CHAPTER XII

"OUT OF IT"

For on that Saturday morning Mrs. Case had called at the Grimes house and asked to see Hester. The girl came down and, the moment she saw the physical instructor of Central High, seemed to know what was afoot.

"So you've come to tell me I'm not on the team any more, I s'pose, Mrs. Case?" she demanded, tossing her head, her face growing very red.

"I am sorry to tell you that, after your actions at the game with East High Wednesday afternoon, it has been decided that another girl nominated to your position on Team Number 1 would probably do better," said Mrs. Case, quietly.

"Well!" snapped Hester. "You've been wanting to get me off ever since last spring----"

"Hester! although we are not at school now, we are discussing school matters, and I am one of your teachers. Just as long as you attend Central High you must speak respectfully to and of your instructors, both in and out of school. Do you wish me to report your language to Mr. Sharp?"

Hester was sullenly silent for a moment

"For I can assure you," continued Mrs. Case, "that if I were to place the entire matter before him, including your general deportment at the gymnasium and on the athletic field, I feel sure your parents would be requested to remove you from the school. Do you understand that?"

"I don't know that I would be very sorry," muttered the girl.

"You think you would not," said Mrs. Case; "but it is not so. You are too old to be taken out of one school and put in another because of your deportment. Wherever you went that fact would follow you. It would be hard work for you to live down such a reputation, Hester."

"I wish father would send me to a boarding-school, anyway."

"And I doubt if that would help you any. You will not be advised, Hester. But you will learn yet that I speak the truth when I tell you that you will be neither happy, nor popular, wherever you go, unless you control your temper."

"What do I care about those nasty girls on the Hill?" sputtered the butcher's daughter. "They're a lot of nobodies, if they _are_ so stuck-up."

"There is not a girl in your class, Hester, who puts on airs over you--or who attempts to," said Mrs. Case, warmly. "And you know that is so. Deep in your heart, Hester, you know just where the trouble lies. Your lack of self-control and your envy are at the root of all your troubles in school and in athletics."

Hester only pouted; but she made no reply.

"Now I am forced to remove you from this team where--if you would keep your temper--you could be of much use. You are a good player at basketball--one of the best in Central High. And we have to deny you the privilege of playing on the champion team because----"

"Just because the other girls don't want me to play with them!" cried the girl, angrily.

"And can they be blamed?" demanded the teacher, quite exasperated herself now. "If you had any loyalty to Central High you would not have acted as you did."

"I don't care!" flashed out Hester.

At that Mrs. Case arose to go. "You are hopeless," she said, decisively. "I had it in mind to offer you a chance to win back your position on the team. But such consideration would be thrown away on you."

"I don't want to play with the horrid, stuck-up things!" cried Hester, quite beside herself now with rage and mortification. "I hate them all. I don't want any of them to be my friends. And as for your old athletics--I'm going to tell father that they're no good and that I want to withdraw from the League."

"You may be saved the necessity for that if you haven't a care, Hester," warned Mrs. Case, taking her departure.

It was because of this visit from the physical instructor, perhaps, that Hester fairly bullied her father at luncheon time into allowing her mother and herself to try out an automobile that an agent had wanted to sell the wholesale butcher for some time. If automobiles had been uncommon on the Hill Henry Grimes would have had one long before for his family, for he loved display, just as Hester did. But nearly every family at their end of Whiffle Street had a car.

However, Mrs. Grimes woke up enough to show interest in the matter, too, for she really liked riding in a car that ran smoothly and rapidly over the macadamized roads about Centerport; so she added her complaint to Hester's and finally the butcher telephoned for the car to be sent up. But he would not give any time to it himself. Therefore it was that Hester and her mother appeared on the Hill road just above the Four Corners in season to extricate Laura Belding and Eve Sitz from their very uncomfortable session with Hebe Pocock and his crowd.

"We ought to have gone along and left those girls to get out of it as best they could," snapped Hester, when the car rolled on and Laura and Eve, with the mare and colt, were out of sight.

"Why, I declare for't!" ejaculated Mrs. Grimes. "You certainly do hate that Belding girl--and I don't see a living thing the matter with her. She's smart an' bright--remember how she found my auto veil that you lost last spring?"

Hester had very good reason for remembering that occasion. She had always been afraid that Laura would circulate the story connected with that veil; and because Laura had kept silence Hester hated her all the more.

