CHAPTER IX.
FOOTBALL
None of our crowd had reached what the grown-ups call "the boy age." We had our heroes of romance that it was difficult for any of the male persuasion in real life to live up to. Tweedles declared that Zebedee was boy enough for them; although Dum thought if she ever met a Prosper le Gai she might consider him; while Dee had an idea a boy like Laurie, in "Little Women," would be some sport and she might be willing to knock around with him a bit. Jane Eyre's "Mr. Rochester" was my beau ideal.
"I want a dark, masterful lover who could tie the poker up in a bowknot if he had a mind to; a rude man who could bring tears to my eyes by his gruffness, and then, with the gentleness of a woman, soothe my aching head."
"Oh, Page," chimed in Annie Pore, "how could you want such a ruffian? I like Henry Esmond, so kind and courteous and dignified – "
"Yes, and as stiff as a poker. My 'Mr. Rochester' could tie him up in a bowknot in no time – "
"And soothe your aching head with him, too, I fancy. I think a man who is rude enough to make a woman cry and strong enough to tie up pokers would be more than likely to beat his wife with said poker." This from Mary Flannigan, who was in our room during the discussion of our favorite heroes. "I want 'Charles O'Malley' or nothing. Give me a man who is gay and rollicking, at the same time good-tempered and kindly if quick to fight withal."
We had to laugh at Mary. She was such a little Mother Bunch, with her crinkly red hair bushing out around her fat freckled face, – hardly a likely person to attract a hero of romance. Mary wore as many petticoats as Mammy Susan and all of them were tied around her waist with draw strings. I verily believe that she and Mammy Susan were the only persons left in the world who wore red flannel petticoats. In that day and generation when slimiky skirts were the rage, you can fancy how Mary looked with her gathered skirts. She also had a leaning toward deep ruffles around her neck, which more than ever gave her the look of a clown dog.
She had a way of breaking into the conversation very much as the clown dog breaks into the ring, and no matter how serious she was, we simply had to laugh at her. She was very good-natured and not the least bit touchy. We laughed at her general bunchiness just because we couldn't help it, but one and all liked her for her good temper and ready wit and respected her for her excellent standing in her classes, where she was the youngest pupil. We also envied her the delightful stunts that I believe I have mentioned before.
"I'd rather be able to go like a dog, the way Mary can, than make the finest statue of one that ever was done," sighed Dum.
"Nonsense, Dum. Anybody can go like a dog with a little practice, but to make one in clay is going some. But to return to our lovers: what do you girls say to taking in the football game over at Hill-Top? The seniors are going, one and all, and Miss Peyton says any of us can go who wish. Miss Cox will chaperon the sophomores."
Hill-Top was a boys' school on the other side of the village from Gresham Academy, and young ladies from our school were always invited to the match games there; and our school in turn sent a formal invitation to the pupils of Hill-Top when an interesting basketball game was to be played at Gresham.
"Oh, do come, all of you. I've never seen a game of football in my life and I'm just wild to," I begged.
"I guess I won't go," said Annie.
"Well, I think you've got another guess coming, unless you have a powerful good reason," I exclaimed.
"My only reason is that I am so embarrassed with boys," and poor Annie gave her usual painful blush.
"Oh, you won't have to speak to the boys. They never notice the Sophs, anyhow, but give all their twaddle to the Juniors and Seniors. If a boy, old enough to walk 'loney, breaks through Mabel Binks' guard, he is a hero for fair," laughed Dee.
So, Annie's objections overcome, we hurried her and Mary off to put on their hats and wraps, and quickly donning our own, got downstairs just in time to form in line with the Sophomores, who were starting under the leadership of Miss Cox for the game at Hill-Top.
"I'm glad to see you are going, Page," said Margaret Sayre, as she hooked her arm in mine. "I am to help Miss Cox keep order, although I don't really think I am needed. Sophomores are never boy crazy. The Juniors are the ones, as a rule, that need quieting. Sometimes I wonder where all the bad Juniors go to and where all the good Seniors come from."
"Well, I reckon the bad Juniors were once good Sophomores and they can just as easily turn into good Seniors," I responded.
The Juniors at Gresham were a rather wild lot and they had as a leader Mabel Binks, who, although she was a Senior, chose her friends entirely among the Juniors. The truth of the matter was, as Mammy Susan used to say, Mabel would rather be a "king among buzzards than a buzzard among kings." The Seniors would have none of her leadership and among them she had to take a back seat; while the Juniors welcomed her to their ranks with joy, not realizing why she had chosen them, and flattered by her notice.
