CHAPTER VI A MORAL OBLIGATION
Katherine's entry into High School life was a complete success--one ofthose rare, astonishing successes that happen about once in a decade. Theregular members of the class, who have been together since the beginning,will by constant effort have attained a fair measure of popularity by thefourth year, when suddenly a personality will appear out of the vast andseize and hold the center of the stage. Katherine's spectacular exploitat the Sandebago Circus was heralded far and wide, and when she enteredschool the following Monday morning she found herself already famous.Everywhere she was pointed out as "the girl who had ridden the donkey,""the girl with the funny voice," "the girl who made the screamingspeeches." Teachers agreed unanimously that she was the most erraticallybrilliant student they had ever had in their classes--when she couldremember to turn her work in. Her compositions were read out in class andbrought down the house. When she rose to recite you could hear a pindrop. It was an open secret that the two English teachers had drawn lotsto see who would get her, and not a few pupils suddenly discoveredconflicts in their recitations and got themselves changed into the classwhere Katherine was.
Her absent-mindedness soon became proverbial. Odd shoes--gloves of twodifferent colors--hat on hind side before, or somebody else's hataltogether--these were everyday occurrences. Her friends told withchuckles how she had climbed one flight of stairs too many on her way toMath class and walked into a Freshman English class, her mind busyworking out the solution of a problem in geometry. When some otherKatherine was called upon to recite she rose solemnly and, going to theboard, gave a masterly demonstration of a knotty theorem in solidgeometry, and then marched out with the class, serenely unconscious ofher mistake, oblivious to the laughter of the class and the amusement ofthe teacher, who let her go on without interruption to see how far shewould go. Her bewilderment when asked by the regular geometry teacher toexplain why she had cut class that morning was comical.
Possessing neither beauty, style, pretty clothes, nor all the dozen otherthings that make the ordinary girl popular, her very unusualness gave hera distinction, and inside of two weeks she was the best-known girl in thewhole school. To be counted as one of her friends was an honor, and to beable to say, "Katherine told me this," or, "Katherine did this up at ourhouse," was to incite the envy of less favored ones. The Uranians, themost exclusive and select girl's society in the school, voted her in as amember because they must have all the prominent girls, although theygenerally scorned both worth and brains, if clothed in poor garments, andgreat was their chagrin to find that their disdained rivals, the cleverand democratic Dramatic Club, had held a special meeting and taken her inthe afternoon before. Urania had not noticed that Katherine had beenwearing the Dramatic Club pin a whole day because she had stuck it over ahole in her stocking which she did not have time to mend.
How the Winnebagos exulted because Hinpoha had been polite enough toinvite her to the circus and she had consequently landed in their bosomthe first thing! No other group of girls would ever know her asintimately as they would. The Camp Fire idea appealed to her from thestart. The Open Door Lodge was a paradise for her. The ladder stairs werea constant source of delight.
"One would think you had never climbed a ladder before," said Hinpoha,watching curiously as Katherine climbed up and down and up again just forthe fun of the thing. Katherine draped her feet around a rung to supportherself and sat on the top bar.
"I never did," she said simply.
"Never climbed a ladder!" said Hinpoha incredulously. "Why, where did youlive?"
"In Arkansas," answered Katherine significantly. "Do you know," she wenton, "that until I came east I had never seen a flight of stairs? _I hadnever seen a flight of stairs!_" she repeated, as Hinpoha and the othergirls in the Lodge gasped unbelievingly. "We lived in a one-story house,the floor level with the ground, so you just walked in from the outsidewithout going up steps. The house was in the middle of a big farm, aslevel and flat as this floor. I rode ten miles to school and that wasbuilt just like our house. Oh, of course I knew there were such things asstairs, because I had seen them in pictures, but until I came here I hadnever seen any."
"But didn't you see any when you went traveling?" asked Hinpoha, stillincredulous.
