CHAPTER IV: A REAL FRESHMAN AT LAST
Mother suggested putting up a lunch for the children on the secondmorning of school, but Dick said that they would not need any. “One ofthe kids said that we get out the same time tomorrow,” said he. AndBetty corroborated Dick’s statement.
“I’ll not have to wait in line today, Mother,” said Betty. “That’s allattended to. I know just what to do. You go to your home room, dowhatever you are told to do and I guess you report to your differentteachers. We get out at twelve?thirty. After we really have classes andtwo sessions there will be a place to get lunches, somewhere upstairs.”
Back again in the echoing halls of the school building, Betty felt thatthe worst was over, yet she was both lonely and a little timid in regardto what was still before her. Oh for Janet or some one of the girls sheknew! Other girls, who must have been in the eighth grade together, werewalking arm in arm, or with arms around each other’s waist as theyapproached the door of the same home room to which Betty’s feet werecarrying her. She wondered if poor little Doris felt the same way. Shewent into the school room with the others, finding its back seats wellfilled already. Accordingly she dropped into the nearest front seat,which was on the outside row near the door.
As it was not polite to stare, she believed, she did not look at thegirls sitting around her except for glances here and there; but it wasperfectly legitimate to gaze forward at the home room teacher. Was shegoing to like her?
Two teachers were standing, near the large desk in front and before theblackboard, which covered its appropriate space on three walls. Thefourth side of the room was devoted to windows. The teachers werelaughing and talking together, apparently in the best of spirits. Then agong rang, or something made a sound in the halls and a correspondingring in the room. Immediately one of the ladies departed and the otherturned to face the class with a great change of countenance, not exactlystern, Betty thought, but it was quite obvious that her home roomteacher was ready to handle any obstreperous little freshman who did notwant to keep order.
But no one was disorderly this morning. It was an event to enter highschool. The expectant faces met the dignified survey of the teacher. Indue time she explained what was to be done. Cards were there from theoffice. Schedules had been made out for each one. They were to report totheir respective teachers at the rooms whose numbers were given. Lockerscould not be given for some time. They would be obliged to carry theirbooks and take them home, but it was remarked that they would want tostudy at home in any event. Books would be given out on the next day.
“Oh, then, you didn’t have to buy any books,” Betty thought. Shewondered if her mother would like that. They would never buy any secondhand books and her mother had ideas on germs. There were a number ofquestions that Betty would have liked to ask as the teacher talked, butshe did not dare interrupt. There seemed to be too many things toremember. Of course, it was easier for the girls and boys that lived inthe city all the time.
“And now,” the teacher was saying, “I want you to give your wholeattention to one thing. On these cards that I am giving you, you willsee what you are to write; and while I know that this is all rather newto you, that fact is not going to excuse you for making mistakes in whatis really important. Pay attention and do not write until you are sureyou know what to write down.
“Perhaps you wonder why I am saying this, but if you saw some of thecards that we have had in past years, you would not wonder at all. Whenyou read that line saying the year of your birth, don’t put down thepresent year. Girls less than a year old are not admitted to thefreshman class!”
There was a subdued ripple of laughter at this, though it was justpossible that some of the girls did not understand the joke. A fewlooked worried. But Betty had never been really afraid of teachers,having had no cause to be afraid, and she did not intend to begin now.Very carefully she read over the list of what she was supposed torecord; and then, after the teacher was through with her explanation,she started in. There was nothing very bad about this. Of course theywanted to know your address and who your father and mother were andeverything.
“Elizabeth Virginia Lee,” she wrote, her name “in full,” in carefulround and legible hand. Writing was not hard for Betty, which wasfortunate and would make her entire school life easier for her. Bettyhad been named for two grandmothers. At present she “rather hated it,”the long names, but she always added that they were good, sensible namesand that her mother like them.
Betty remembered the year of her birth and was not obliged to countback, as the teacher had suggested might be necessary. Indeed, theteacher had grown a little sarcastic while remarking that “they” were“not particularly interested in mere birthdays,” and that “birthdaypresents were not given.”
A colored girl across the aisle from Betty looked at the teacher withsuch a blank stare at this that Betty’s amusement was increased. My, theteacher was funny. She wasn’t so bad and was rather pretty, too. OnceBetty’s intelligent and understanding look had caught the eye of herteacher as she was in the midst of one of the funny speeches and Bettywas sure that the twinkle and comical raising of the eyebrows was forher.
“She shan’t have any reason to make fun of _my_ card,” thought Betty.“She looked at me as if she thought I had some sense, anyhow.” Butteachers were accustomed to find response in Betty Lee’s eyes and themind back of them. At this stage, however, and particularly when thegirls were dismissed, to find their respective teachers and the roomswhere they were to recite, Betty was sure that she had no mind at all.If she had only known some one! But every one was busy with her ownaffairs, or went off with some other girls. And that building! Would sheever learn where to go? Luckily her home room teacher taught one of thefreshman classes in which she had been placed and in the same room. Thatwas one off the list very shortly.
The halls were full of wandering pupils on the same errands thatconcerned Betty; but her mind was too set upon her purpose to see themindividually until once, when she was almost run over by a tall lad whocame flying around the corner from a run down a stairway, she recognizedthe boy who had stood back of her in line the day before.
