CHAPTER X
AN EXCITING FINISH
Affairs at Briarwood went at high speed toward the end of the term.Everybody was busy. A girl who did not work, or who had no interest in herstudies, fell behind very quickly.
Ann Hicks was spurred to do her best by the activities of her mates. Shedid not like any of them well enough--save those in the two neighboringquartette rooms in her dormitory building--to accept defeat from them. Shebegan to make a better appearance in recitations, and her marks becamebetter.
They all had extra interests save Ann herself. Helen Cameron was in theschool orchestra and played first violin with a hope of getting solo partsin time. She loved the instrument, and in the evening, before theelectricity was turned on, she often played in the room, delighting themusic-loving Ann.
Sometimes Ruth sang to her chum's accompaniment. Ruth's voice was sosweet, so true and tender, and she sang ballads with such feeling, thatAnn often was glad it was dark in the room. The western girl considered it"soft" to weep, but Ruth's singing brought the tears to her eyes.
Mercy Curtis even gave up her beloved books during the hour of theseinformal concerts. Other times she would have railed because she could notstudy. Mercy was as hungry for lessons as Heavy Stone was for layer-cakeand macaroons.
"That's all that's left me," croaked the lame girl, when she was in one ofher most difficult moods. "I'll learn all there is to be learned. I'llstuff my head full. Then, when other girls laugh at my crooked back andweak legs, I'll shame 'em by knowing more out of books."
"Oh, what a mean way to put it!" gasped Helen.
"I don't care, Miss! You never had your back ache you and your legs gowabbly--No person with a bad back and such aches and pains as I have, wasever good-natured!"
"Think of Aunt Alvirah," murmured Ruth, gently.
"Oh, well--she isn't just human!" gasped the lame girl.
"She is very human, I think," Ruth returned.
"No. She's an angel. And no angel was ever called 'Curtis,'" declared theother, her eyes snapping.
"But I believe there must be an angel somewhere named 'Mercy,'" Ruthresponded, still softly.
However, it was understood that Mercy was aiming to be the crack scholarof her class. There was a scholarship to be won, and Mercy hoped to get itand to go to college two years later.
Even Jennie Stone declared she was going in for "extras."
"What, pray?" scoffed The Fox. "All your spare time is taken up in eatingnow, Miss."
"All right. I'll go in for the heavyweight championship at table,"declared the plump girl, good-naturedly. "At least, the result willdoubtless be visible."
Ann began to wonder what she was studying for. All these other girlsseemed to have some particular object. Was she going to school without anyreal reason for it?
Uncle Bill would be proud of her, of course. She practised assiduously toperfect her piano playing. That was something that would show out inBullhide and on the ranch. Uncle Bill would crow over her playing just ashe did over her bareback riding.
But Ann was not entirely satisfied with these thoughts. Nor was shecontented with the fact that she had begun to make her mates respect her.There was something lacking.
She had half a mind to refuse Belle Tingley's invitation to Cliff Island.In her heart Ann believed she was included in the party because Bellewould have been ashamed to ignore her, and Ruth would not have gone hadAnn not been asked.
To tell the truth Ann was hungry for the girls to like her forherself--for some attribute of character which she honestly possessed. Shehad never had to think of such things before. In her western home it hadnever crossed her mind whether people liked her, or not. Everybody aboutSilver Ranch had been uniformly kind to her.
Belle's holiday party was to be made up of the eight girls in the twoquartette rooms, with Madge Steele, the senior; Madge's brother, Bobbins,Tom Cameron, little Busy Izzy Phelps, and Belle's own brothers.
"Of course, we've got to have the boys," declared Helen. "No fun withoutthem."
Mercy had tried to beg off at first; then she had agreed to go, if shecould take half a trunkful of books with her.
Briarwood girls were as busy as bees in June during these last few days ofthe first half. The second half was broken by the Easter vacation and mostof the real hard work in study came before Christmas.
There was going to be a school play after Christmas, and the parts weregiven out before the holidays. Helen was going to play and Ruth to sing.It did seem to Ann as though every girl was happy and busy but herself.
The last day of the term was in sight. There was to be the usualentertainment and a dance at night. The hall had to be trimmed with greensand those girls--of the junior and senior classes--who could, wereappointed to help gather the decorations.
"I don't want to go," objected Ann.
"Goosie!" cried Helen. "Of course you do. It will be fun."
"Not for me," returned the ranch girl, grimly. "Do you see who is going tohead the party? That Mitchell girl. She's always nasty to me."
"Be nasty to her!" snapped Mercy, from her corner.
"Now, Mercy!" begged Ruth, shaking a finger at the lame girl.