"Never went traveling," returned Katherine. "It took considerablehustling to stay right where we were. One year the locusts ate upeverything, down to the clothes on the line, and we couldn't get enoughfeed to fatten the stock; the next year there were prairie fires thatlicked the earth as clean as a plate; one year the cattle all died ofdisease, and so on. It wasn't until this year that we came out aheadenough to send me here to school."
And when the girls heard what a hard time she had had they adored hermore than ever because she could be so funny when she had had so littleto be funny about.
Another thing that charmed her beyond measure was the color of the autumnleaves. The Winnebagos could hardly pull her past a tree. "There was onlyone tree in sight on our farm," she would tell them, "and that wasn'tgreen like the trees are in the east; it was just a dusty, greenish gray.And the leaves didn't turn colors in the fall; they just withered up anddropped off. Oh-h-h, look at that one over there--isn't it just toogorgeous for words?"
When we said that both teachers and pupils regarded Katherine as too goodto be true, we should have made one exception. That exception was MissSnively, the Senior Oratory teacher. Most of the teachers were liked bysome scholars and disliked by some, according to disposition orcircumstance; but all pupils agreed heartily that they did not like MissSnively. She was neither old nor bad looking; in fact, she was ratherhandsome when you saw her for the first time, but she was so bitinglysarcastic that her classes stood in fear and trembling of being singledout for some poisoned shaft. Sarcasm and ridicule are the most deadlyweapons to use against boys and girls of the high school age. They arenot old enough to know how to come back, and can only nurse the smart andwrithe impotently. And of all classes to have a sarcastic teacher, SeniorOratory is the worst. It is bad enough to stand up and make a speech withappropriate gestures before a sympathetic teacher who correctsdiplomatically and never, never laughs, but to have one who eyes youcoldly all the while and then gets up and does it the way you did, onlyten times worse--more buckets of tears had been shed over Senior Oratorythan all other subjects put together.
When Katherine entered the class Miss Snively took immediate exception toher voice. Miss Snively's particular hobby was Woman's Voice. Hers washigh and artificially sweet--it fairly oozed syrup--and she did her levelbest to make her girl pupils imitate it. So when Katherine began readingin her husky nasal drawl, Miss Snively promptly read the piece after her,imitating her voice as best she could, and then looked around the roomfor the laughter of the pupils which would complete Katherine'smortification. But nobody laughed. They all sympathized with Katherine.They had been in her shoes themselves. The blood mounted to Katherine'stemples when she realized that Miss Snively was deliberately making funof her, and a hurt look came into her eyes. She was sensitive about hervoice, even if she did get endless fun out of it. When Miss Snivelyhanded her the book again and bade her in sarcastic tones to read furtherfor the edification of the class, Katherine sat silent. To her horror shefound there was a lump in her throat and she would most likely break downutterly if she tried to say a word. She did not mean to be stubborn--shewas only waiting for control of her voice, for she was too proud to letMiss Snively see how badly she felt. So she sat silent, miserablytwisting her handkerchief in her hands.
"Go back to your session room," said Miss Snively sharply, who boasted ofher summary measures with her scholars. So Katherine left the room indisgrace. From that time on there was a marked antagonism between thosetwo. Miss Snively lost no chance to make Katherine ridiculous in class,and, while Katherine had too much respect for teachers to openly defyher, she "took off" her affected manners to delighted audiences outsideof class, and Miss Snively knew
it and was powerless to stop it. But,outside of her skirmishes with Miss Snively, Katherine's progress throughschool was a triumphal march.
In every school, and Washington High was no exception, there will befound various elements--some good and some bad. Color rushes, which hadgiven an annual vent to the mysterious feeling of hostility which alwaysexists between junior and senior classes, had been abolished. But thefeeling still existed, and manifested itself in various skirmishes. Theyear before, when the juniors gave their annual dance, the seniorscarried away the refreshments. On the night of the senior dance thelights refused to work, and, of course, the juniors were at the bottom ofthe mystery. The principal, thinking rightly that pranks of this kindreflected little credit on his school, wrathfully declared that if any ofthe seniors attempted to spoil the juniors' party this year there wouldbe trouble. But there were certain lawless spirits in the senior classwho still thought pranks of that nature funny, and it was not long beforeplans were hatching as merrily as before. It was all very vague, what wasgoing to be done and who was going to do it, but it was in the air, andeverybody who was up on school affairs knew there was a storm brewing.