The long line of girls, two abreast, wound its way through the streets of the little town and out into the country again to the boys' school. It was really a very pretty sight, this row of blooming, happy girls, all ages and sizes, dressed in the universally becoming dark blue, with their jaunty velvet sailor hats perched at every conceivable angle on heads of hair of every conceivable color.
"Doesn't Annie Pore look pretty in her new hat?" whispered Miss Sayre.
These velvet sailors were ordered by the school and every pupil was obliged to have one. All of us were glad that Annie was forced to discard her forlorn-looking crêpe hat that looked for all the world like a last year's bird's nest. The black velvet sailor was exactly right for her, throwing into pleasing contrast her milk-white skin, and bringing out the wonderful tints in her ripe-wheat hair. Jo Barr with wonderful tact had managed to change the hang of her dragging skirt and it was now even around the bottom.
"I think she is beautiful and she is really very fine in many ways. I have grown so fond of her. All of us have. And I think Dum and Dee are having a splendid effect on her spirits, for she is not nearly so lugubrious."
"Dum and Dee may be having a fine effect, too," laughed Miss Sayre, "but a girl named Page Allison is doing her part. All the faculty notice it. I wish someone like you could be in every class, someone to leaven the whole lump with a certain quality of camaraderie. Annie Pore was as forlorn a specimen of humanity as ever stepped out of a 'bus that first day here, and now look at her!"
Annie was laughing heartily as Mary Flannigan made a noise like a sick kitten, throwing her voice, with her powers as a ventriloquist, so it seemed to come from a clump of sumac by the roadside. Dee was peering eagerly into the bushes before she caught on to the joke. Annie Pore certainly did not look like the same girl. No one would think of nicknaming her "Orphan Annie" now. The name clung to her, however, among a certain class, thanks to Mabel Binks, who had not been able to forgive or forget the laugh raised against her by Annie on the first day of school.
Hill-Top was built much in the same style as Gresham, and it, too, had the Parthenon effect with its big white pillars. The view was not quite so fine as ours, but from the little experience I had had of boys, I imagined they did not go in for views to any great extent.
"A primrose by the river's brink,
A common primrose was to him and nothing more."
For that matter, I noticed that mighty few of the girls at Gresham appreciated the view, and as Miss Sayre said, thought more of dessert for dinner than of the view of the mountains.
The game was just starting as we arrived, so we seated ourselves on the benches provided for the visitors with as little stir as possible. Dum got on the other side of me to put me on to the points of the great game of football.
"It seems too foolish and backwoodsy for me never to have seen a game," I said, "but at Milton everyone is too old to do more than walk through a set of croquet or too young to do more than bounce a rubber ball. Father occasionally threatens to go up to Richmond for the Virginia-Carolina game at Thanksgiving, but somebody is always coming or going (I mean getting born or dying), and we have never made it yet."
"Never mind, honey," and Dum gave me a hug, "you'll learn all the points of the game to-day, and some time when we are back in Richmond, Zebedee will give us a great football party. We always go to the Thanksgiving game. I don't see what Zebedee will do without us this year."
"Who, that good-looking pa of yours?" said Mabel Binks, who was seated right in front of us, with the Juniors, as usual. "Why, I'll wager he can find someone to take your place. I bet he's having a pretty good time with you kids off his hands."
Dum's hands clinched and unclinched. Her eyes were closed and her lips moving. I had not lived with the Tucker Twins for several weeks without finding out what that meant. When Dum did that way, it meant she was trying to control her temper. Her lips formed these words: "Oh, God, make me good! Don't let me biff Mabel Binks! Don't let me biff Mabel Binks!"
For a moment the wicked wish came into my heart that she would "biff Mabel Binks"; but when I thought of the consternation it would arouse in Gresham and the disgrace to our class, to say nothing of poor hot-headed Dum, I felt ashamed of myself for harboring such a militant desire. I slipped my hand over Dum's clenched fist and in a moment I felt it relax.
"Thank you, Page. God answered my prayer quicker than usual, thanks to you," and Dum gave a great sigh of relief. "It seemed to me almost like it would be wrong if I didn't hit her. Zebedee would fight for us any day and I don't see why I can't fight for him."
