The Girls of Central High at Basketball: or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery

CHAPTER III – JOHNNY DOYLE

Franklin Sharp, principal of Central High, had something particular to say that morning at Assembly. At eight-thirty o‘clock the gongs rang in each room and the classes marched to the hall as usual. But there was an unusual amount of excitement, especially on the girls’ side of the great hall.

The news Bobby Hargrew had brought to Nellie Agnew had spread over the Hill long before schooltime. Bobby, running from house to house, had scattered the news like burning brands; and wherever she dropped a spark a flame of excitement had sprung up and spread.

And how many of the girls had whispered the same thing! What Hester Grimes had said the previous afternoon had been heard by a dozen girls; a hundred had learned of it before the gymnasium had cleared that afternoon; now the whole school – on the girls’ side, at least – knew that Hester had declared her hatred of the girls of Central High before the damage was done in the gymnasium.

This gossip could not fail to have flown to Principal Sharp’s ears. He was eminently a just man; but he seldom interfered in the girls’ affairs, preferring to let his assistant, Miss Grace G. Carrington (otherwise “Gee Gee” among the more thoughtless of her pupils) govern the young ladies. But what the principal said on this occasion seemed to point to the fact that he had taken cognizance of the wild supposition and gossip that was going the round of the girl’s classes.

“A cruel and expensive trick has been perpetrated by some irresponsible person with pronounced criminal instincts,” declared Mr. Sharp, seriously. “This is not the outburst of some soul prone to practical joking, so-called; nor is it the mere impish mischievousness of a spirit with a grudge against its fellows. The infamous actions of the person, or persons, in the girls’ gymnasium last night show degeneracy and a monkeyish wickedness that can be condoned in no particular.

“We can declare with confidence that no pupil of Central High could have accomplished the wicked work of last night. It would have been beyond the physical powers of any of our young ladies to have broken into the building; and we are equally confident that no young gentleman on our roster is at that early stage of evolution in which he would consider such work at all amusing.

“Of course, there will be an investigation made – not alone by the school authorities, but by the police. The matter is too serious to ignore. The damage done amounts to several hundreds of dollars. And the mystery of how the culprit or culprits entered the building, with the doors and windows locked and Jackway asleep in his bed in the doctor’s office, must likewise be explained.

“Meanwhile, young ladies and gentlemen, let no wild romances or unsubstantiated rumors shake your minds. We none of us know how the criminal entered the gymnasium, or who he is. Let the matter rest there until the investigation is completed and the actual wrong-doer brought to book. I hope I make myself clear? That is all. You are dismissed to classes.”

But, to himself, perhaps the principal said: “Meanwhile I will go out and stop the water from running down hill!” For the gossip having once begun to grow, there was no stopping it. Some of the girls had already begun to look askance at Hester when they passed her. Others whispered, and wondered, and surmised – and the wonder grew like the story of the man who ate the three black crows.

Hester, however, did not realize what all this meant. She was still angry with Nellie, and Bobby, and the others whom she considered had crossed her the previous afternoon. And especially was she angry with Mrs. Case, the physical instructor.

“I don’t much care if the stuff in the gymnasium was all cut up,” she declared, to her single confidant, Lily Pendleton.

“Oh, Hester! Don’t let them hear you say it!” cried her chum, who had heard some of the whispers against Hester, but had not dared repeat them to her chum for fear of an outbreak of the latter’s unfortunate temper.

“What do I care for ’em?” returned Hester, and went off by herself.

Hester Grimes was not entirely happy. She would not admit it in her own soul, but she was lonely. Even Lily was not always at her beck and call as she once had been. To tell the truth, Lily Pendleton seemed suddenly to have “a terrible crush” on Prettyman Sweet.

“And goodness only knows what she sees in that freak to want to walk with him,” muttered Hester, in retrospection.

Lily and Purt were pupils in the same dancing class and just at present dancing was “all the rage.” Hester did not care for dancing – not even for the folk dancing that Mrs. Case taught the girls of Central High. She liked more vigorous exercises. She played a sharp game of tennis, played hockey well, was a good walker and runner, and liked basketball as well as she liked anything.

“And here these Miss Smarties and Mrs. Case want to put me off the team,” thought Hester Grimes, walking down toward the athletic field and the gym. building after school that day.

There was little to go to the gym. for just now, with the fixtures cut up and broken. But Hester felt a curiosity to see the wreck. And there were other girls from Central High who seemed to feel the same. Some were ahead of her and some came after. They exclaimed and murmured and were angry or excited, as the case might be; but Hester mooned about in silence, and the only soul she spoke to in the building was Bill Jackway.

