"Bless her dear heart," said David, "she is always thinking of the pleasure of others. Now about the football game. Bring your girls along and I'll do my best to give them a good time, although I'm generally anything but a success with new girls. However, Hippy makes up for what I lack. He can entertain a regiment of them, and not even exert himself.
Now I must leave you, for I have a very important engagement at home."
"In the laboratory, I suppose," said Anne teasingly.
"Just so," replied David. "Good-bye, girls. Let me know how many tickets you want for the game." He raised his cap, mounted his machine and was off down the street.
"It will seem good to have a frolic with the boys again, won't it?" said Grace to Anne as they strolled along.
"We do seem to be getting awfully serious and settled of late," replied Anne. "Why, this sorority business has taken up all our spare time lately. We've had so many special meetings."
"I know it," replied Grace, "but after Thanksgiving we'll only meet once in two weeks, for I must get my basketball team in shape, and you see all the members belong to the society."
"You ought to do extra good work this year," observed Anne, "for the team is absolutely harmonious. Last season seems like a dream to me now."
"It was real enough then," replied Grace grimly. "I have forgiven, long ago, but I have not forgotten the way some of those girls performed last year. It was remarkable that things ever straightened themselves. The clouds looked black for a while, didn't they?"
Anne pressed Grace's hand by way of answer. The sophomore year had been crowded with many trials, some of them positive school tragedies, in which Anne and Grace had been the principal actors.
"What are you two mooning over?" asked a gay voice, and the two girls turned with a start to find Julia Crosby grinning cheerfully at them.
"O Julia, how glad I am to see you at close range!" exclaimed Grace.
"Admiring you from a distance isn't a bit satisfactory."
"Business, children, business," said Julia briskly. "That's the only thing that keeps me from your side. The duties of the class president are many and irksome. At the present moment I've a duty on hand that I don't in the least relish, and I want your august assistance. Will you promise to help before I tell you?"
"Why, of course," answered Grace and Anne in the same breath. "What is it you want us to do?"
"Well, it seems that some of your juniors are still in need of discipline. You remember the hatchet that we buried last year with such pomp and ceremony?"
"Yes, yes," was the answer.
"This morning I overheard certain girls planning to go out to the Omnibus House after school to-morrow and dig up the poor hatchet and flaunt it in the seniors' faces the day of the opening basketball game, simply to rattle us. Just as though it wouldn't upset your team as much as ours. It's an idiotic trick, at any rate, and anything but funny. Now I propose to take four of our class, and you must select four of yours.
We'll hustle out there the minute school is over to-morrow, and be ready to receive the marauders when they arrive. Select your girls, but don't tell them what you want or they may tell some one about it beforehand."
"Well, of all impudence!" exclaimed Anne. "Who are the girls, Julia? Are you sure they're juniors?"
"The two I heard talking are juniors. I don't know who else is in it.
They'll be very much astonished to find us 'waiting at the church'--Omnibus House, I mean," said Julia, "and I imagine they'll feel rather silly, too."
"Tell us who they are, Julia," said Grace. "We don't want to go into this blindfolded."
"Wait and see," replied Julia tantalizingly. "Then you'll feel more indignant and can help my cause along all the better. I give you my word that the girls I overheard talking are not particular friends of yours.
You aren't going to back out, are you, and leave me without proper support?"
"Of course not," laughed Grace. "Don't worry. We'll support you, only you must agree to do all the talking."
"I shall endeavor to overcome their insane freshness with a few well-chosen words," Julia promised. "Be sure and be on hand early."
Grace chose Anne, Nora, Jessica and Marian Barber, the latter three being considerably mystified at her request, but nevertheless agreeing to be on hand when school closed. They were met at the gate by Julia and four other seniors, and the whole party set out for the Omnibus House without delay.
Grace walked with Julia, and the two girls found plenty to say to each other during the walk. Julia was studying hard, she told Grace. She wanted to enter Smith next year.
"I don't know where I shall go after I finish High School," said Grace.
"Ethel Post wants me to go to Wellesley. She'll be a junior when I'm a freshman. You know, she was graduated from High School last June and she could help me a lot in getting used to college. But I don't know whether I should like Wellesley. I shall not try to decide where I want to go for a while yet."
"Wherever we are we'll write and always be friends," said Julia, and Grace warmly acquiesced.
As they neared the old Omnibus House they could see no one about.
"We're early!" exclaimed Julia. "The enemy has not arrived. Thank goodness, it's not cold to-day or we might have a chilly vigil. Now listen, all ye faithful, while I set forth the object of this walk." She thereupon related what Grace and Anne already knew.
"What a shame!" cried Marian Barber. "It isn't the hatchet we care for, it's the principle of the thing. Give them what they deserve, Julia."
"Never fear," replied Julia. "I'll effectually attend to their case. Now we'd better dodge around the corner and keep out of sight until they get here. Then we'll swoop down upon them unawares."
The avengers hurriedly concealed themselves at the side of the old house where they could not be seen by an approaching party.
They had not waited long before they heard voices.
"They're coming," whispered Julia. "There are eight of them. Form in line and when they get nicely started, we'll circle about them and hem them in. I'll give you the signal."
The girls waited in silence. "They have trowels," Julia informed them from time to time. "They have a spade. They've begun to dig, and they are having their own troubles, for the ground is hard. All ready!
March!"
Softly the procession approached the spot where the marauders were energetically digging. Grace gave a little gasp, and reaching back caught Anne's hand.
The girl using the spade was Eleanor.
"Now I'm in for it," groaned Grace. "She's down on me now, and she'll be sure to think I organized the whole thing." For an instant Grace regretted making the promise to Julia, before learning the situation; then, holding her head a trifle more erect, she decided to make the best of her unfortunate predicament.
"It isn't Julia's fault," she thought. "She probably knows nothing about our acquaintance with Eleanor; besides, Eleanor has no business to play such tricks. Edna Wright must have told her all about last year."
Her reflections were cut short, for one of the girls glanced up from her digging with a sudden exclamation which drew all eyes toward Julia and her party.
"Well, little folks," said Julia in mock surprise, "what sort of a party is this? Are you making mud pies or are you pretending you are at the seashore?"
At Julia's first words Eleanor dropped the small spade she held and straightened up, the picture of defiance. Her glance traveled from girl to girl, and she curled her lip contemptuously as her eye rested on Grace and Anne. The other diggers looked sheepishly at Julia, who stood eyeing them in a way that made them feel "too foolish for anything," as one of them afterwards expressed it.
"Why don't you answer me, little girls?" asked Julia. "Has the kitty stolen your tongue?"
This was too much for Eleanor.
"How dare you speak to us in that manner and treat us as though we were children?" she burst forth. "What business is it of yours why we are here? Do you own this property?"
"Mercy, no," replied Julia composedly. "Do you?"
"No," replied Eleanor a trifle less rudely, "but we have as much right here as you have."