"Well, when you come down to facts, Dum, Mabel Binks did not say anything derogatory of your father. She said he was good-looking and intimated that he was naturally popular. I fancy she would like to go to the Thanksgiving game herself with him. There is nothing for you to fight about. I have an idea that Mr. Tucker can take care of himself enough not to take her to the game at least," I whispered; and Dum laughed aloud so that Mabel turned around and asked, "What's the joke?" And Dum had the satisfaction of saying in honeyed tones: "One of the kid jokes that I fancy you would not appreciate."
The game of football at first impressed me as little more than a tangle of legs, and a dog fight at Bracken had more sense to it; but as Dum explained the points, I began to see some method in the seeming madness of twenty-two boys lying down on one poor ball and yelling. Needless to add, I very soon became as enthusiastic about that game as all other games I ever had any knowledge of, and before the football season was over I was as rabid a rooter as the Tuckers themselves.
"I believe you are a born lover of games, Page," said Miss Sayre, smiling as my enthusiasm got the better of me and I let out a piercing shriek in honor of a short, bow-legged boy who had seized the ball at a crucial moment and literally dodged his way through the Seniors and made a goal. The game was between the Seniors and Sophomores, and of course the Sophomores of Gresham were in honor bound to root for the Sophomores of Hill-Top.
"Who's all right? Who's all right?
Shorty! – Shorty! Out of sight!"
yelled the class for their bow-legged hero, and then the Seniors gave him fifteen 'rahs. Seniors always have a special feeling for Sophomores and a game between them is usually a very friendly bout. Of course the Seniors do not exactly want to be beaten, but they take a great delight in the prowess of their pet class. In spite of Shorty's good playing and a great deal of good playing from the other ten Sophomores, the Seniors won, which was quite meet and proper. The younger boys had put up a good fight and were much applauded by their elders.
CHAPTER X.
BOYS
After the football game, some of the more self-assured boys came over to the visitors from Gresham and singled out their friends to conduct them to the tables on the lawn where the matron was serving ice cream.
All the boys spoke to Miss Cox and seemed on the most friendly terms with her. I remembered then that she went over to Hill-Top twice a week for the purpose of training a chorus. She knew them all by name and chatted with them very freely, much more freely than she did with any of the girls, except Dum and Dee and me.
"Evidently, Miss Cox understands boys better than she does girls and they understand her," thought I. Her manner with them was frank and natural, exactly as it had been with Mr. Tucker.
A tall, good-looking boy was holding a laughing conversation with her about the game. He it was who had saved the day for the Seniors when it had looked as though the younger class would certainly win, owing to the strategic movements of the popular Shorty.
"Didn't the kid make a fine play, though, Miss Cox? It seemed a pity to take the game from them; but I tell you, if the Sophomores won from the Seniors there would be no living with them. They're rather a cocky lot as it is, bless 'em."
"Yes, they are fine boys and I wish they might have won just this once. They worked so hard and you Seniors were playing so lazily you almost let the game slip through your fingers. It would have been a good lesson for your team if they had lost."
"That's just what I tell them, Miss Cox. I hate lazy playing, even if you are up against something easy. I believe in playing the game to the best of your ability, if it's nothing but push-pins."
I certainly liked the way that boy talked and agreed with him. I unconsciously drew nearer to where he and Miss Cox were standing, not with any idea of being introduced but because I was interested in what they were saying.
"No, you don't, Miss Buttinsky," was whispered in my ear, "Seniors first when there is a good thing in sight," and Mabel Binks crowded in front of me and deliberately joined the group around Miss Cox. An introduction to the handsome football player naturally followed. I drew back abashed. One of the most hateful things about Mabel Binks was that she usually attributed her motives to other persons. She was determined to meet this boy and she took for granted it was what I was after, too.
I felt like employing Dum's method and praying not to "biff Mabel Binks," but I was anxious to see what the outcome would be and if the handsome youth, whose name I had learned was Harvie Price, would be attracted by the charms of the stylish Mabel. Mabel was not a bad-looking girl, rather handsome, in fact, but a trifle too vivid for my taste. Her eyes were as black and shiny as new patent-leather shoes; her abundant hair, coarse and curly; her lips too full and red; her figure handsome but rather too well developed for a girl of seventeen. She was always richly dressed and in the latest style.
