Marjorie Dean, High School Junior

CHAPTER IX – A SUDDEN ATTACK

“Where were you yesterday afternoon?” demanded Jerry Macy, as Marjorie walked into the locker room at the close of the morning session.

Marjorie considered for a moment. Should she tell Jerry or should she not? She decided in the negative. “I was at home a part of the afternoon.”

Jerry measured her with a calculating eye. “You don’t want to tell me, do you?” was her blunt question. “All right. Forget it. Anyway, we missed you. You’re a mysterious person. One day you march off on a dark, secret errand after making lavish promises to treat on the next. When that day rolls around you don’t appear at all. Never mind. I saved your face by treating for you.” Jerry delivered her opinion of her friend’s peculiar behavior good-humoredly enough. Underneath, however, she was a tiny bit peeved. She was very fond of Marjorie and prided herself that she was entirely in the latter’s confidence.

“You’re not cross with me, are you, Jerry?” Marjorie regarded the stout girl rather anxiously. She could not conceive of being on the outs with funny, bluff Geraldine Macy.

“No; I’m not a silly like Mignon,” mumbled Jerry gruffly. “You ought to know that by this time without asking me.”

“Jerry Macy, I believe you are angry with me,” declared Marjorie, looking still more troubled.

“No, I’m not,” came the quick retort. “I’m not blind, either, and my head isn’t made of wood.”

“What do you mean?” It was Marjorie’s turn to speak quickly.

“Just what I say,” asserted Jerry. “You’ve had some sort of trouble over that Farnham girl. Rowena – humph! It ought to be Row-ena with a special accent on the Row. I knew by the way you looked and spoke of her day before yesterday that something had gone wrong. I’ll bet I know where you went on that errand, too. You went to her house. Now didn’t you?”

Marjorie gave a short laugh. It held a note of vexation. “Really, Jerry, you ought to be a detective. How did you know where I went yesterday after I left you?”

“Oh, I just guessed it. It’s like you to do that sort of thing. I’m dying to hear what it’s all about. Are you going to tell me now?” She accented the “now” quite triumphantly.

“I hadn’t intended to mention it to anyone, but I might as well tell you. You seem to know quite a little bit about it already. I can’t say anything more now. Here come Susan and Muriel. We’ll talk of it after we leave them at their street. By the way, where is Constance? She wasn’t in school this morning.”

“Don’t know. I wondered about her, too. She didn’t say yesterday that she wasn’t coming to school to-day. Maybe her father marched into Gray Gables without notice.”

“Perhaps. I’ll ask the girls if they know.”

Neither Susan, Muriel nor Irma, the latter joining the quartette immediately after, knew the reason for Constance Stevens’ absence. The five girls trooped out of the building together, chatting gaily as they started home for luncheon. Marjorie gave a little shiver as it occurred to her how near she had come to losing her right to be a pupil of Sanford High. She felt that nothing save the loss of her dear ones would have hurt her more than to have been dismissed from school under a cloud.

“Now tell me everything,” began Jerry, the moment they had parted from the three girls to continue on up the pleasant, tree-lined avenue.

“I think that was simply awful,” burst forth the now irate Jerry, as Marjorie concluded her narration. “Talk about Mignon – she’s an angel with beautiful feathery wings, when you come to compare her with Row-ena. I hope the Board says she can’t set foot in school again. That’s what I hope. I’ll tell my father to vote against letting her try any more examinations. That’s what I’ll do.”

“You mustn’t do that.” Marjorie spoke with unusual severity. “What I’ve said to you is in confidence. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair. For her father’s and mother’s sake I think she ought to have another chance. It might be the very best thing for her to go to high school. She will be far better off at home than away at boarding school. If she could go away to a college it would be different. Colleges are more strict and dignified. A girl just has to live up to their traditions. General says that even in the most select boarding schools the girls have too much liberty. So you see it wouldn’t be a good place for this girl.”

“I see you’re a goose,” was Jerry’s unflattering comment. “You’re a dear goose, though. You certainly have the reform habit. I can tell you, though, that you are all wrong about this Farnham girl. You remember how beautifully we reformed Mignon, and how grateful she was. Mignon’s a mere infant beside gentle, little Row-ena. You notice I still say Row. It’s a very good name for her. Of course, we could change off occasionally and call her Fightena, or Quarrelena, or Scrapena.” Jerry giggled at her own witticism.

Marjorie could not forbear joining her. Jerry’s disapproval of things was usually tinged with comedy. “You’re a heartless person, Jeremiah,” she reproved lightly. “I’m not going to try to reform Miss Farnham. I can’t imagine her as taking kindly to it. I’m only saying that she ought to have another chance.”