The first definite news came to the Winnebagos through Katherine. "I'vebeen asked to a select party," she announced one night up in the OpenDoor Lodge, spreading her bony hands out before the blazing log on thehearth. "It's something like the Boston Tea Party," she went on.
"Must be going to be quite an affair," said Gladys, who was stirringfudge over the fire. "May we inquire where?"
"Oh, girls," said Katherine, with a serious face, "do you know what's inthe wind? The Seniors are to put a lot of live mice through the windowsin the middle of the Junior dance."
"The Seniors?" exclaimed Hinpoha and Gladys in one breath. "WhatSeniors?"
"Oh, Charlie Hughes and Eddie Myers and that bunch. You know the halfdozen that go around together and call themselves the Clan? Well, those.They were mixed up in the business last year." Although Katherine was anewcomer in the school she was already well versed in its history.
"How did you find it out?" asked Hinpoha.
"Cora Burton told me." Cora was one of Katherine's devoted admirers andtried hard to be chummy with her, although Katherine did not care for herin the least. "Cora's a particular friend of Charlie Hughes, and she andsome other girls are going along to see the fun. But she couldn't keep itsecret and told me today and asked if I wanted to go along."
"Oh, Katherine, you're not going?" said Sahwah anxiously.
The disgusted expression on Katherine's face was answer enough.
"Hadn't we better tell some of the teachers?" asked Gladys, pausing inher stirring. "I wish Nyoda were here." Miss Kent had been called out oftown on account of the death of an aunt and would be away until after theparty.
"We ought to, I think," said Hinpoha.
Katherine stood up beside the fireplace, and resting one elbow on theshelf humped her shoulders in her favorite attitude and began to speak."Girls," she said, "this Junior-Senior business is going to be an awfulmess, and the result will be that somebody will be expelled or notpermitted to graduate. Students are going to take sides in the affair andthere will be no end of hard feelings. I for one don't care to play therole of informer. So far we Winnebagos have kept entirely out of anythingof this kind and wish we could get along without having any connectionwith this."
"But the teachers would never tell who told them," said Hinpoha.
"The teachers wouldn't," answered Katherine, "but Cora Burton would. Andthen maybe someone would say that I had been in the thing to start withand then grew afraid and told on the others. You know how those storiesgrow. Stay out of it altogether, say I, and avoid publicity."
"But don't you think it's our duty to try and stop such horrid pranks?"asked Hinpoha doubtfully.
"I certainly do," said Katherine, "and if we were the only ones whosuspected anything it would be different. But all the teachers know thatsomething is going to happen and they will be on the lookout. And theJuniors know it also, and they will be on their guard. I doubt very muchif those mice ever get into the room, even if we keep silent."
And the Winnebagos, remembering Hinpoha's sad experience the year before,decided that it was perhaps better after all to keep out of the affairaltogether.
"I thought you'd see it my way after you'd considered all sides," saidKatherine, reaching out her long fingers and taking three pieces of fudgeoff the plate where it was cooling, "but that isn't what I wanted to talkabout tonight. It's Cora Burton that bothers me. She isn't a bad sort ofgirl, and I can't see why she should want to get mixed up in that sort ofthing, especially when there's bound to be trouble later. If she were tobe seen with those boys Friday night it would go hard with her. I supposeshe thinks she's right in the swim being connected with a prank, becauseshe isn't very popular otherwise. The other girls that are in it aren'tladylike and it's not much use getting after them, but Cora's different,somehow. I wish something could be done about it." And she crunched apiece of fudge between her teeth with violence.