The idea of the directors of Gresham in having the pupils dress in blue suits and black hats was to do away with the custom of overdressing common to many boarding schools. They seemed to think that a blue suit was a blue suit. They were vastly mistaken, however, as anyone with half an eye could see by comparing Mabel Binks with Annie Pore. Annie Pore's appearance I have described. Mabel's suit was a costly affair of handsome cloth combined with velvet and trimmed with fur. The skirt was slit, showing a cerise petticoat; a cerise crêpe de Chine tie gave color to her very V-necked blouse; and around her velvet sailor she had pinned several large, fine ostrich plumes. The latest style of high-heeled pumps with cut steel buckles were on her feet, making them a little too prominent, considering their size and shape. Spotless white gloves finished her costume; unless one might consider the strong odor of musk perfume the finishing touch. She did look handsome and her clothes were pretty and fine, but a little too fine for a football match.
"Oh, Mr. Price," she gushed, "your playing was just grand. All of us were just wild about it. I said 'it,' not 'you,' you understand," and she giggled affectedly. "I think it was real noble of you to let the kids get any points at all."
"Yes, mighty noble," said Harvie Price, looking at his dashing admirer rather quizzically, "so noble they came mighty near winning the whole shooting match."
"Isn't that ice cream they are serving over there?" she hinted. "I think ice cream is simply grand."
"Ah, Miss Binks, you praise my feeble game and ice cream with the same words. Fortunately, ice cream is more easily taken in than I am. Hey, you Shorty, come here," he called to the jolly-looking little Sophomore who was trotting by. "I want to introduce you to Miss Binks. Mr. Thomas Hawkins, Miss Binks. Shorty, she's dying for some ice cream."
"Your humble servitor, madam," and Thomas Hawkins made a low bow. "Shall I bring it to you or take you to it?"
"Bring it here," said Mabel shortly. Just then Harvie Price saw Annie Pore talking to Mary Flannigan and Dee.
"Tell me who that girl is over there, the one with the thick yellow plait," he asked Mabel.
"Oh, that's 'Orphan Annie.' Isn't she a mess?"
"Is her name Annie Pore?"
"I believe it is or poor Annie, if you prefer."
"Well, by Jove! Who would have thought it!" and Harvie Price without any apology left the dashing Mabel and going up to Annie took her by both hands. He shook them warmly and exclaimed: "Little Annie Pore, where on earth did you come from? I am glad to see you." And Annie, without the least embarrassment, was equally delighted to see him.
"Oh, Harvie, I did not dream you were here. You've grown so I didn't know you."
"Grown! And what have you been doing? Certainly not standing still. And how is everyone at the Landing? Geewhilikins, I'd like to spend another summer there! Just think, it is five years since I have been there."
"Everything is about the same. Your grandfather is rather more feeble but as handsome as ever."
"Yes, I know, poor old Grandad," said Harvie soberly. Annie told me afterward that a family row had separated old General Price from his son, Harvie's father, and for that reason the boy had not been allowed to come to his ancestral home at Price's Landing.
"And how is your father? As British as ever and still invisibly clothed in blue paint?"
"Yes, about the same," blushed Annie.
"You know I like your father, Annie, and didn't mean anything," and the boy looked very sorry that he had embarrassed his little friend.
"That's all right, Harvie, but you know – "
"Yes, I know," he said sympathetically. "Now come on and let's have some ice cream. Who are your special friends? Introduce me and I'll take them all."
Dum and Dee and Mary Flannigan and I were of course the chosen few, and as soon as Shorty had arranged so Mabel Binks could "take in" the ice cream, he joined us and a very merry time we had. We met many boys and liked most of them. They were a healthy, wholesome lot and almost as much fun as girls. Miss Cox joined us and let herself go with as much abandon as she had in the Lobster Quadrille.
I have never seen anyone so happy as Annie Pore. She and Harvie Price had been friends from the time they could walk. The boy had spent a great deal of his time with his grandfather at Price's Landing and the little English maid, whose father kept the country store, was the one white child in the neighborhood whom the proud old aristocratic General Price considered suitable to associate with his grandson.
"You ought to see Mr. Pore," Harvie confided to me. "I tell you he is a rare one. He is about the best educated man I ever met. Grandad says he can think in Latin. Be that as it may, he can certainly teach it. I had some lessons from him during one summer and have been grateful to him ever since. He is awfully English and just as strict with Annie as can be. Mrs. Pore was a beautiful woman and it seemed strangely incongruous to see her in the country store measuring calico and what not. Grandad used to say she looked like a Duchess at a Charity Bazaar. Nobody at Price's Landing ever has known what brought Mr. Pore to keeping a country store in a little Virginia village."