"I wouldn't mind what Mitchell says or does," sniffed The Fox.
"Fibber!" exclaimed Mercy.
"I never tell lies, Miss," said Mary Cox, tossing her head.
"Humph!" ejaculated the somewhat spiteful Mercy, "do you call yourself afemale George Washington?"
"No. Marthy Washington," laughed Heavy.
"Only her husband couldn't lie," declared Mercy. "And at that, they saythat somebody wished to change the epitaph on his tomb to read: 'Here liesGeorge Washington--for the first time!'"
"Everybody is tempted to tell a fib some time," sighed Helen.
"And falls, too," exclaimed Mercy.
"I must say I don't believe there ever was anybody but Washington thatdidn't tell a lie. It's awfully hard to be exactly truthful always," saidLluella. "You remember that time in the primary grade, just after we'dcome here to Briarwood, Belle?"
"Do I?" laughed Belle Tingley. "You fibbed all right then, Miss."
"It wasn't very bad--and I did _want_ to see the whole school so much.So--so I took one of my pencils to our teacher and asked her if she wouldask the other scholars if it was theirs.
"Of course, all the other girls in our room said it wasn't," proceededLluella. "Then teacher said just what I wanted her to say: 'You mayinquire in the other classes.' So I went around and saw all the otherclasses and had a real nice time.
"But when I got back with the pencil in my hand still, Belle come neargetting me into trouble."
"Uh-huh!" admitted Belle, nodding.
"How?" asked somebody.
"She just whispered--right out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and youknow it!' And I had to say--right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, whatcould I have said else? But it was an awful fib, I s'pose."
The assembled girls laughed. But Ann Hicks was still seriously inclinednot to go into the woods, although she had no idea of telling a fib aboutit. And because she was too proud to say to the teacher in charge that shefeared Miss Mitchell's tongue, the western girl joined thegreens-gathering party at the very last minute.
There were two four-seated sleighs, for there was a hard-packed whitetrack into the woods toward Triton Lake. Old Dolliver drove one, and hishelper manned the other. The English teacher was in charge. She hoped tofind bushels of holly berries and cedar buds as well as the materials forwreaths.
One pair of the horses was western--high-spirited, hard-bitted mustangs.Ann Hicks recognized them before she got into the sleigh. How they pulledand danced, and tossed the froth from their bits!
"I feel just as they do," thought the girl. "I'd love to break out, andkick, and bite, and act the very Old Boy! Poor things! How they must missthe plains and the free range."
The other girls wondered what made her so silent. The tang of the frostyair, and the ring of the ponies' hoofs, and th
e jingle of the bells putplenty of life and fun into her mates; but Ann remained morose.
They reached the edge of the swamp and the girls alighted with merry shoutand song. They were all armed with big shears or sharp knives, but theberries grew high, and Old Dolliver's boy had to climb for them.
Then the accident occurred--a totally unexpected and unlooked foraccident. In stepping out on a high branch, the boy slipped, fell, andcame down to the ground, hitting each intervening limb, and so saving hislife, but dashing every bit of breath from his lungs, it seemed!
The girls ran together, screaming. The teacher almost fainted. OldDolliver stooped over the fallen boy and wiped the blood from his lips.
"Don't tech him!" he croaked. "He's broke ev'ry bone in his body, I makeno doubt. An' he'd oughter have a doctor----"
"I'll get one," said Ann Hicks, briskly, in the old man's ear. "Where'sthe nearest--and the best?"
"Doc Haverly at Lumberton."
"I'll get him."
"It's six miles, Miss. You'd never walk it. I'll take one of theteams----"
"You stay with him," jerked out Ann. "I can ride."
"Ride? Them ain't ridin' hosses, Miss," declared Old Dolliver.
"If a horse has got four legs he can be ridden," declared the girl fromthe ranch, succinctly.
"Take the off one on my team, then----"
"That old plug? I guess not!" exclaimed Ann, and was off.
She unharnessed one of the pitching, snapping mustangs. "Whoa--easy! Youwouldn't bite me, you know," she crooned, and the mustang thrust forwardhis ears and listened.
She dropped off the heavy harness. The bridle she allowed to remain, butthere was no saddle. The English teacher came to her senses, suddenly.
"That creature will kill you!" she cried, seeing what Ann was about.
"Then he'll be the first horse that ever did it," drawled Ann. "Hi, yi,yi! We're off!"
To the horror of the teacher, to the surprise of Old Dolliver, and to thedelight of the other girls, Ann Hicks swung herself astride of the dancingpony, dug her heels into his ribs, and the next moment had darted out ofsight down the wood road.