"We might get up a show that night and each one bring a friend, and youcould invite Cora," suggested Sahwah. "Counter attraction, you know."
The suggestion was voted a good one and promptly acted upon. But Coradeclined Katherine's cordial invitation. "What's to be done now?" askedKatherine of the hastily called meeting of the Winnebagos. "Our counterattraction didn't work."
"Girls," said Gladys solemnly, "I believe it's our duty to keep Cora awayfrom that business somehow. If we were smart enough we'd find a way. Idon't believe we ought to let the matter drop and say if she wants to getinto trouble let her do it, it's none of our affair. It _is_ our affair,because we're pledged to Give Service, and it would be doing Cora a greatservice to keep her out of this. If she's weak and we're strong we musthold her out of water. You remember what Dr. Harper said at the lectureabout saving people from themselves. Well, I think we ought to save Corafrom herself."
The phrase, "Save Cora from herself," sounded very fine to the ears ofthe Winnebagos, and they decided that Cora must be saved from herself atall costs. But how?
"I think I can manage it," said Katherine, who had been buried deep inthought all the while the last discussion was going on. "It'll be quitean undertaking, but the end justifies the means."
"Tell us," begged the girls.
"Why, it's this," said Katherine. "I shall tell Cora that I've changed mymind and want to go with her Friday night and will meet her on the cornerof her street at eight o'clock. When I've met her I'll tell her that Ileft my purse up here and ask her to come along till I get it. You knowshe doesn't live very far from here. Once up here we'll keep her safelyall evening. Oh, I know that holding people against their will isn't oneof the rules of polite society, but in her case I think we're justified.She'll thank us for it before very long. And we'll try to make itpleasant for her. We'll give the show just as we intended and have aspread and her captivity won't seem long."
As there seemed no other way out of the difficulty, Katherine's plan wasaccepted.
"It's working fine," she confided to the Winnebagos the next day. "Corawas tickled to pieces because I wanted to go with her. She agreed to meetme on the corner, as I suggested, and we're both going to wear greenveils so we won't be recognized so easily. Hoop la!" and she did a doubleshuffle with her toes turned in down the aisle of the empty class roomwhere the girls had gathered.
On Friday night the Winnebagos met early in the House of the Open Door.Mrs. Evans, Gladys' mother, was acting as leader tonight in the absenceof Nyoda. She had been let into the secret about Cora and under thecircumstances thought that their action was right. Cora lived with an olduncle, who was stone deaf and didn't care a rap what she did, so therewas no use talking to her folks about it. Several girl friends of theWinnebagos were present, all having raptures over the decorations of theLodge, and watching with interest the waving curtain in the corner,behind which Sahwah was making herself up as a Topsy for theirentertainment later
on. Gladys was making sandwiches in another cornerand lamenting because the bread knife was broken half off, and wasaccusing Sahwah of prying bricks apart with it, when stealthy footstepssounded on the walk below, together with the noise of the door beingpushed back quietly. Gladys heard it and started nervously. She wasbeginning to feel rather embarrassed at the thought of meeting CoraBurton, and wondered just how it would come out, anyway. She wished itwere safely over.
Katherine and her prisoner seemed a long time in reaching the foot of theladder. Did Cora suspect something, perhaps, and was refusing to mount?Gladys strained her ears to listen and thought she heard a smotheredgiggle from below, but she could not be sure. The next minute the lightsflashed below and the patent signal knock of the Sandwiches sounded onthe wall.
"Here come the boys!" cried Hinpoha, hastening to answer the signal witha series of mystic thumps on the wall with the poker.
Then the Captain's voice sounded at the foot of the ladder. "How many ofyou are up there?"
"Five," answered Hinpoha, "and three guests."
"Is Miss Kent there?"
"No."
"What are you doing?"
"We're going to have a show. Want to come up?"
"Well, maybe, later," answered the Captain. "Won't you come down aminute? We've got something to show you." And again Gladys thought sheheard a smothered giggle from below stairs.
