MISS CARRINGTON IN JUDGMENT
"Oh! Oh! I'm drowning!" shrieked Lily Pendleton.
And then the water filled her mouth and she went down with a "blub, blub, blub" that sounded most convincing.
Hester was sputtering threats and cries, too, and she paid no attention to her chum, who, although she could swim pretty well, lost her head very easily in moments of emergency.
The twins said never a word. They had gone under at the first plunge, but they were up again, shook the water from their eyes, and each took hold of their boat to right it.
When Lily screamed and went under, however, the Lockwoods chanced to be even nearer to her than was Hester.
"We've got to get her!" gasped Dorothy.
"Sure we have!" agreed Dora.
And together, leaving their canoe, they dived after the sinking girl. Lily was not unconscious, and the moment one of the twins grabbed her, Lily tried to entwine her in her arms.
But thanks to Mrs. Case's earnest efforts in the swimming pool, the twins knew well how to break the grasp of a drowning person, and the girl who had been seized by Lily did not lose her head, but immediately broke the frightened girl's hold and quickly brought her to the surface.
Lily was between Dora and Dorothy, and when she had gotten rid of some of the water, and opened her eyes, she became amenable to advice. Together the twins towed her to a launch that came shooting up, and Lily was hauled inboard. Dora and Dorothy were intending to go back and right their canoe; but some of the boys had done that for them, and rescued their paddles and other boat furnishings.
"Let us help you in here, young ladies; then we'll go after that other girl," offered those on the launch. "The boys will take the canoes back to the boathouse, and that's where you would better be. There's a cool wind blowing."
So the twins hoisted themselves over the gunwale of the launch as handily as boys, and the next time Hester Grimes was dragged in. And a madder girl than Hester it would have been hard to find!
"It's all your fault!" she concluded, shaking her sleek, black head at the Lockwood twins. "You bumped right into us."
"And you turned your canoe so that we should bump you," said Dora, tartly. "You were afraid of being beaten. I wish we'd smashed your old canoe!"
"You'll have to pay for it if it's damaged," declared Hester, nodding with determination.
But the boys who brought in the two canoes pricked the bubble of Hester's rage: They told Mrs. Case and the professor just how the trouble had occurred.
"You have no complaint, Hester," said Mrs. Case, later. "There are too many witnesses against you. I am afraid you are not over-truthful in this. However, I shall report the four of you for demerits. You had no business to race. I have forbidden it. And you can see yourselves how unfortunate interclass trials of speed may be. Now! no more of it, young ladies!"
Hester went off with her nose in the air after somebody had brought her dry clothing from home; but Lily Pendleton was grateful to the twins for helping her.
"Though I declare! I don't know which of you to thank," she said, giggling. "And one's just as wet as the other. Anyhow, I'm obliged."
"You're welcome, Lily," said one of the twins. "We are sworn to solemn secrecy never to tell on each other; so you will have to embalm us both in your gratitude."
Miss Pendleton was not quite all "gall and wormwood," as Bobby Hargrew said Hester was; but the girls of Central High as a whole did not care much for Lily because she aped the fashions of her elders, and tried to appear "grown up." And when she came in from her unexpected dip in the lake it was noticeable that her cheeks were much paler than they had been when she started with her chum in the canoe. Because she had a naturally pale complexion, Lily was forever "touching it up"—as though even the most experienced "complexion artist" could improve upon Nature, or could do her work so well that a careful observer could not tell the painted from the real.
The twins went home in borrowed raincoats over their wet garments; nor did they escape Aunt Dora's sharp eyes—and of course, her sharp tongue was exercised, too.
"Now!" complained Dora, in their own room, "if our athletic field and the building were constructed, we wouldn't have been caught. Every girl is to have a locker of her own, and there will be dressing rooms, and a place to dry wet clothing, of course—and everything scrumptious!"
"Never mind," said her twin. "It's coming. Such fine basketball courts! And tennis courts! And a running track, too! I heard somebody say that they would begin the excavation for the building next week. I tell you, Central High will have the finest field and track and gym in the whole State."
"And East and West Highs are just as jealous as they can be," Dora remarked: "They've got to wake up, just the same, to beat the girls of Central High."
"Thanks to Mother Wit," added Dorothy.
"Yes. We must thank Laura Belding for interesting Colonel Swayne and his daughter in our athletics," agreed Dora.
The next morning the twins went to school in some trepidation. There was no knowing what Miss Grace G. Carrington, their teacher, would do about the four girls whom the physical instructor had reported. The Lockwood girls never curried favor with any teacher, save that they were usually prompt in all lessons, and their deportment was good. But even Gee Gee seldom had real fault to find with them.
When they came into the classroom before Assembly, however, they found Hester Grimes at the teacher's desk, and Hester did not seem to be worried over any punishment. The twins looked at each other, and Dora whispered:
"I bet you she's up to some trick. Trust Hessie for getting out of a scrape if there's any possible chance for it."
"Well, I don't see how Miss Carrington can make an exception in her case. All four of us were in it."
"All four of us were in the lake, all right," giggled Dora; "but I bet Hessie isn't punished for her part of it."
"I declare it was her fault," said Dorothy, hotly. "She turned her boat right in our path."
"Wait!" whispered her twin, warningly.
Miss Carrington looked upon them coldly, and after they had returned from the morning exercises in the main hall she called Dora and Dorothy to her desk.
"Mrs. Case reports your rough and unladylike conduct on the lake yesterday," said the teacher, rather grimly. "Of course, it was out of school hours, but as long as you accept the use of the school paraphernalia and buildings for after-hour athletics, you are bound by the school rules. You understand that?"
"Yes, Miss Carrington," said Dora. "But if you will let us explain——"
"I have the report," interposed Gee Gee, in her very grimmest manner. "In fact, I consider your running into and overturning the other canoe a very reprehensible act indeed. You might have all been drowned because of the recklessness of you two girls."
"But Miss Carrington! it was not our fault," gasped Dorothy.
"Your canoe ran the other one down, didn't it?"
"But——"
"Yes, or no, young ladies!" snapped Gee Gee.
The twins nodded. Miss Carrington's mind was evidently made up on this point.
"Very well, then. No after-hour athletics for you for a month. That is all," and the teacher turned to the papers on her desk.