"Maybe thinking in Latin wasn't nourishing," I suggested.
"I fancy that was it," he laughed, "but why should an Oxford graduate keep a country store for a livelihood? There must have been other avenues open to him."
"Perhaps his beautiful wife discovered she had a genius for selling at Charity Bazaars, and when the time came to choose a profession, she chose what she had shown talent for as an amateur," I hazarded.
"Well, I see Miss Page Allison has some imagination and if she ever has to choose a profession it should be novel writing."
"Perhaps it will be," I said, "but I'd rather keep a country store than do anything. You can see so many people that way, 'specially if you have the postoffice in it."
"You like people, then?" inquired the boy.
"Like people? I should say I do. I just adore people; and I mean to know just as many people as I can."
"Well, that is the requisite for successful novel writing, so our professor in English tells us: 'Know people and sympathize with them, all kinds and conditions.' But tell me something, Miss Page, does Annie sing? Mrs. Pore's voice brought old sinners to church that had not been for many a year. She sang in the choir at the little old Episcopal church at Price's Landing and although I was nothing but a kid, – you see I have not been there for five years, – I used to thrill all over when she chanted the Te Deum Laudamus."
"Oh, yes, Annie's voice is splendid. Miss Cox is teaching her and I believe she expects great things of her. We are to have a concert at Gresham before long and then you can hear her."
I looked over at a group of girls and boys where Dum and Annie were talking very gayly with Tom Hawkins, alias Shorty, and smiled to think of Annie's hesitancy in coming that day because she was so afraid of boys, and then I laughed outright when I considered how little Shorty resembled Dum's hero, Prosper le Gai.
The ice cream that Shorty brought to Mabel Binks must have been as bitter as gall, judging from the faces that young lady made while devouring it, nor did it "set easy on her innards," as Mammy Susan would put it. Could it be that she had literally turned green from jealousy and the ice cream was innocent, after all? It must have been a bitter pill to have the despised "Orphan Annie," with her kid friends, carry off the most desirable young man at Hill-Top.
"Aren't you feeling well, Mabel?" said the good-natured Josephine Barr, as Harvie Price and I passed near her on our way to join the group where my special friends were.
"Yes, I'm just disgusted. Did you ever see such a beau grabber in your life as that countrified Page Allison? And there's 'Orphan Annie' actually posing as a belle! They make me sick."
I did not hear what Jo answered, but I felt that Annie and I were safe in her hands. My cheeks were burning as though Mabel had given me a real slap.
"Don't you mind, Miss Page. If girls only knew how fellows detest that kind of thing! It must be awful to be a girl and not fight things out. If a boy had insulted me as that girl did you just now, I'd either beat him or get beaten in short order."
"Well," I said, pulling myself together as I realized that after all Mabel Binks was not much of a lady, "you see, I have already beaten her, although I did not know at the time I was doing it. Annie and I have got the 'beaux,' that is, if she means you and Shorty."
"Bully for you! That's the way to talk. I see Miss Binks will not pull off anything over you. Can Annie defend herself, too?"
So I told him of the first day at Gresham and the cheer the Seniors gave Annie because of her come-back at Mabel Binks.
"Poor little Annie! I don't see how anyone could try to hurt her," and the big boy looked very tenderly at his one-time playmate. "I am certainly glad she has found such good friends at Gresham as you and those wonderful twins, and also that nice little square Irish girl who looks like a match for our Shorty."
That night before lights out bell rang, we had a little chat in our room. Mary and Annie had scurried across the hall in their kimonos. Dum was in bed and Dee and I had unearthed some slight refreshment in the way of crackers and sweet chocolate, which we passed around.
"I bet Prosper le Gai would have played a dandy game of football," said Dum, getting her sheets all crumby with crackers. "He always smiled in battle. I noticed Harvie Price did, too."
"Do you know, I think Harvie Price looked a little like Laurie in 'Little Women,'" said Dee.
"I always did think so," exclaimed Annie. "When you were talking about Laurie this morning I thought of Harvie. I never dreamed of seeing him. I'm so glad you girls liked him."
"I tell you he's all right," said Mary, "but I wouldn't be at all astonished if Charles O'Malley wasn't just such another boy as Shorty when he was a kid."