The girls trooped down the ladder, Sahwah running out with her faceblackened and her hair in tiny pigtails, to see what the excitement wasabout. All seven of the Sandwiches stood there with sparkling eyes andprenaturally solemn faces. On the floor stood a good-sized box.
"What's in the box?" asked Sahwah.
"Oh, nothing," answered the Captain, trying to speak indifferently.
"There is too, something," said Sahwah, looking critically at the expresstags fastened to it. "Oh, I know what is is," she cried, suddenly jumpingup and clapping her hands in glee. "Your uncle in Boston has sent you theelectric motor he promised you!"
The Captain tried to look indifferent and failed utterly. His lips wouldtwitch into a smile in spite of all he could do.
"Do open it and let us see it," said Hinpoha, and all the girls crowdedclosely around.
"You may have the honor, Miss Brewster," said the Captain, bowingformally to Sahwah. The nails had been drawn and all Sahwah had to do waslift off the cover of the box, which she did with a great flourish. Thenext moment the girls sprang back in dismay and scattered wildly. The boxwas full of live mice, which jumped out and ran in all directions.Screaming at the tops of their voices the girls fled toward the ladderand crowded up as fast as they could go. Sahwah jumped for the swingingrings, which hung from the ceiling of the barn, and dangled safely inmid-air, making horrible faces at the Captain, at which he laugheduproariously. Sahwah and the Captain were always playing tricks on eachother and this time she had to admit that he had scored heavily. So theCaptain jeered and Sahwah vowed vengeance and the other Sandwiches stoodaround and laughed until their sides ached, for Sahwah, with blackenedface and Topsy braids, hanging in the rings and sputtering, was thefunniest sight imaginable.
"Joke's over now, boys," said the Captain, when the mice had run aroundthe barn for several minutes. "We've had enough of a good thing. Let'scatch them and put them back into the box."
The girls above sat around the ladder opening and watched theproceedings.
"Wherever did you get so many mice, boys?" asked Mrs. Evans.
"We found them," said the Captain, "all boxed up, just like this, Theywere right out in the middle of that field over there. We were on the wayover here and saw the box and looked in. When we saw what it was wethought we could play a joke on the girls. So we brought them along.Looks as though someone had fixed them that way for a joke. Probably weregoing to send them by express. They were in an express box, although itwas not nailed shut."
The girls began to look at one another significantly. The same thoughtcame into all their minds at once. Were not these the mice that were toattend the Junior party?
"The joke is on the Seniors, after all," said Hinpoha.
"What do you mean?" asked the boys. "The joke is on the Seniors?"
"Shall we tell them?" asked Hinpoha.
"I don't see any harm now," said Gladys. "The scheme has collapsed like apricked balloon."
And they told the Sandwiches what they knew about the plot of the Seniorboys to interrupt the Junior party.
"Wasn't such a bad idea to try to play a joke on you girls after all, wasit?" said the Captain. "Because if we hadn't done it we wouldn't havenipped their little scheme in the bud. We'll play lots more jokes onthem, won't we, Slim? Don't you girls think you ought to invite us up tosupper to celebrate?"
"Not until the last mouse is back in the box," said Gladys firmly.
The boys worked hard to catch them again and the girls sat above andcheered their efforts, and in the middle of it in came Katherine and hercompanion, swathed in green veils. There was such an uproar in the barnthat Cora never noticed that Katherine locked the door and put the key inher pocket. Cora gave a great start at the sight of the mice, which wasnot all from fright, and the girls could not help enjoying the situation.What must be her thoughts by this time? But Cora, obeying the naturalimpulse of women at the sight of mice, fled up the ladder with Katherine.If she thought it odd that the barn was full of girls and boys when shehad gained the impression that it was empty and dark, she made no sign,but stood still with her veil over her face. With all those horriblecreatures running around the floor downstairs she made no move to escape.
