CHAPTER XX
THE SECOND DEGREE
"My patience, what a world of trouble this is!" sighed Betty to herself,but aloud she said cheerily: "What's the matter with Norma?"
Norma sat up, mopping her eyes.
"Oh, Betty," she choked, "I don't believe Alice and I can come backafter Christmas! They've had a fire in Glenside and a house dad ownsthere burned. He hasn't a cent of insurance, and the mortgagee takesthe ground. So that's the rental right out of our income. Besides,grandma has had an operation on her eyes and she has to spend weeks inan expensive Philadelphia hospital. Even with the small fees thesurgeons charge because of dad, the board will amount to more than hecan afford to pay. Alice and I ought to be learning stenography orsomething useful."
"Well, now, your father would say," suggested Betty, with determinedoptimism, "that the Christmas vacation is too far off to make any plansabout what you're going to do afterward. You know Bobby Littell has sether heart on you and Alice spending the recess with them in Washington.Anyway, lots of things can turn up before Christmas, Norma--even thetreasure!"
Norma tried to smile.
"I dream about that chasm nearly every night," she said. "Sometimes Ithink the Indians came back and got the stuff, Betty. They're so cleverabout climbing, and I know they wouldn't easily give up."
"Nonsense!" chided Betty. "The treasure is there, and we've just got tothink up a way to get it out. At all costs you mustn't cry yourself sickabout the future--you'll spoil all the fun awaiting you in the weeksbefore Christmas. And you know you can't study as well when you'redepressed, and, goodness knows! one has to study at Shadyside."
"I've a headache now," confessed Norma, pushing her tumbled hair outof her eyes. "I can't go down to dinner--I'm a perfect sight. There'sthe bell!"
"Just lie down and try to rest," advised Betty, smoothing the tangledcovers with a deft hand. "I'll bring you up some supper on a tray. AuntNancy thinks you're an angel on general principles, and she has a specialsoft spot in her heart for you because her mother used to cook for yourgrandmother. Come on, Alice, we'll turn the light out and let her resther eyes."
"I do wish some one would think up a way to get those pearls and thegold," fretted Betty, turning restlessly on her pillow that night. "IfNorma and Alice are ever going to be well-off now is the time. Whenthey're so old they can't walk, money won't do 'em any good!"
Which showed that Betty, for all her sound sense, was still a littlegirl. Very old ladies, who can not walk, certainly need money to makethem comfortable and keep them so.
The next night was Friday, and Betty welcomed the prospect of the seconddegree necessary to stamp the freshmen as full-fledged members of theMysterious For. The week had been noticeably tinged with indigo for atleast two of Betty's friends, and she hoped the initiation might taketheir minds from their troubles.
The second degree, it was whispered about among the girls, was bound tobe a "hummer."
"They say it's a test of your character," said Bobby, with a shiver."Somehow, Betty, my character oozes out of my shoes when it knows itshould be prancing up to the firing line."
"I guess you imagine that," smiled Betty. "Speak sternly to it, Bobby,and explain that funking is out of the question."
However, more girls than Bobby found it necessary to clutch at theiroozing courage when, upon assembling in the large hall, the lightssuddenly went out. In the shadows, four white veiled figures were seenslowly to mount the platform.
"To-night," said one of them, stretching out a long arm and pointingtoward the fascinated and expectant audience, "we are your fates! Youhave come to the final tests. We have no choice in these tests, nor haveyou. You are to come forward, one at a time, and take a slip from thisbasket here on the table. Go directly to your room after drawing yourslip, and there open it and follow the directions explicitly. Come to theplatform in the order in which you are seated, please."
The lights did not come on, and one by one the girls stumbled up thesteps to the platform, felt around in the basket, and drew a slip. Thenthey hurried away to their rooms to see what was to happen next.
Bobby and Betty could hardly wait to open their notes, and before theyhad them fairly digested, Frances and Libbie and Constance and Louise andthe Guerin girls were crowding in to compare notes.