The latter looked very much worried. He was a steady, quiet, red-haired man, with pale blue eyes and a wandering expression of countenance at most times. But he was a good and careful worker and kept the athletic field in good shape and the gym. well swept and dusted.

Jackway had never been married; but his sister had married a man named Doyle and was now a widow with two children. When Jackway got an hour or two off from the gym. he went to see his sister, and played with the baby, Johnny. Johnny, who was a sturdy little fellow of three, had been brought to-day to see his uncle by his gangling big brother, Rufe Doyle. Rufe was a second edition of his uncle, Bill Jackway, without Bill’s modicum of sense. A glance at Rufe told the pitiful story. As his Irish father had said, Rufe was “an innocent.” But he loved Baby Johnny and took great care of him.

“Johnny’s growing like a weed, Rufie,” said Hester, kindly enough, as she pinched the little fellow’s cheek softly. “You take such good care of him.”

Rufe threw back his head, opened his mouth wide, and roared his delight at this compliment.

“Yes, ma’am!” he chuckled, when his paroxysm was over. “Johnny ain’t much out of my sight when he’s awake. Is he, Uncle Bill?”

“No, Rufus,” replied Jackway, sadly.

“I’m pretty smart to take care of Johnny so well – ain’t I, Uncle Bill?” demanded the weak-minded boy again.

“You are smart enough when you want to be, Rufus,” muttered Jackway, evidently in no very social mood.

“You’re worried about what happened last night, aren’t you?” demanded Hester, sharply.

“Yes, ma’am; I be,” admitted the watchman.

“You needn’t be. They’ll never blame you,” returned Hester, brusquely, and went out.

She wandered into the park at the foot of Whiffle Street and sat down. Here Rufus Doyle followed her with Baby Johnny. There had been heavy rains for the past week – until the day before. The gutters had run full and the park squad of “white wings” were raking the beaten leaves into windrows and flushing the sand and debris into the sewers. One basin cover had been laid back and left an open trap for unwary feet.

Rufus Doyle was trying to coax a gray squirrel near for Johnny to admire. But Johnny was not particularly interested in bunny. Hester saw the toddler near the open hatch of the sewer basin one moment; the next he had disappeared, and it seemed to her as though a faint cry rang in her ears.

She leaped up from the bench.

“Johnny!” she called.

Rufus was still engaged with the squirrel. Nobody seemed to have noticed the disappearance of the baby. Hester dashed to the open basin and peered down into the swirling brown water.

CHAPTER IV – “THERE’S GOOD STUFF IN THAT GIRL”

Again that cry – that weak, bubbling wail from out the darkness of the sewer basin. Something swirled past Hester’s strained vision in the dervish dance of the debris floating in the murky water. It was a tiny hand, stretched forth from a skimpy blue-cloth sleeve.

It was Johnny Doyle’s hand; but the child’s body – the rest of it – was under water!

The water was not more than six feet below the surface of the ground; but deep, deep down was the entrance of the big drain that joined the main sewer taking the street water and sewerage from the whole Hill section. Johnny was being sucked down into that drain.

The girl, her mind keenly alert to all this, shrieked unintelligible cries for help – unintelligible to herself, even. She could not have told afterward a word she said, or what manner of help she demanded; but she knew the boy was drowning and that she could swim!

With her clothing to hold her up a bit Hester believed she could swim or keep afloat even in that swirling eddy. The appealing little hand had no more than waved blindly once, than Hester gathered her rather full skirts about her and jumped, feet first, into the sewer-basin.

That was no pleasant plunge, for, despite her skirts, Hester went down over her head. But her hands, thrashing about in the water, caught the baby’s dress. She came up with Johnny in her arms, and when she had shaken the water from her eyes so that she could see, above was the brown face of one of the street cleaners. He was lowering a bucket on a rope, and yelling to her.

What he said Hester did not know; but she saw her chance, and placed little Johnny – now a limp, pale rag of a boy – in the bucket, and the man drew him up with a yell of satisfaction.

Hester was not frightened for herself. She felt the tug of the eddy at her feet; but she trod water and kept herself well above the surface until the man dropped the bucket down again. Then she saw the wild eyes and pallid, frightened face of Rufus at the opening, too; and a third anxious countenance. She knew that this belonged to Nellie Agnew’s father.

