CHAPTER XXII

WHAT MR. BILLSON COULD TELL

The champion basketball team of Central High was holding its own, and even gaining a point or two now and then in the trophy series; but it seemed impossible for the hard-working girls to change their standing in the schedule of the teams. They remained Number 3.

They could beat West High and Lumberport High School teams every time they played with them; but it was a hard struggle for Laura and her mates to break even with East High or Centerport, and the Keyport girls almost always downed them.

"It's a boiling shame!" cried Bobby Hargrew, one day at Laura's, when some of the team were talking matters over. "We're getting swiped----"

"Goodness me, Bobby!" gasped Laura.

"_Don't_ let poor mother hear you use such dreadful language. It positively hurts her to have Chet use slang; and you are worse than he is."

"One would think that you had never been under the benign influence of Miss Carrington," chuckled Jess Morse.

"Bah!" retorted Bobby. "I don't know but I feel a good deal like my little cousin Effie about education. You know, Effie is only six. The other day her mother had company and her mother and the other lady were talking about something that they didn't want 'little pitchers' to understand. So they spelled some of the words instead of speaking them out, and Effie listened with both eyes and mouth wide open. But she couldn't catch the meaning of the spelled words. Finally she got mad and went out to her papa on the porch and says she:

"'Daddy, there's altogether too much education in this house!'

"And I'm getting so saturated with Gee Gee's English and Dimple's Latin, and Miss Gould's French, that positively I _have_ to let off steam by using slang," concluded Bobby.

"Just keep your slang for other places then, Bobby," said Laura. "Mother is likely to overhear you----"

"And Laura's pretty prim and particular herself," laughed Dora Lockwood.

Jess began to giggle. "She's getting literary, I understand," she said. "So Mammy Jinny says. I heard her grumbling to herself only this morning when Jinny was 'ridding up' the living room here. She says:

"'Dese yere literary folk is suah a trouble. Leabin' books, an' papers, an' pen an' ink eroun' fo' odder folks to pick up.'"

"'Is Laura literary, Mammy?' I asked her.

"'Suah is,' says Mammy Jinny. 'Littahs t'ings all ober de house!'"

When the laugh against her had subsided, Laura said:

"But what good is it to boil, Bobby, if we can't win games? To reach the top and win the trophy, we must win every game of the series from now on."

"And a fat chance we've got to do that!" exclaimed Bobby, scornfully.

"Four of them are as good as won," said Dora, confidently. "Those with the West High and Lumberport teams."

"Don't be too sure of the Lumberport team," advised Laura. "It improves all the time."

"We can beat it if Roberta keeps up her end," declared Jess.

"But how about Keyport and East High?"

"Keyport has outplayed us all but one game," complained Dorothy Lockwood. "East High has beaten us two games and one was a draw. But we _have_ beaten them and we ought to be able to do it again."

"That's when Hester was on the team," said Laura, quietly.

Bobby stood up and smote her two hands together loudly.

"If we only had Hester back!" she cried.

"Why, Bobby!" cried Jess.

"I don't care. It's so. I don't like Hester; but I hate to see Central High lose the trophy for the need of another good player."

Nellie Agnew was just coming in and she heard part of what Bobby said.

"Oh, girls!" she cried. "Do you know where Hester is?"

"She wasn't at school to-day," said Dora.

"Nor yesterday," added her twin.

"Nor the day before that," cried Laura. "What's happened to her?"

"She is in the hospital," said Nellie, solemnly.

"My goodness me! what for?" gasped Bobby Hargrew.

Nellie told them. Indeed, she expatiated on the affair to the full. Hester had displayed a quality of courage that appealed strongly to the doctor's daughter. It was no brave act inspired by impulse, and "of the minute." It took right down moral courage to do what Hester had done.

"The transfusion of blood was accomplished yesterday. The operation was entirely successful. Hester and Johnny are side by side in little narrow beds in the children's ward of the hospital. Daddy Doctor let me in to peek at them," said Nellie, her eyes full of tears.

"That girl's just splendid! Johnny is going to live and be strong again, the doctors say. Oh! I feel so _little_ when I think of Hester. I'm so sorry I signed that round robin, or said anything against her being on the team. I--I wish we had her back."

"So--so do I," exclaimed Dora, and Dorothy echoed her twin's desire.

"I wouldn't mind if old Hess was playing with us," said Bobby, with a grin. "Huh! I guess I was the first one to say so."

And this last incident marked the further--and stronger--interest the boys and girls of Central High had centered in the City Hospital.

Laura and Chet had not forgotten Mr. Billson's odd remarks about the gymnasium mystery and Chet had gone again and again to the hospital to sound the man who had been so badly injured in the forest fire. But Billson was hard to approach. He considered Chet one of those who believed Hester Grimes guilty of instigating the raid on the gymnasium. Billson had acquired a fierce admiration for Hester, and it made him angry with anybody who expressed a doubt of her entire innocence of the crime which Rumor laid at her door.

