CHAPTER V
WORSE AND WORSE
Two weeks passed, and still Billie Bradley had found no solution to her problem. The broken statue seemed as far from being paid for as ever, and, as far as she was concerned, the summer vacation was completely spoiled.
In this frame of mind she crushed a soft straw hat down over her brown hair one day and set out to find her chums, feeling the need of their sympathy. And how was she to know, poor Billie, that the news the girls would have to tell her would serve only to make her mood the blacker?
As she neared the Farrington home, Violet herself came rushing out to meet her, looking unusually and feverishly excited.
"Oh, Billie, what do you think?" she cried, encircling Billie with her arm and fairly dragging her up on the porch. "I have the most wonderful news to tell you!"
"What?" gasped Billie, for the unexpected onslaught had literally taken her breath away. "Goodness! you might as well kill me as scare me to death."
"Oh, but, Billie, you won't mind when I tell you," cried Violet, regarding her friend with dancing eyes. "The folks have decided to send me to Three Towers Hall!" Three Towers was a boarding school some distance from North Bend. "Laura is going too," Violet continued breathlessly. "And of course you will—" But something in Billie's face stopped her and she drew in her breath sharply.
"Oh, Billie," she cried, her face falling, "you're never going to tell me you can't go!"
"I guess that's just what I am going to tell you," said Billie, her fists clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. "I might have stood some chance if it hadn't been for that old statue. Now I can't get enough money to pay for that—much less go to Three Towers."
"Oh, that old statue!" cried Violet desperately, adding, while her face grew longer and longer: "What fun will there be, I'd like to know, in going to Three Towers if you can't go with us? And oh, Billie, I was making such wonderful plans!"
Billie had to turn away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. For to go to Three Towers Hall had long been the ambition of the chums, and now it was doubly hard to see her chance snatched away by an accident that could have been so easily avoided. If only she had not been so foolish!
Violet came over and put a loving arm about her friend.
"Never mind, honey," she said consolingly, forgetting her own disappointment in Billie's. "We'll find some way to get to Three Towers."
Billie smiled a wry little smile and made an effort to look as if there were still something to live for in the world.
"Laura told me that you thought your uncle might help you," said Violet, after an interval of unhappily trying to think of some way out of their trouble. "Neither Laura nor I will stir a step without you, that's a sure thing."
"Why, of course you will," said Billie, stopping the swing short and looking at her chum in amazement. "I'm sure your folks aren't going to let you stay at home from the school they've decided on just because I can't go with you. Although," and her voice broke a little, "it's just wonderful of you, Vi, to feel that way. You will go, of course, and you can write me beautiful letters about the wonderful times you are having."
"I won't do it!" cried Violet, springing to her feet. "I'm not going to Three Towers without you, and that settles it. I don't care if I had a thousand parents. Who's that turning the corner?" she interrupted herself to ask. "There's something familiar about that walk."
"Why, it's Ferd Stowing," said Billie, getting to her feet for a better view. "My, but he looks happy about something. I wonder what's up."
The next moment Ferd Stowing, one of the best-liked boys in the town, came rushing up the steps like a whirlwind, and it did not take the girls long to find out "what was up."
"Hooray!" he cried, flinging his hat high in the air. "Wuxtry! All about
Ferd Stowing and Ted Jordon!"
"For goodness' sake, stop bellowing and behave," Billie commanded. "What have you and Teddy been doing now?"
"Plenty. But that's nothing to what we're going to do," crowed Ferd exultantly. "He and I have at last persuaded our reluctant parents to send us to the military school. You know—the one that is only a little over a mile from Three Towers where you girls are going."
Again Billie felt as if she had been treated to a shower of ice water. Teddy and Ferd were going to Boxton Military Academy, and Chet—her darling, loyal Chet—would not be able to go with them. Her own disappointment seemed nothing at all beside this new tragedy.
"I was just on my way over to your house," Billie was conscious that Ferd was addressing her. "We haven't had a chance to get in touch with Chet yet. But the old boy will of course go with us, won't he? It wouldn't be any fun without Chet."
Almost the very words Violet had said to her, thought Billie, as she tried to swallow a sob and only succeeded in turning it into a funny little cough.
"He will, won't he?" Ferd was insisting, while Violet watched them with troubled eyes.
"Why—why—I don't know, Ferd," Billie stammered, trying to make her voice sound natural. "I do know one thing, and that is that Chet is crazy to go and will if he gets half a chance."
"Then I guess it's all right," said Ferd, leaning back with a sigh of relief. "Gee, I was afraid you were going to say he couldn't go, and so spoil everything. Say, can't you see the good times we're going to have with you girls at Three Towers Hall and we fellows such a little way off that we can see each other every once in a while? I can't make up my mind that it's real yet—" And so on and on, rapturously, while Billie's heart sank lower and lower and Violet's own warm one ached for her friend.
Then just as Ferd started to go he spied Chet coming up the street and hailed him joyfully.
"Just the fellow I wanted to see," he declared fervently. "Come on up here, old man, and hear the glad news."
Billie groaned inwardly and seemed about to speak, but Violet stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"Might as well get it over with," she whispered. "Chet is sure to hear of it later if he doesn't now."
So Billie waited, but her heart ached as she watched Chet march up smilingly to hear "the glad news."
"We're going to Boxton Military Academy." Ferd fairly shouted it at him. "How about it, old timer, are you going with us, or are you going to leave us in the lurch?"
The glad tidings staggered Chet for a minute, but he came on quietly and perched himself upon the railing, one foot swinging idly.
"You said you were going to the military academy?" he asked, his voice as quiet as his manner, but Billie noticed that the smile was gone. "By that I suppose you mean you and Teddy."
"And you," added Ferd, beaming upon him. "Billie said you were crazy to go."
Chet looked at Billie's unhappy face and tried to smile.
"Crazy to go!" he repeated. "I'll say I am. But—"
"But me no buts, Chet, my lad," broke in the impetuous Ferd. "I didn't ask you anything. I merely stated a fact."
"I—I'd give almost anything I own to make it a fact," said Chet, his eyes on the ground. "But I'm very much afraid you'll have to guess again, old man."
"Guess again? Well, I should say not!" cried Ferd, getting to his feet indignantly. "Why, the thing can't be done without you, Chet. Didn't Billie say—"
"Billie only said," interrupted Violet, coming to Billie's rescue, "that
Chet was crazy to go and would if he had half a chance."
Ferd sank back in his chair, too dismayed to speak.
"Well, of all—Say, old man, you've got to go," and he turned to Chet pleadingly. "What sort of a party do you think this is going to be anyway, with Billie at Three Towers Hall and you back here in North Bend? It's not fair."
"Not fair," flared Billie. "You don't suppose I'd go to Three Towers and leave Chet here, do you?"
"Then you're not going either?" cried Ferd, seeing all his castles in the air coming down about his ears with a crash.
Billie shook her head unhappily.
"No, I'm not going either," she said.