A SKATING PARTY
The holidays had come and gone, and the pupils of Oakdale High School had resigned themselves to a period of hard study. The dreaded mid-year examinations stared them in the face, and for the time being basketball ardor had cooled and a surprising devotion to study had ensued.
Since the day that Grace had refused to give up her captaincy there had been considerable change in the girls' attitude toward her. She had not regained her old-time popularity, but it was evident that her schoolmates respected her for her brave decision and treated her with courtesy. They still retained a feeling of suspicion toward Anne, however, although they did not openly manifest it.
Miriam Nesbit had been inwardly furious over the outcome of her plan to gain the captaincy, but she was wise enough to assume an air of indifference over her defeat. Grace's speech had made considerable impression on the minds of even Miriam's most devoted supporters and she knew that the slightest slip on her part would turn the tide of opinion against her.
Grace was in a more cheerful frame of mind than formerly. She felt that all would come right some day. "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," she told herself, and the familiar saying proved very comforting to her.
Winter had settled down on Oakdale as only a northern winter can do. There had been snow on the ground since Thanksgiving, and sleigh rides and skating parties were in order.
Grace awoke one Saturday morning in high good humor.
"To-day's the day," she said to herself. "Hurrah for skating!"
She hurried through her breakfast and was donning her fur cap and sweater, when Anne, Jessica and Nora, accompanied by David, Hippy, Reddy and, to her surprise and delight, Tom Gray, turned in at her gate.
"'Oh, be joyful, oh, be gay,
For there's skating on the bay,'"
sang Hippy.
"Meaning pond, I suppose," laughed Grace, as she opened her front door.
"Meaning pond?" answered Hippy, "only pond doesn't rhyme with gay."
"You might say,
"'Oh, be joyful, oh, be fond,
For there's skating on the pond,'"
suggested David.
"Fond of what?" demanded Hippy.
"Of the person you've asked to skate with you," replied David, looking toward Anne, who stood with a small pair of new skates tucked under her arm.
"I shall be initiated into all the mysteries of the world soon," she observed, smiling happily. "Last year it was coasting and football and now it's dancing and skating. When I once get these things on, David, I'll be like a bird trying its wings, I'll flop about just as helplessly."
"I'm awfully glad to see you, Tom," said Grace, "I did not expect to see you until Easter."
"Oh, I couldn't keep away," laughed Tom. "This is the jolliest place I know."
"Good reason," said Reddy, "we are the real people."
"Stop praising yourself and listen to me," said Hippy. "Our pond has frozen over in the most obliging manner. It's as smooth as glass. Let's go there to skate. There's a crowd of boys and girls on it already."
The pond on the Wingate estate was really a small lake, a mile or more in circumference. While it froze over every winter, the ice was apt to be rough, and there were often dangerous places in it, air-holes and thin spots where several serious accidents had occurred.
Therefore, Wingate's Pond was not used as much as the river for skating; but this winter the ice was as smooth and solid as if it had been frozen artificially, so the High School boys and girls could not resist the temptation to skim over its surface.
"Isn't it a fine sight?" asked Grace, as they came in view of the skaters who were circling and gliding over the pond, some by twos and threes, others in long rows, laughing and shouting.
A big fire burned on the bank, rows of new-comers sat near it, fitting on their skates.
"Away with dull care!" cried Hippy, as he circled gracefully over the ice; for, with all his weight, Hippy was considered one of the best skaters in Oakdale.
"Away with everything but fun," finished Grace who could think of nothing save the joy of skating. "Come along, Anne. Don't be afraid. David and I will keep you up until you learn to use those tiny little feet of yours."
Anne's small feet went almost higher than her head while Grace was speaking, and she sat flat down on the ice.
"No harm done," she laughed, "only I didn't know it could possibly be so slippery."
They pulled her up, David and Grace, and put her between them with Tom Gray on the other side of Grace as additional support, and off they flew, while Anne, keeping her feet together and holding on tightly, sailed along like a small ice boat.
"This will give you confidence," explained David, "and later on you can learn how to use your feet."
But Anne hardly heard him, so thrilled was she by the glorious sensation. As they flew by, followed by Hippy and Nora, with Reddy and Jessica, she caught glimpses of many people looking strangely unfamiliar on skates. Miriam passed, gliding gracefully over the ice with a troop of sophomores at her heels. There were many High School boys "cracking the whip" in long rows of eight or more, while there were some older people comfortably seated in sleigh chairs which were pushed from behind, generally by some poor boys in Oakdale, who stood on the bank waiting to be hired.
"Now, we'll have a lesson," exclaimed David when they had reached the starting point again, while the others lost themselves in the crowd. Anne was a good pupil, but she was soon tired and sat down on a bench near the bank.