"I have to go and ask Miss Prettyman if I may telephone to SalsetteAcademy and ask for a lost-and-found notice on their bulletin board,"wailed Bobby. "I'm supposed to have lost a pair of gloves at the lastfootball game. I always have the worst luck! Can't you imagine how MissPrettyman will lecture me? She'll say that at my age I ought to havesomething in my head besides excuses to talk to the boys!"
The girls laughed, recognizing the ring of prophecy in Bobby's speech.
"That's nothing--I'm to row Dora Estabrooke twice around the lake,"mourned Louise. "She weighs two hundred, if she weighs a pound. Thankgoodness, I don't have to do it to-night."
Norma was instructed to walk three times around the cellar, chanting"Little Boy Blue" before ten o'clock that night. Frances Martin, to herhorror, was enjoined to produce six live angle worms the followingmorning--"and you know I despise the wiggling things," she wailed. AliceGuerin, the silent member of the octette, was condemned to recite "TheChildren's Hour" in the dining room "between cereal and eggs." AndConstance Howard was told she must add up an unbelievably long column offigures and present the correct answer within half an hour. Constance's_bete noir_ was figures, and already these long columns danced dizzilybefore her eyes.
"You needn't tell me that chance made such canny selections," observedBetty. "One of those girls manipulated the right notes into our hands.Libbie, what does yours say?"
Libbie handed her slip of paper to Betty without a word.
"Go to bed at once," the latter read aloud.
There was a gale of laughter. Libbie, the curious, who dearly loved tohear and see, to be sent off to bed in the middle of the most wildlyexciting night they had known in weeks!
"Hurry," admonished Bobby. "You're disobeying by staying up this long.Where's your character, Libbie?"
Libbie scowled, but departed, grumbling that she didn't see why shecouldn't stay up and watch Norma walk down in the cellar.
"Mine is the most spooky," said Betty, when the door had closed behindLibbie. "Listen--I'm to climb the water tower at midnight and leave thiscard there to show I have complied."
She held out a little plain white card in a green envelope.
"Hark! was that somebody at the door?" asked Bobby, and she ran over toit lightly and jerked it open.
The corridor was empty.
"We're all nervous," remarked Betty lightly. "I'll set the alarm foreleven-forty-five and put the clock under my pillow so Miss Lacey won'thear it. I'll lie down all dressed, and then I won't have to use a light.She might see that through the transom."
"Don't you want some of us to go with you?" asked Constance. "We needn'tgo up into the tower, if you say not. But at least we could go that farwith you; you might fall off the roof."
"No, please, I'd rather go alone," said Betty firmly. "It's a test, yousee, and the idea isn't to make it easy. I'll be all right, and in themorning the girls will find the card and know I didn't flunk."
After the girls had gone away to their own rooms the clock was set for aquarter of twelve, but Betty and Bobby decided that they might as wellstay awake till midnight. They would lie down on their beds--Bettyinsisted that Bobby should undress and go to bed "right"--and wait forthe time to come. Within twenty minutes they were both sound asleep.
The muffled whir of her alarm clock awakened Betty. For a moment she wasdazed, then recollection cleared her mind. She slipped to the floorwithout waking Bobby and softly tiptoed from the room.
A dim light burned in the corridor, and Betty knew the way to the watertower. To reach it, one had to mount to the roof of the dormitorybuilding. Betty experienced a little difficulty with the obstinate catchof the scuttle cover, but she finally mastered it and stepped
out on thetarred graveled roof. The water tower, a huge tank on an iron framework,had a little enclosed room built directly under it reached by an ironladder. Here the engineer kept various plumbing tools. It was in thisroom that Betty was to leave the card.
The night wind blew damp and keen, and the stars overhead seemed very faraway. Betty had no sense of fear as she began to climb, mounting slowlyand feeling for each step with her hands. The friendly dark shut inaround her and somewhere in the distance a train whistle tooted shrilly.
She knew she had reached the last step when her hands encountered wood,and she felt about till she touched the knob of the door. It opened ather touch and she pulled herself in over the sill.
"Now the card," she whispered, feeling in her pocket.
A gust of wind fanned her cheek and something clicked.
The door had blown shut!