But suddenly public opinion veered clear around. The story of little Johnny Doyle's necessity and how Hester had volunteered to come to his aid spread about the Hill section of Centerport almost as quickly as had the story of the gymnasium mystery.

"What do you think?" Billson asked Chet Belding, when the boy visited him and Hebe Pocock again--but this was out of Hebe's hearing. "What do you think--that a girl like this would hire a foolish boy to do such dirty work? If Miss Grimes had wanted to bust up that gymnasium, you bet she'd have had the pluck to go and do it herself! That's my opinion."

"Well, Rufe was there," said Chet, quietly.

"Where?"

"In the gym. The first night the things were disturbed. Bill Jackway admits that. They've got time-clocks for him and he goes all over the building several times a night, now; and they have let him hire another man to help him on the field during the day. But he says that he let Rufe out at midnight because the boy was scared and wanted to go home. And the second time, Rufe could have slipped in when Bill had the door ajar, and afterward got out of the window and walked backward to the field fence. Oh, he could have done it."

"But why mix Hester Grimes up with it?" growled Billson.

"Rufe would never have thought of the thing himself, I don't believe. And Hester threatened to 'fix' all the girls, and said she hated them, and the gym., and the whole thing."

"Guess she was mad," said the man.

"Quite likely. She sure wasn't _glad_," returned the boy, drily.

"And I suppose you think," said Mr. Billson, scowling, "that she is doing all this for the Doyles to pay Rufus for his monkey-shines, eh?"

"No I never said such a thing," cried the indignant Chet.

"Then what? If folks have really got anything against Miss Hester, why don't they come out square and say so? This hinting at things--going 'all 'round Robin Hood's barn'--gets my goat--it does so!"

"I guess the girls of Central High feel a whole lot differently toward Hester than they did," admitted Chet. "At least, they talk differently."

And it was a fact. While Chet and Billson were talking the basketball team had gathered at the Belding house and had concocted another "round robin." But this one was couched in quite different language from the first that had been presented to their physical instructor. This time both Lily Pendleton and Roberta Fish signed the paper, which was an unequivocal request that Hester Grimes be invited to take her old position on the team.

Hester had not come back to school yet; the doctor would not allow it. But she was taking her lessons at home. Johnny Doyle was well on the way to recovery and all Hester needed was a little rest, the doctor said, to put her in as good condition as usual.

The round robin went to Mrs. Case and, after an interview with the principal, Mrs. Case went again to call on Hester at her home.

"Ain't she the greatest girl you ever heard of, Mis' Case?" demanded Mrs. Grimes, fluttering about as she ushered the teacher into Hester's presence. "Me and her father can't do a thing with her when Hess is set on doing anything she wants to do. And this at the hospital--well, if we say a thing about it she gets that mad!"

"How-do, Mrs. Case?" yawned Hester, who had been reading, curled up in the window-seat. "Do take that easy chair. Mother! I declare--you have got a grease spot on that wrapper."

"Oh, excuse me!" exclaimed the simple Mrs. Grimes. "I'll go change it for a fresh one."

Thus her daughter got her out of the room before Mrs. Case began to talk. And, indeed, it was Hester herself who began the conversation in her usual abrupt way.

"I don't know how you feel towards me, Mrs. Case, but I know I was impudent to you when you were here before. But you said you could show me how to get back on the basketball team, and I guess I _do_ want to get back--if it isn't too late?" she concluded, wistfully.

"That's what I've come to talk about," said Mrs. Case, promptly. "The girls want you back----"

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Hester, in surprise.

"Oh, yes!" returned the teacher, smiling, and bringing out the paper the members of the team had signed. She put it into Hester's hand; the girl read it quickly and then turned her face away so that Mrs. Case should not see her eyes for a moment.

"They say they need me!" Hester said, in a choked tone.

"Yes," returned the teacher, simply.

"That they can't win the trophy without me," added Hester, devouring the writing again.

"Yes."

"And they don't say a word about that foolish business at the hospital. Folks talk too much about that," said Hester, recovering her usual manner. "If these girls really want me to help the team, I'll play."

"They want you, Hester, for just that purpose. If they have more kindly feelings toward you than they have had of late, that is between them and you. But as for your joining the team again----"

"Yes, Mrs. Case?"

"You must remember the rules and play the game in a sportsmanlike manner," declared the instructor firmly. "You understand me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Case," returned the girl, hanging her head.

"Then I shall expect you to appear for practice just as soon as Dr. Agnew allows you to take up that work," said the teacher, rising briskly. "And I shall be glad to have you back on the first team," she added, giving Hester's hand a hearty squeeze.