

“That was a trick,” whispered Judith to Isobel Talmadge, a referee. “I saw her deliberately put her foot out.”

“I have my eye on that lady,” answered Isobel. “That is not the only trick she has tried this afternoon.”

With a tie at the first half the interest waxed to a seething point, and the whistle blew for the last twenty minutes. Every girl seemed in such fine form and exercised such agility that a grand climax was promised when the tie should be broken.

Happy, smiling, good natured and expectant, both teams made a picture the faculty of Wellington had cause to take pride in, and whichever of these teams would win out as first, the second surely would hold a place of high standing.

From the lofts, and over the rails, the older girls were unconsciously climbing to dangerous edges, in the utter disregard of roped-in limits for spectators, and more than one grad and undergrad had taken and offered such innocent bets as flowers and fudge on the possible winner of the second half.

A fumble made by Marian cost the Twos a point, when a foul committed by Norma Travers of Jane’s team evened them up again, without either side making a basket.

Time after time the big spherical ball was directly in front of the elusive basket only to be dashed back by an alert opponent.

“Good work!” called the crowd, as Jane tossed the ball clear into the end field, taking advantage of her privilege as center to run from one field to another. The throw had been made from the one bounce allowed, and that she had been able to take in all the privileges occasioned a sensational play.

Cheer after cheer rang out, then came the expectant silence. Some one must “shoot a basket” soon, or the crowd would suffocate from pent-up excitement.

Two more fouls gave each side a free throw, but nowhere near the basket came the much-abused ball.

Finally the ball was in center, Jane jumped for it, pushed it to the floor to comply with that rule, and just as she raised it to throw it with straight aim for the player near the basket, Dolorez waved her hand in Jane’s face!

“Foul!” shouted the referee, and “Shame!” roared the crowd.

“Disqualified!” came the sentence from the referee, and Dolorez was compelled to leave the floor. She had been charged with four personal fouls, thus disqualifying her for more play, but in spite of this unenviable record she did not leave the floor without a protest.

Marian, quick to realize that a word from her to an official, when only the captain should speak, might turn her out as well as Dolorez, promptly substituted Tony Dexter, but it was too late. The foul allowed Jane’s side gave the free throw needed and into the basket went the ball for Wellington. That settled it.

“Jane Allen, Center!” went up a wild wonderful shout. The tie was broken, the game won for Team One, and Jane Allen became official Center for the season of 1920.

“You were by all odds the best player,” said Isobel Talmadge, when quiet had almost been restored, and the players regained something of a normal condition. “But what appeared to be real strategy on Marian’s team, quickly developed into tricks, all of which measured up for fouls. I am going to call a meeting of the Athletic Board soon. There is something about Dolorez’s playing not found on school teams. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has been something of a professional.”

“Oh, you can’t mean it!” breathed Jane. “She is older obviously, but how could she be a professional?”

“Oh, very easily, little girl. But you have won your honors fairly and I congratulate you. We will have a record, after our Breslin Day this year, I am quite sure.”

“Thank you,” said Jane simply. Judith was tugging at her sleeve and Drusilla dragging at the other arm.

“Oh, come on. The seniors have a spread for us. Such real coffee and sandwiches. Isn’t that splendid?” asked Judith, smacking her lips. “But not half as good as our victory at that. Jane, aren’t you too proud to walk? Shan’t we carry you?”

“Yes, let’s!” roared the surrounding girls, and in spite of protests and appeals, Jane was raised to shoulders, then quickly carried to the far end of the gym where the spread was “cast.”

It was a good-natured crowd that surrounded the improvised tables, and even the losers took their defeat in the proper spirit, all but Marian and Dolorez. They had left the gym.

“What was the matter with that old basket?” asked the good-natured Tony Dexter. “I was waiting all afternoon for a chance to sub, and just when I got it, ‘whoop’ in went the ball into the net.”

“Yes, and when I all but tucked it in its little bed, it tumbled out,” sighed Ted Guthrie comically.

“Anyway, I had two bounces and one dribble, that makes a nice little record for my home report. I love to say I dribbled, sounds so cute and baby like. Makes mama think I am cutting my eye teeth,” supplemented the big, clumsy Drusilla Landers, who was so big it was a joke for her to talk of baby and teeth.