"Do go and have a good skate yourself, David," she insisted. "I'll rest for awhile and look on."
But it was far too cold to sit still.
"I'll give myself a lesson," she said. "This is a quiet spot. All the others seem to have skated up to the other end."
As she was carefully taking the strokes David had taught her, with an occasional struggle to keep her balance, she heard a great shouting behind her. The next instant, some one had seized her by the hand.
"Keep your feet together!" was shouted in her ear, and she found herself going like the wind at the end of a long line of girls. They were juniors, she saw at once, and it was Julia Crosby at the whip end who had seized her by the hand.
Anne closed her eyes. They were going at a tremendous rate of speed, it seemed to her, like a comet shooting through the air. Then, suddenly, the head of the comet stood still and the tail swung around it, and Anne, who represented the very tip of the tail and who hardly reached to Julia Crosby's shoulder, felt herself carried along with such velocity that the breath left her body, her knees gave way and she fell down in a limp little bundle. Julia Crosby instantly let go her hand and the impetus of the rush shot her like a catapult far over the ice into the midst of a crowd of skaters.
But the juniors never stopped to see what damage had been done. They quickly joined hands again, and were off on another expedition almost before Anne had been picked up by David and Hippy.
"It's that Julia Crosby again," cried David. "I wish she would move to Europe. I'd gladly buy her a ticket. The town of Oakdale isn't big enough to hold her and other people. She's always trying to knock somebody off the side of the earth."
Anne went home, tired and bruised. She had had enough of skating for one morning David returned to join the others; for this was not the last of the day's adventures and Julia Crosby, before sunset, was to repent of her cruelty to Anne.
In the meantime Grace and Tom had skated up to the far end of the pond.
"Well, Grace," said Tom, "how has the world been using you? I suppose you have been adding to your laurels as a basketball captain."
"Far from it," said Grace a trifle sadly. "Miriam Nesbit is star player at present."
They skated on for some time in silence. Tom felt there was something wrong, so he tactfully changed the subject.
"Who is the girl doing the fancy strokes?" he asked, pointing to Julia Crosby, who, some distance ahead of them, was giving an exhibition of her powers as a maker of figure eights and cross-cuts.
"That's the junior captain," answered Grace. "I hope she won't fall, because she's heavy enough to go right through the ice if she should have a hard tumble."
"Suppose we stop watching her," suggested Tom. "I don't want to see her take a header, and people who show off on skates always do so, sooner or later."
They changed their course toward the middle of the pond, while Julia, who was turning and circling nearer the shore, watched them from one corner of her eye.
Suddenly Grace stopped.
"Julia! Julia!" she cried. "Miss Crosby!"
"What's the matter?" demanded Tom.
"Don't you see the danger flag over there? She will skate into a hole if she keeps on. The ice houses are near here, and I suppose it is where they have been cutting ice."
"Hello-o!" cried Tom, straining his lungs to reach the skater, who looked back, gave her usual tantalizing laugh and skated on.
"You are getting onto thin ice," screamed Grace in despair, beckoning wildly. "Stop! Stop!"
Julia Crosby was skating backwards now, facing the others.
"Catch me if you can," she called, and the wind carried her words to them as they flew after her.
Then Grace, who had been anxiously watching the skater and not the ice, stumbled on a piece of frozen wood and fell headlong. She lay still for an instant, half stunned by the blow, but even in that distressful moment she could hear the other girl's derisive laughter.
Tom called again:
"You'll be drowned, if you don't look where you are going."
"Why don't you learn to skate?" was Julia's answer.
"O Tom," exclaimed Grace. "Leave me. I'll soon get my breath. Do go and stop that girl. The pond's awfully deep there."
"Miss Crosby," Tom Gray called, "won't you wait a minute? I have something to tell you."
"Catch me first!" she cried.
She turned and began skating for dear life, bending from the waist and going like the wind.
"I think I'll try and catch her from the front," he said to himself. "I don't propose to tumble in, too, and leave poor Grace to fish, us both out."
With arms swinging freely, he made for the center of the pond. As he whizzed past the girl, he turned with a wide sweep and came toward her, pointing at the same time to the white flag. But it was too late. In her effort to outstrip him, Julia slid heavily into the danger zone.
There was a crash and a splash, then down she went into the icy water, followed by Tom, who had seized her arm in a fruitless effort to save her.
For an instant Tom was paralyzed with the coldness of the water. Still, keeping a firm grip on the arm of the girl who had been responsible for his ice bath, he managed to clutch the ledge of ice made by their fall with his free hand.
"Take hold of the ice and try to help yourself a little," commanded Tom.
Julia made a half-hearted attempt, and managed to grasp the ledge, but her hold was so feeble that Tom dared not withdraw his support He was powerless to act, and they would both drown unless help came quickly.