“Hang on, child!” exclaimed the physician, heartily. “We’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

Hester clung to the rope and was glad to be dragged out of the filthy basin. She sat on the ground, almost breathless, for a moment. Rufe, with a wild cry, had sprung to Johnny. But the doctor put the half-witted lad aside and examined the child.

“Bless him! he isn’t hurt a mite,” declared Dr. Agnew, cheerfully. “Run, get a taxi, Rufe! Quick, now! I’ll take you and Johnny, and Miss Hester, too, home in it.”

Everybody was used to obeying the good doctor’s commands, and Rufus Doyle ran as he was told. Hester was on her feet when the cab returned, and Dr. Agnew was holding the bedraggled and still unconscious Johnny in his arms.

“We’ll take you home first, Hester,” said Dr. Agnew. “You live nearest.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Hester. “Go by the way of Mrs. Doyle’s house. The baby ought to be ’tended to first.”

“Why, that’s so,” admitted the physician, and he looked at her a little curiously.

Hester whisked into the cab and hid herself from the curious gaze of the few passers-by who had gathered when the trouble was all over. The taxi bore them all swiftly to the Doyles’ humble domicile. It was on a street in which electric cabs were not commonly driven, and Rufe was mighty proud when he descended first into a throng of the idle children and women of the neighborhood.

Of course, the usual officious neighbor, after one glance at Johnny’s wet figure, had to rush into the house and proclaim that the boy had been drowned in the lake. But the doctor was right on her heels and showed Mrs. Doyle in a few moments that Johnny was all right.

With a hot drink, and warm blankets for a few hours, and a good sleep, the child would be as good as new. But when the doctor came out of the house he was surprised to find the cab still in waiting and Hester inside.

“Why didn’t you go home at once and change your clothing?” demanded Dr. Agnew, sharply, as he hopped into the taxi again.

“Is Johnny all right?” asked Hester.

“Of course he is.”

“Then I’ll go home,” sighed Hester. “Oh, I sha’n’t get cold, Doctor. I’m no namby-pamby girl – I hope! And I was afraid the little beggar would be in a bad way. He must have swallowed a quantity of water.”

“He was frightened more than anything else,” declared Dr. Agnew, aloud. But to himself he was thinking: “There’s good stuff in that girl, after all.”

For he, too, had heard the whispers that had begun to go the rounds of the Hill, and knew that Hester Grimes was on trial in the minds of nearly everybody whom she would meet. Some had already judged and sentenced her, as well!

CHAPTER V – HESTER AT HOME

If Hester had arrived at the Grimes’s house in two cabs instead of one it would have aroused her mother to little comment; for, for some years now, her daughter had grown quite beyond her control and Mrs. Grimes had learned not to comment upon Hester’s actions. Yet, oddly enough, Hester was neither a wild girl nor a silly girl; she was merely bold, bad tempered, and wilful.

Mrs. Grimes was a large, lymphatic lady, given to loose wrappers until late in the day, and the enjoyment of unlimited novels. “Comfort above all” was the good lady’s motto. She had suffered much privation and had worked hard, during Mr. Grimes’s beginnings in trade, for Hester’s father had worked up from an apprentice butcher boy in a retail store – was a “self-made man.”

Mr. Grimes was forever talking about how he had made his own way in the world without the help of any other person; but he was, nevertheless, purse-proud and arrogant. Hester could not fail to be somewhat like her father in this. She believed that Money was the touchstone of all good in the world. But Mrs. Grimes was naturally a kindly disposed woman, and sometimes her mother’s homely virtues cropped out in Hester – as note her interest in the Doyles. She was impulsively generous, but expected to find the return change of gratitude for every kindly dollar she spent.

They had a big and ornate house, in which the servants did about as they liked for all of Mrs. Grimes’s oversight. The latter admitted that she knew how to do a day’s wash as well as any woman – perhaps would have been far more happy had she been obliged to do such work, too; but she had no executive ability, and the girls in the kitchen did well or ill as they listed.

Now that Hester was growing into a young lady, she occasionally went into the servants’ quarters and tried to set things right in imitation of her father’s blustering oversight of his slaughter house – without Mr. Grimes’s thorough knowledge of the work and conditions in hand. So Hester’s interference in domestic affairs usually resulted in a “blow-up” of all concerned and a scramble for new servants at the local agencies.

Under these circumstances it may be seen that the girl’s home life was neither happy nor inspiring. The kindly, gentle things of life escaped Hester Grimes. She unfortunately scorned her mother for her “easy” habits; she admired her father’s bullying ways and his ability to make money. And she missed the sweetening influence of a well-conducted home where the inmates are polite and kind to one another.