And now Hester allowed bitter thoughts against Mother Wit and the other members of the basketball team to fester in her mind, until she was actually insanely angry with and jealous of them.

When her mother that evening at dinner told Mr. Grimes about the actions of Hebron Pocock, who sometimes worked for the butcher at the slaughtering plant near the Four Corners, Hester tried to smooth the matter over and suggest that Hebe was "only in fun" and was just scaring two silly girls.

"Well, I suggested him for watchman at the gymnasium," said Mr. Grimes. "But he isn't likely to get it. The Board has every confidence in this Bill Jackway, despite the fact that somebody seems to get into the gym. and damage things without his knowing how they do it. Bill is an easy-going fellow. That's why I suggested Hebe Pocock. If Hebe was on the job, he'd eat a fellow up who tried to monkey around the gym."

Hester was silent thereafter until the subject of conversation was changed.

The following week she found herself "out of it" with a vengeance. If Lily Pendleton had been absenting herself from Hester's side more than usual since the fall term opened, now she was still more away. Lily did not wish to lose her membership in the basketball team. To be a member of the champion nine of Central High gave her a certain prestige that that young lady did not wish to lose.

Besides, Lily was one of the largest girls in the Junior class, was vigorous physically, and loved the game. So Hester was thrown back upon her own resources more than ever. And her own company did not please Miss Hester Grimes.

She could, of course, have found associates among some of the younger girls, or among those who are always willing to play the courtier to a girl who spends her money freely. Yet there were few of these latter at Central High, and not many of the younger girls--the sophs and freshies--liked Hester well enough to chum with her.

And now that the whispered accusations against the wholesale butcher's daughter had gone about the school regarding the gymnasium mystery, many girls looked askance at Hester when she passed by, and some even ignored her and refused to speak to her.

Ordinarily this would have troubled her but little. She was often "not on speaking terms" with dozens of girls--especially with those of her own class. But this was different, and she began to notice it. Girls who had heretofore nodded to her on the street or in the yard of the school, at least, walked right by and did not turn their eyes upon her.

Furthermore, when Hester approached a group of her classmates they often hushed their animated discussions and broke up the group quickly. They were speaking of her. She could not imagine what they said, but her heart burned with anger against them.

Hester kept away from the gym. She told herself she did not care what happened to the "old place." She hated it. She would not go there and see another girl practice in her place on the basketball team.

A game with the West High girls was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. It was not until after that that her mother learned that she no longer played on the Central High team. And Mrs. Grimes wanted to know _why_.

"Never you mind!" snapped Hester, who was not above being saucy to her mother at times. "It doesn't concern you."

"Don't you _want_ to play any more?" insisted Mrs. Grimes.

"No, I don't! Now, that's finished!" cried Hester, and flounced out of the room.

Her father had agreed to buy the new auto, and she telephoned for the man at the garage to bring it up. Nobody ever crossed Hester, if he could help it, and when she said to the man that she wanted to learn to run the car he supposed that her father was willing.

He did not ask her age, although the Centerport Board of Aldermen had established a rule that no person under sixteen should be given a license or be allowed to run a motor car. At any rate, he did not expect to be requested to let her run the car without his guidance.

But this is exactly what Hester demanded when they were out of town. It was a warm, smoky fall day. There were brush fires somewhere over the ridge to the south of Centerport; or else some spark from a railroad locomotive had set the leaves in the ditches afire. It had been dry for a week and the woods were like tinder.

They had run far out the road past the entrance to Robinson's Picnic Grounds, and there Hester demanded to manage the car alone, while the man sat in back.

"You make me nervous!" she exclaimed. "I'll never learn anything with you nudging my elbow all the time. There! get along with you."

She really was a very capable girl, and she was not unfamiliar with motor cars; but the chauffeur doubted.

"I don't believe I can do it, Miss," he said. "I'll sit here----"

Suddenly the car stopped. The engine was still running, but the car did not move.

"_Now_ what's the matter?" snapped Hester. "Hop out and see, Joseph."

The man did so and immediately she turned the switch again and the machine darted ahead, leaving the chauffeur in the middle of the road.

"I'll be back after a little!" she called to him, coolly, over her shoulder, and the next moment rounded a turn safely and shut the amazed and angry chauffeur out of view.