“Eat, children! Eat! For to-morrow we starve,” commanded Constance Lipton, a grad. “Jane, here is a sandwich made expressly for Center. See its pretty curve?”

“Oh, it tastes good all around too,” added Jane, munching the tid-bit all around, making a circle to outline center. “I love them this way.”

“That’s just always the way it is,” wailed little Clare Bradley. “When a girl gets popular she receives all the honors. Jane Allen is over-subscribed—that is what Daddy calls it in the Liberty Loans.”

Everybody roared at pretty little Clare’s definition of Jane’s popularity. To be over-subscribed in honors!

“I’ll admit I have more than my share!” Jane replied, “but then you see, my second had to go and hurt her ankle. Otherwise she might have made that big throw.”

“Oh, never!” protested Judith. “If I saw that basket waiting for my ball, I would have been stage struck, and ducked. I tell you, Janie, you looked like all the cowboys when you made that throw. I’ll wager you had in mind my particular Fedario. Girls, you should see my Fedario! He’s the handsomest, blackest, wildest cowboy—with the most wonderful skill at his ropes.”

“Oh, of course,” yelled Weasie Blair. “Janey ought to be best at basketball. Think of her cowboy training.”

“And the baskets the Indians make!” supplemented Gloria Gude.

“And the great big balls that come with the hail storms,” Ted Guthrie drawled out foolishly. “I believe if I were brought up in the hills of Montana I could play anything from hookey to bean bag.”

A deluge of scraps and crumbs put an end to Ted’s wit. As it was, she had a blouse pocket full of coffee, and she bore up with at least one ear full of cookey crumbs.

“But where is Helen?” asked Dickey Ripple between munches of real bread, and nibs at a soda biscuit. “Haven’t seen her in eons.”

“Oh, she was in during the battle,” Jane made answer. “But Nellie is at something new in music, and she simply cannot tear herself away from that fiddle.”

“Just the same,” objected Weasie Blair, “she might take time to celebrate. The Uppercuts don’t often blow us to a feed like this.”

“We accept the compliment,” responded Isobel Talmadge. “I have been wondering why someone has not seen fit to say the eating was good.”

This brought forth such a storm of compliments, given in chorus without very much harmony, that the Uppercuts, as the freshmen call the upper class girls, finally begged for mercy.

“And what became of Marian?” asked Mildred Jennings. “Seems to me all played well enough to be patted on the back, even if Team One did win out.”

“Indeed you did,” Jane quickly replied, “and I hope Marian will come in and test the lovely spread. Naturally she felt badly about Dolorez. I can’t see why Dol rushed football tactics in.”

The moment she made the remark Jane regretted it. She had not intended to refer to Dolorez’s disqualification. And now she had brought attention directly to it.

The hum of subdued voices plainly agreed with Jane in their arguments.

Marian should have stood her ground and helped her team celebrate, if not victory, then defeat!

“Well, it is no news to have Jane for Center,” spoke up Gloria Gude, when the Marian incident had been disposed of. “We knew she would be center, ever since the term opened. Who else made a record anything like hers of last year?”

“Of course,” chimed in Grazia. “Jane is born Center. She knows just when to jump—I wouldn’t wonder if she jumps in her sleep, eh, Jane?”

“Now, girls, you all know as well as I do that there is plenty of splendid basketball talent sitting right here at this table. And the fact that you have made me Center——”

“Means merely that you are the one best, dandy, all around Center we could choose,” interrupted Dorothy Blyden. “Three cheers for Jane Allen, Center!”

“Hip-hip-hoorah!” and the echo shook the rafters.

Then came the epidemic of:

“I know a girl and her name is Jane,” etc.

“Say, girls,” moaned Jane, when throats gave in and the shouts ceased, “if there is any way of getting a name changed without paying income tax on the change, I think I’ll apply. You all know that girl whose name is Jane——”

Came the—

“A reebald—a ribald—reebald, ribald rum! Wellington! Wellington! Sis boom—ah—Wellington! Wellington! Rah! Rah! Rah!”