CHAPTER II

DICK SOMES IS PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

I don’t think Dick tried very hard to win that race; at least, he exhibited no superhuman efforts; and the result was that Harry Emery won by several yards, finishing on one skate and trailing a blue streamer from the other foot like a banner of victory. She subsided on the edge of the boat-house porch, smiling and triumphant.

“I won!” she cried.

“Easily,” answered Dick placidly.

“I told you I could,” continued Harry.

“I said so too, didn’t I?”

“No, you said I couldn’t; you know you did.”

“Guess I was wrong then.” There was a moment’s silence during which they each busied themselves with their skates. Presently Harry laid hers beside her and looked up with a frown.

“No, you were right,” she sighed. “I guess you can beat me. You weren’t trying just now. You’re like everybody else; you think because I’m a girl I’m not worth bothering with.”

“Nonsense! You skate finely,” answered Dick earnestly. “Better than any girl I ever saw.”

“Any girl!” echoed Harry scathingly. “That’s it! Girls can’t skate! Why, there isn’t one at Madame Lambert’s who can keep up with me for a minute. I can skate faster than any boy here, too!”

“Well, that’s doing pretty well, isn’t it?” asked Dick with a smile as he tossed his skates down beside hers.

“I don’t like to be beaten--by any one,” grieved Harry.

“Then you mustn’t race with me.”

“Pshaw! You’d be polite and let me beat you--as you did just now. I--I hate polite people!”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Dick grimly. “When you race with me you’ve got to go as hard as you know how, for I’ll beat you if I can. And if you can’t stand being beaten you want to keep out of it, Miss Emery.”

Harry studied him a moment in silence.

“I guess nobody likes to be beaten,” she said finally; “but I can stand it as well as the next fellow. What’s your name?”

“Somes, Dick Somes; Richard for long.”

“My name’s Harriet ‘for long,’” she laughed. “But nobody calls me Harriet; it isn’t a very pretty name, is it?”

“Harriet? I don’t believe I ever heard it before. I was wondering how you came to be named Harry. Harry suits you better, I guess.”

“How old are you, Dick?”

“Sixteen last August.”

“I’m fifteen. Wouldn’t you think I was older?” she asked anxiously.

“Heaps,” he laughed. “I thought you were about twenty.”

“I don’t like to be made fun of,” replied Harry.

“There’s a good deal you don’t like, isn’t there?” he asked with a grin.

“I sha’n’t like you if you talk like that,” she answered severely.

“Then I sha’n’t come to your old school.”

“It isn’t an ‘old school!’” flashed Harry. “And I don’t care whether you come or not!”

“Oh, yes, you do,” he answered soothingly. “If I don’t come we won’t have that race.”

“I don’t want to race you!”

“Oh, all right. Then it’s me for Hammond again. I guess it’s the better school of the two, anyway.”

“I’m sure it’ll suit you better,” she answered angrily. Then she caught sight of the merriment in his eyes, hesitated and laughed softly. “You--you almost made me angry,” she declared.

“Almost, eh? Then you must be a terror, Miss Emery, when you go the limit. Aren’t you going to show me around? It’s getting late and I’m freezing to death.”

“Come on,” answered Harry. “You can leave your skates here; they’ll be all right. And here’s your tie. I’m afraid, though, it’s kind of frazzled and--oh, it’s torn! Look!”

“Don’t you care,” he said. “Here, I’ll carry your skates.”

“No,” she answered decisively, “I’ll carry them myself. I don’t like to be waited on.”

“I guess if I came here to school,” laughed Dick, “it would take most of my time finding out what you didn’t like. I wouldn’t have any time for lessons.”

“Do you like to study?” Harry asked.

“Pretty well; everything but languages. Which way do we go? Up this path?”

“Yes. Oh, I forgot. That’s the boat-house there. We have a crew and we race Hammond every spring. Last year we were beaten.”

“I never saw a boat race,” said Dick. “It must be good sport.”

“It’s perfectly great,” said Harry, “and awfully exciting! This is the Grove and the buildings are up the hill, only you can’t see them yet. I’ll go ahead and show you the way.”

The path wound through a thick growth of trees, maples and oaks and others, climbing steadily upward. Presently the trees thinned and ceased and Dick followed his guide through a gap in a breast-high hedge which, as Harry informed him, marked “inner bounds.” I have no intention of recording the fund of information which Harry showered upon Dick’s defenseless head. Needless to say that she colored her remarks with the rose-tint of enthusiasm and drew a most alluring picture of life at Ferry Hill. She rattled on breathlessly and continuously after she had once become warmed up to her task and Dick’s brain began to reel under the torrent of information.

He was shown Burgess Hall, with the dormitories and the dining-room, School Hall, with its twilighted class rooms, the Cottage, where Harry lived--Harry pointed out her room and described the furnishings minutely, even to the pink paper on the walls--and the Gymnasium, which was locked, and consequently remained a mystery for the present. Back of the gym a gate in the hedge gave access to the Athletic Field, with its snow-filled stands and gibbet-like goal-posts rising forlornly out of the white waste. Harry said there was a running track there, but Dick had to take her word for it. Then they retraced their steps and Harry pointed out, at a distance, the stables and barns and the orchard beyond.

“I’ll show you my menagerie some time,” she said. “It lives in the barn. I’ve got a parrot, three lovely Angora kittens, a squirrel, four guinea-pigs, six rabbits, lots and lots of white mice, heaps of pigeons, and a dog.”

“Phew!” said Dick. “Is that all?”

“The dog’s name is Snip,” Harry continued. “He’s a fox terrier. Last year I had two black rabbits and I called them Pete and Repeat, and then there was a third and I had to call it Threepete. Isn’t that silly?”

“I think it’s a pretty good name,” laughed Dick.

“Really? The parrot’s name is Methuselah; he’s awfully old, I guess, but he’s a perfect dear. You’ll love Methuselah, Dick!”

“Maybe, but I don’t believe so. I don’t like parrots.”

“But he isn’t just--just an ordinary parrot,” said Harry earnestly. “He’s awfully clever and wise; he knows heaps of things, really!”

“I like dogs and horses better,” answered Dick. “Have you got a horse?”

“No, there are two in the stable, but they don’t belong to me. Next year, though, papa is going to get me a pony and a cart. Then I shall drive to school every day.”

“Where’s your school?” Dick asked.

“Over there at Silver Cove. It’s a very nice school.”

They had reached the dormitory again and Dick stopped and looked about him. It was getting dark rapidly and the campus, deep with snow, looked bleak and forlorn. Even Harry had to acknowledge that fact to herself and her hopes of inducing Dick to cast his lot with Ferry Hill began to dwindle. Westward, above the tops of the trees which crowded the slope, lay the frozen river, and beyond, on the farther bank, a few yellow points of light marked the location of Coleville and Hammond Academy.

“Of course,” ventured Harry, “things don’t look very nice now, but you ought to see them when the trees are out and--and all.”

But her voice didn’t hold much conviction and Dick merely nodded his head as he turned toward the path down the slope.

“Well, I’m much obliged for showing me around,” he said. “I’d better be getting back.”

“Yes,” sighed Harry. “I--I’ll walk down to the river with you. You might lose your way.” She didn’t have the courage to ask him whether he liked Ferry Hill well enough to come there. She didn’t believe he