“Well, if you can stand it I can,” Jerry sighed, then chuckled as her vivid imagination pictured to her the high-handed Rowena struggling in the clutches of reform. “Miss Archer ought to have thought twice and spoken once,” she added grimly. “That’s what she’s always preaching to us to do.” Jerry was no respecter of personages.

“I can’t blame her much,” Marjorie shook her head. “It’s dreadful to think that someone you’ve trusted is dishonorable. It hurts a good deal worse than if it were someone you had expected would fail you. I know.”

“I suppose you do.” Jerry understood the significant “I know.” Rather more gently she continued: “Perhaps you’re right about Fightena, I mean Row-ena. You generally are right, only you’ve got into some tangled webs trying to prove it. Anyway, she won’t be a junior if she does manage to get into school. She’ll be a sophomore. I hope she stays where she belongs. You’d better look out for her, though. If she really thinks you wrote that anonymous letter – I don’t believe she does – she’ll try to get even. With Mignon La Salle to help, she might bother you a good deal. I hope they have a falling out.”

“You are always hoping some terrible thing,” laughed Marjorie. “You have the hoping habit, and your hopes about other people are really horrifying.”

“Never mind, they never amount to much,” consoled Jerry with a chuckle. “I’ve been hoping awful things about people I don’t like for years and that’s all the good it’s ever done.”

“I think I’ll run over to Gray Gables after school,” Marjorie changed the subject with sudden abruptness. “Want to go with me?”

“I’ll go,” assented Jerry. “I owe Charlie a box of candy. I promised it to him the night of Mary’s farewell party. Mary wrote me a dandy letter. Did I tell you about it?”

“No. I’ve had one from her, too; eighteen pages.”

“Some letter. Mine was only ten.”

The introduction of Mary’s name into the conversation kept the two girls busy talking until they were about to part company.

“Don’t forget you are going with me to see Constance,” reminded Marjorie as Jerry left her at the Macys’ gate.

“Do you believe that I could possibly forget?” Jerry laid a fat hand over her heart in ridiculous imitation of a certain sentimental high school youth whom Marjorie continually endeavored to dodge.

“See that you don’t,” was her laughing retort. “Shall we ask Muriel, Susan and Irma to go with us?”

“None of them can go. Muriel has to take a piano lesson. Susan has a date with her dressmaker, and Irma’s going shopping with her mother. You see I know everything about everybody,” asserted Jerry, unconsciously repeating Constance Stevens’ very words.

“You surely do,” Marjorie agreed. “Good-bye, then. I’ll meet you in the locker room after school to-night.”

“My name is Johnny-on-the-spot,” returned the irrepressible Jerry over her shoulder.

“Oh, dear!” Marjorie exclaimed in impatience, as she walked into the locker room at the end of the afternoon session to find Jerry already there ahead of her. “I’ve left my Cæsar in my desk. I’ll have to go back after it. That lesson for to-morrow is dreadfully long. Somehow I couldn’t keep my attention on study that last hour, so I just bundled all my books together and thought I’d put in a busy evening. I don’t see how I missed my Commentaries. It shows that my mind was wandering.”

“Come on over to my house this evening. You can use my Cæsar. We’ll put one over on the busy little bee and have some fun afterward. Besides, Hal will be grateful to me for a week. I’ll make good use of his gratitude, too,” grinned wily Jerry.

Marjorie’s cheeks grew delightfully pink. In her frank, girlish fashion she was very fond of Jerry’s handsome brother. Although her liking for him was not one of foolish sentimentality, she could not help being a trifle pleased at this direct insinuation of his preference for her.

“All right. I’m sure Captain will say ‘yes,’” she made reply. “I won’t bother to go back after my book. If I did Miss Merton might snap at me. I try to keep out of her way as much as I can. Where are the girls? Have they gone?”

“Yes, they beat it in a hurry. Come on. Let’s be on our way.” Though deplorably addicted to slang, Jerry was at least forcefully succinct.

It was a fairly long walk to Gray Gables, but their way led through one of the prettiest parts of Sanford. Situated almost on the outskirts of the town, the picturesque dwelling was in itself one of the beauty spots of the thriving little city.

“There’s the Jail.” Jerry indexed a plump finger toward the inhospitable stone house which Marjorie had so lately visited. The two girls had reached the point where a turn in the wide, elm-shaded avenue brought them within sight of the La Salle and Farnham properties. “It would be a good place for Row-ena, if she had to stay locked up there. She could think over her sins and reform without help. I hope – ”

“There you go again,” laughed Marjorie. “Don’t do it. Suppose some day all these things you have hoped about other people were to come back to you.”

“I won’t worry about it until they do,” Jerry made optimistic answer. “If I – ” She checked herself to stare at a runabout that shot past them, driven at a reckless rate of speed by an elfish-faced girl. “There they go!” she exclaimed. “Did you see who was in that machine? Oh, look! They’re slowing up! Now they’ve stopped! I hope they’ve had a breakdown.”