“Oh, pardon me, _please_!” exclaimed the boy. “I had no business to dothat. I knocked your purse out of your hand and everything!” Stooping topick up Betty’s purse and scattered notes and slips, he added “I believeyou were standing in line just ahead of me yesterday. Did you get allfixed up?”
“Yes; and I’m just finding my class rooms now.”
“That’s fine. You’re not from one of our schools–at least I couldn’thelp seeing that the envelope you had didn’t have a city address.”
“No; we just moved here and everything is new.”
“Well, I hope you like it. This is a great school.”
“Oh, isn’t it! I suppose you’re a senior and know all about everything.”
The boy laughed. “Not exactly ‘everything,’” said he, “and I’m a junior.I hope I meet you again, but not to pretty nearly knock you over.”
“Oh, that was all right,” replied Betty. “You didn’t hurt me any.”
The boy started on, then stopped. “By the way, where are you living?”
Betty named the suburb and the street.
“I thought I saw you on the car yesterday. I live out that way, too, andmaybe I’ll come around some time–that is, if it’s all right.”
“We should be glad to get acquainted,” said Betty, who felt sure thatshe could safely be friendly with this kind of a boy, who had looked sodistressed at the results of his haste and had clutched her just in timeto keep her from falling. “We don’t know much of anybody yet, for Motherand Father came down in a hurry to find a house.”
“Oh, there’s the girl I was hurrying to catch,” suddenly said the boycalled Ted, as a girl came from the direction from which Betty had beencoming. “Louise, come here and meet one of the new freshmen. ProbablyI’d better know your name, if I am to introduce you. Mine is TedDorrance.”
“I am Betty Lee,” smiled Betty, looking up at a tall, handsome girl whomshe remembered to have noticed before in the hall and whom she found tobe Louise Madison.
“Lou has a lot to do with one of the school clubs and is always lookingfor good material,” joked Ted. “I had my eye on this young lady for youyesterday. Any relation to Robert E. Lee?”
Betty shook her head. “We’re from the New England Lees, but I supposeback in England the two families were connected.”
“Well, the name Lee won’t hurt you any with the Southern families inthis town, and there are a good many of them. But we’re keeping you andI’ve got to see you, Lou, about a matter of business.”
“All right,” said the older girl. “I’ll see you again, Betty, and I’mreal glad to have met you.”
That was interesting, thought Betty, as she climbed the same stairs downwhich Ted Dorrance had been running. Louise Madison must be a wonderfulgirl. She seemed to be perfectly at home–perhaps she was a senior. Bettywondered what sort of a club it could be that freshmen could join.Louise had passed her a few moments before Ted had come dashing down.She must have finished whatever errand she had and started back verysoon. Well, she now knew two pupils in this school, but not a freshman!
This time Betty was ready at twelve?thirty to start home with the rest.She just made the same street?car with Dick and Doris and listened totheir accounts on the way home. Like Betty, Doris did not know any onein her class, though Doris said that they “smiled at each other;” butDick knew several of the boys and had found out all sorts of facts,particularly those relating to athletics. “There was a bunch of ustalking together,” said he, “and we’re going to have some great gym workand everything. The eighth grade boys said that they have great games atLyon High School. Did you take in the size of that stadium, Betty? And afellow they called Joe said that he helped with a stunt the junior highhad at the faculty and senior basketball game last winter. That’s a sortof funny affair and the senior team usually beats, though when theathletic teachers play with the rest of the faculty it isn’t so deadeasy, I guess, from what they said. But first they have a sort ofathletic or gym show. I’d like to be on it.”
“Yes, and break your neck,” remarked Doris with sisterly lack of beingimpressed.
“Never you mind. The girls do something or other, too. Maybe you’ll_have_ to, so far as I know.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, I’ll never do a thing! Couldn’t you getexcused, Betty?”
“Don’t worry, Doris. It isn’t likely that you’d have to do anything toohard for you. And there’s always Mother, and Father, to decide what isbest for us.”
“But they always stand by anything school does.”
“Of course, because there’s never anything out of the way. But theywouldn’t let anything happen to us if there _were_ anything that wasn’tfair or right. Gracious me, if I hadn’t anything more to worry aboutthan what may happen next _winter_ I’d be thankful. What are yourteachers like?”
That started the children on a new track and Betty had amusing anddetailed descriptions of what had happened and what this teacher andanother were like. Doris was in a home room for girls and Dick in onefor boys. “There are a great many of us boys,” said Dick with muchdignity. “I don’t know just how many but I shall find out. Then when youwrite to Janet, be sure to have her tell Bill.”
“Can’t you write to Bill yourself?”
“I don’t like to write letters,” calmly replied Dick. “Besides, Billmight think I was getting stuck up telling him such big stories as I’dhave to tell.”
“And I suppose Janet won’t think _I’m_ stuck up?”
“Janet will think that everything you do is perfect, just as she alwayshas.”
“That is news to me, Dick. Why we’ve had some of the most–well,_disagreeing_ arguments over things that you ever heard of.”
“Of course. Janet has a mind of her own. But all the same you needn’tworry over what Janet would think. I know. Bill’s told me.”
“Then you think I’d dare write Janet everything about Lyon High, do you?Of course, I’m going to risk it, Dickie, anyway. And I think it was niceof Bill to tell you that.”
“Oh, Bill didn’t do it to be nice. He thought Janet was silly.”
This was not so flattering, but Betty laughed. She had brought it outherself.