Hester was abundantly healthy, possessed personal courage to a degree – as Dr. Agnew had observed – was not naturally unkind, and had other qualities that, properly trained and moulded, would have made her a very nice girl indeed. But having no home restraining influences, the rough corners of Hester Grimes’s character had never been smoothed down.

Her friendship with Lily Pendleton was not like the “chumminess” of other girls. Lily’s mother came of one of the “first families” of Centerport, and moved in a circle that the Grimeses could never hope to attain, despite their money. Through her friendship with Lily, who was in miniature already a “fine lady,” Hester obtained a slight hold upon the fringe of society. But even Lily was lost to her at times.

“Why ain’t I seen your friend Lily so much lately?” asked Mrs. Grimes, languidly, the evening of the day Hester had plunged into the sewer and rescued little Johnny Doyle.

“Oh, between dancing school and Purt Sweet, Lil has about got her silly head turned,” said Hester, tossing her own head.

“My goodness me!” drawled Mrs. Grimes, “that child doesn’t take young Purt Sweet seriously, does she?”

“Whoever heard of anybody’s taking Pretty seriously?” laughed Hester. “Only Pretty himself believes that he has anything in his head but mush! Last time Mrs. Pendleton had an evening reception, Purt got an invite, and went. Something happened to him – he knocked over a vase, or trod on a lady’s dress, or something awkward – and the next afternoon Lil caught him walking up and down in front of their house, trying to screw up courage enough to ring the bell.

“‘What’s the matter, Purt?’ asked Lily, going up to him.

“‘Oh, Miss Lily!’ cries Purt. ‘What did your mother say when you told her I was sorry for having made a fool of myself at the party last night?’

“‘Why,’ says Lil, ‘she said she didn’t notice anything unusual in your actions.’

“Wasn’t that a slap? And now Lil is letting Purt run around with her and act as if he owned her – just because he’s a good dancer.”

“My dear!” yawned her mother. “I should think you’d join that dancing class.”

“I’ll wait till I’m asked, I hope,” muttered Hester. “Everybody doesn’t get to join it. We’re not in that set – and we might as well admit it. And I don’t believe we ever will be.”

“I’m certainly glad!” complained her mother, rustling the leaves of her book. “Your father is always pushing me into places where I don’t want to go. He had a deal in business with Colonel Swayne, and he insisted that I call on Mrs. Kerrick. They’re awfully stuck-up folks, Hess.”

“I see Mrs. Kerrick’s carriage standing at the Beldings’ gate quite often, just the same,” muttered Hester.

“Yes – I know,” said her mother. “They make a good deal of Laura. Well, they didn’t make much of me. When I walked into the grounds and started up the front stoop, a butler, or footman, or something, all togged up in livery, told me that I must go around to the side door if I had come to see the cook. And he didn’t really seem anxious to take my card.”

“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Hester.

“You needn’t tell your father. I don’t blame ’em. They’ve got their own friends and we’ve got ourn. No use pushing out of our class.”

“You should have gone in the carriage,” complained Hester.

“I don’t like that stuffy hack,” said her mother. “It smells of – of liv’ry stables and – and funerals! If your father would set up a carriage of his own – ”

“Or buy an automobile instead of hiring one for us occasionally,” finished Hester.

For with all his love of display, the wholesale butcher was a thrifty person.

With Lily so much interested for the time in other matters, Hester found her only recreation at the athletic field; and for several days after the mysterious raid upon the girls’ gymnasium there was not much but talk indulged in about the building. Then new basketballs were procured and the regular practice in that game went on.

In a fortnight would come the first inter-school match of the fall term – a game between Central High girls and the representative team of East High of Centerport. In the last match game the East High girls had won – and many of the girls of Central High believed that the game went to their competitors because of Hester Grimes’s fouling.

There was more talk of this now. Some of the girls did not try to hide their dislike for Hester. Nellie Agnew did not speak to her at all, and the latter was inclined to accuse Nellie of being the leader in this apparent effort to make Hester feel that she was looked upon with more than suspicion. The mystery of the gymnasium raid overshadowed the whole school; but the shadow fell heaviest on Hester Grimes.

“She did it!”

“She’s just mean enough to do it!”

“She said she hated us!”

“It’s just like her – she spoils everything she can’t boss!”

She could read these expressions on the lips of her fellow students. Hester Grimes began to pay for her ill-temper, and the taste of this medicine was bitter indeed.