Marjorie’s eyes were already riveted on the runabout which they were now approaching. A tall figure whom she at once recognized as belonging to Rowena Farnham was in the act of emerging from the machine. Hatless, her auburn head gleaming in the sun, her black eyes flaming challenge, she stood at one side of the runabout, drawn up for battle.

“She’s waiting for us!” gasped Jerry. “Let’s turn around and walk the other way, just to fool her. No; let’s not. I guess we can hold our own.”

“I shall have nothing to say to her,” decided Marjorie, a youthful picture of cold disdain. “Don’t you say a word, either, Jerry. We’ll walk on about our own business, just as though we didn’t even see her.”

Jerry had no time to reply. Almost immediately they caught up with the belligerent Rowena. Realizing that her quarry was about to elude her, she sprang squarely in front of them with, “Wait a minute. I’ve something to say to you.” The “you” was directed at Marjorie.

Marjorie was about to circle the lively impediment and move on, when Mignon La Salle called from the runabout, “I told you she was a coward, Rowena.” A scornful laugh accompanied the insult.

That settled it. Marjorie’s recent resolution flew to the winds. “I will hear whatever you have to say,” she declared quietly, stopping short.

“I don’t very well see how you can do anything else,” sneered Rowena. “I suppose you think that you gained a great deal by your tale-bearing yesterday, don’t you? Let me tell you, you’ve made a mistake. I’m going to be a sophomore in Sanford High School just the same. You’ll see. You are a sneaking little prig, and I’m going to make it my business to let every girl in school know it. You can’t – ”

“You can’t talk like that to Marjorie Dean.” Before Marjorie could reply, Jerry Macy leaped into a hot defense. “I won’t have it! She is my friend.”

“Shh! Jerry, please don’t,” Marjorie protested.

“I will. Don’t stop me. You,” she glared at Rowena, “make me sick. I could tell you in about one minute where you get off at, but it isn’t worth the waste of breath. Marjorie Dean has more friends in a minute in Sanford High than you’ll ever have. You think you and Mignon La Salle can do a whole lot. Better not try it, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Now get busy and beat it. You’re blocking the highway.”

“What a delightful person you are,” jeered Rowena. “Just the sort of friend I’d imagine Miss Dean might have. As I have had the pleasure of telling her what I think of her, you may as well hear my opinion of yourself. You are the rudest girl I ever met, and the slangiest. My father and mother would never forgive me if they knew I even spoke to such a girl.” Having delivered herself of this Parthian shot, Rowena wheeled and stepped into the runabout with, “Go ahead, Mignon. I don’t care to be seen talking with such persons.”

As the runabout started away with a defiant chug, Jerry and Marjorie stared at each other in silence.

“I hope – ” began Jerry, then stopped. “Say,” she went on the next instant, “that was what Hal would call a hot shot, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Marjorie admitted. In spite of her vexation at the unexpected attack, she could hardly repress a smile. Quite unknowingly Rowena had attacked Jerry’s pet failing. Her constant use of popular slang was a severe cross to both her father and mother. Over and over she had been lectured by them on this very subject, only to maintain that if Hal used slang she saw no reason why she shouldn’t. To please them she made spasmodic efforts toward polite English, but when excited or angry she was certain to drop back into this forceful but inelegant vernacular.

“I suppose I do use a whole lot of slang.” Jerry made the admission rather ruefully. “Mother says I’m the limit. There I go again. I mean mother says I’m – what am I?” she asked with a giggle.

“You are a very good friend, Jerry.” Marjorie looked her affection for the crestfallen champion of her rights. “I wouldn’t worry about what she – Miss Farnham says. If you think you ought not to use slang, then just try not to use it.” Marjorie was too greatly touched by Jerry’s loyalty to peck at this minor failing. “What a strange combination those two girls make!” she mused. “I can’t imagine them being friends for very long. They are both too fond of having their own way. I must say I wasn’t scared by all those threats. It isn’t what others say about one that counts, it’s what one really is that makes a difference.”

“That’s just what I think,” agreed Jerry. “We all know Mignon so well now that we can pretty nearly beat her at her own game. As for this Rowena, she’d better wait until she gets back into Sanford High before she plans to do much. All that sort of thing is so silly and useless, now isn’t it? It reminds me of these blood-and-thunder movies like ‘The Curse of a Red Hot Hate,’ or ‘The Double-dyed Villain’s Horrible Revenge,’ or ‘The Iron Hand of Hatred’s Death-Dealing Wallop.’” Jerry saw fit to chuckle at this last creation of fancifully appropriate title. “You’re right about those two, though. Don’t you remember I said the same thing when I first told you of this Farnham girl? Mignon has met her match, at last. She’ll find it out, too, before she’s many weeks older, or my name’s not Jerry Macy.”