"Won't you take off your things?" asked Katherine, beginning gently tobreak the news to Cora that she was to stay for the evening. Withoutdemur Cora unfastened her coat and slid it off and then took off her hatand veil. The girls stood as if turned to stone. The person who stoodbefore them was not Cora Burton. It was Miss Snively. _It was MissSnively!_
She looked around her with a sneering smile and a snapping light in hereyes. "You may think it was a master stroke on your part to lure me hereand lock me in so I could not join the conspirators and thus find out whothey were," she said with biting emphasis. "But you shall pay dearly forthis, my young friends. I know who you all are--you needn't try to hidebehinds the others, Gladys Evans--and the information I shall be able togive Mr. Jackson tonight is what he has been trying to find out for along time. Katherine Adams, you are the ringleader of this affair, as wemight have expected. I know all about the plan to put the mice into thedance hall, and while the boys downstairs who are getting them ready arenot the ones I should have expected to be doing it, it is just like youto get strange boys to do it for you, hoping to get away unsuspected. Butit didn't work, I am happy to say. You are very clever, Miss Adams, butnot clever enough. I overheard you asking Cora Burton to meet you on thecorner this evening. I took the liberty of being there first. I thought Ihad deceived you perfectly, not knowing that you were bringing me rightinto the mouse's nest, so to speak."
She paused for breath and looked around her with an expression of relishat the consternation visible on the faces before her. For Katherine wasstaring at her with startled, unbelieving eyes; Gladys was clutching hermother's arm in a frightened manner; Hinpoha had sunk weakly down on thebearskin bed, and Sahwah stood with her mouth open and the perspirationrunning down her face in black streaks, and the others were dumb withastonishment. The boys, not knowing just what was going on, but guessingthat something was the matter, stood by the ladder opening, silentlytaking in the scene. The girls looked helplessly into each other's eyes.Somebody must speak and explain. They all looked at Katherine.
"But we aren't mixed up in the House Party at all, Miss Snively," shesaid earnestly. "We heard about it, and I found out that Cora Burton wasgoing to be in it and I tried to make her stay home and she refused, sowe girls decided we would take action to take her out of it by luring herup here and keeping her until the thing was over. That's why I asked Corato meet me on the corner, and I really though
t you were Cora all thewhile. You imitated her squeaky voice to perfection."
As Katherine was telling her perfectly truthful story she had a dreadfulfeeling that it didn't sound plausible at all. Under Miss Snively's coldeye nothing seemed real.
"Likely story!" said Miss Snively sneeringly. "And how does it happenthat if you wanted to bring Cora out of temptation you should take her tothe place where the mice were being boxed up ready to be taken to theparty?" All the girls looked so disconcerted. Those dreadful mice didcomplicate matters so! They would have given anything if Nyoda had beenthere then.
The Captain was beginning to take in the situation. He came forwardfrankly. "It's our fault about the mice," he said, looking Miss Snivelystraight in the eye. "We found them in a field near here all boxed up andthought it would be a good joke on the girls to bring them over here andlet them out. We don't know anything about your squabbles at WashingtonHigh, except what little the girls here have told us; we're all fromCarnegie Mechanic. And we know the girls didn't have a hand in it,because they were giving a show here to-night."
His story was backed up by all the other boys, and then Mrs. Evans got ina word and declared that Katherine was telling the whole truth aboutCora, and Miss Snively was forced, however ungraciously, to admit thatshe had been mistaken in her suspicions.
"If she'd been a man I'd have made her eat her words," declared Slimwrathfully, after Miss Snively had departed from the scene.
Mrs. Evans and Gladys, with perfect courtesy, offered to drive her homein their car, and for the present oil was poured on the troubled waters.
Katherine sat hunched gloomily before the fire and held-forth to theWinnebagos. "I don't know whether the joke's on her or on us," she saidpessimistically; "but one thing I'm sure of, and that is, that never,never, as long as I live, will I ever again try to save a girl fromherself."
And the Winnebagos wearily agreed with her.