CHAPTER VI
THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK
Bobby put the receiver back, and at that moment the door opened and Mr.
Carter walked into the office.
Mr. Carter was the principal of the primary and grammar schools, but usually spent most of his time at the grammar school. Bobby had been afraid of him once, but that was before he had learned to know him.
"Good morning, Bobby," said Mr. Carter pleasantly. "Has Miss Wright come in yet?"
"No, Mr. Carter. Some one telephoned," answered Bobby slowly, anxious to get the message delivered correctly. "She said Miss Wright had a solemn cold and wouldn't be in this morning."
"What kind of cold did you say?" asked Mr. Carter curiously. "Solemn?
What kind of complaint is that?"
Bobby looked perplexed. He thought for a moment.
"Oh!" He had remembered. "It wasn't a solemn cold; it was a severe cold."
"That sounds more like it," said the principal smiling. "Was that all,
Bobby?"
"She wants Miss Garrett to take charge of the assembly and she said that's all thank you good-by," repeated Bobby glibly, just as the speaker had rattled it off to him over the telephone.
"All right," agreed Mr. Carter. "I might as well stay the day out here. Let's see, it's about time for the assembly bell, isn't it?"
Bobby had almost forgotten what he had come to the office for. As Mr.
Carter moved toward the bells, he recollected.
"I was going to ask Miss Wright," he hurried to say. "Could we—do you think we could, have a snowball fight out in the yard after school? With forts and everything? We wouldn't break any windows."
"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have a snowball fight," said Mr. Carter promptly. "Remember about the windows and don't aim at any of the girls, and you should have no trouble."
"I guess the girls will be in it," said Bobby sadly. "My sister Meg wants to play, and I s'pose half the girls in school will want to come in."
Mr. Carter laughed, but offered no advice or sympathy, as he pressed the signal for the assembly. Girls, Bobby thought, joining the patient Meg in the hall, always managed to have their way; a fellow might as well give up to them from the first.
After assembly came lessons, and, finally, recess.
"Go out into the fresh air," ordered Miss Mason, who taught the room Meg and Bobby were in. "It isn't cold out—not too cold. No, Frances, you can't stay in and draw."
Miss Mason believed in fresh air, and she usually drove her class out into the yard, no matter what the weather, telling them that exercise would keep them warm. Those who tried to stay in the warm schoolroom were invariably disappointed, for Miss Mason opened every window as wide as it would go and let in the fresh cold air.
"Come on, Frances," called Meg from the doorway. "We're going to play something new."
Frances Smith followed Meg reluctantly, but when she heard about the snowball fight, she was immediately interested.
"Mr. Carter said we could," announced Bobby to the boys. "We must remember and aim away from the windows and not hit the girls. Let's begin to build the forts now."
"We'll have to have a general," said Tim Roon quickly. "I'll be general of the Americans."
"Huh," retorted Bobby. "What do you think the other side is going to be? My men are Americans, too."
"Who said you were a general?" jeered Tim.
"Well, he is," replied Palmer Davis heatedly. "Isn't he, fellows? I guess Bobby proposed this. Come on, who wants to be on Bobby's side?"
"I do," cried Meg instantly.
"So do I," said Frances Smith.
"Girls!" Tim Roon's tone was one of deepest disgust. "For goodness' sake, who ever heard of girls being in a snowball fight?"
"Well, we're going to be in this one," Meg assured him with spirit.
"You can't," said Tim.
"Can, too," insisted Meg. "We don't want to fight on your side, anyway."
The bell rang before they had this settled, and when Mr. Carter stopped Bobby in the hall to ask him how the plans were going, Bobby had to confess that they had done little beyond dispute over the names for the sides and whether the girls should be allowed to play.
"It's the girls' school, after all, as much as it is yours," said Mr. Carter thoughtfully. "Some of them, I imagine, will prefer to look on from the windows; but, if I were you, I would be glad to have those who want to play on your side."
"But Tim can't be American," insisted Bobby. "We won't be any other country."
"Then choose colors," suggested Mr. Carter, "Why not Black and Orange?"
Mr. Carter, you see, was a Princeton man, and he thought those colors very beautiful, as indeed they are.
Bobby overtook Tim Roon on the stairs and asked him about the colors.
"I'll be general of the Orange side," decided Tim promptly.
Tim never thought to ask any one his opinion. He always took what he wanted for himself and did not bother to consult the wishes of others.
"Then I'll be the Black," said Bobby. "We'll have to do a lot of work this noon to get ready. I'm glad we brought our lunch."
Tim's head was so full of snowball fights that he missed outright in spelling, and Bobby was discovered drawing a plan of a fort when he should have been studying his geography lesson.
"There," said Miss Mason when the noon bell rang, "now do try to get this wonderful fight out of your minds by the time the one o'clock bell sounds. And don't let me hear of any one going without his lunch to play in the snow. Eat first, and then play."
Bobby looked a little guilty. He had planned to hurry out and start the building of his fort and eat his lunch as he worked. He sat down with Meg and bolted the good sandwiches Norah had packed, very much as Philip sometimes ate his dinner. But then this was an exceptional occasion. Bobby didn't usually forget his manners.
"Come on, fellows!" called Tim, as the children streamed out into the yard. "Choose your sides—hurry up!"
As they chose their sides, Tim found, to his disgust, that he would have to have some girls under him. These were mostly sisters of the boys who lived in Tim's neighborhood, and though he had often pulled their braids and otherwise teased them, still they felt that for the honor of their home streets they were bound to fight on Tim's side.
After every one was enrolled on the Black's side or on that of the Orange, they set to work to build the forts. Such scrambling for snow! Such frantic scouring of corners for drifts from which to pack the walls! And mercy, such screaming and shouting! No game was ever played without a noisy chorus, and this was the most exciting game the Oak Hill children had found in a long time.
"Well, how is it going?" asked Miss Mason, as they came up, damp and rosy, in answer to the noon bell. "I watched you from the window for a few moments, but I couldn't tell what you were building."
Couldn't tell what they were building! If that wasn't like a woman! For a second Bobby was completely discouraged, and then he thought that of course Miss Mason couldn't be expected to know. She probably had no idea what a really good snow fight was.
"We were making forts," he explained. "Tim's is down by the gate and mine is under the chestnut tree. We've got a lot of ammunition made, too."
School was out at three o'clock, and a good many of the teachers came upstairs to Miss Mason's room to watch the fight from her windows. Only first and second grade pupils were supposed to take part, but the third and fourth grade children seemed naturally to drift in the direction of the piled up snowballs.
"We'll help you make 'em," they offered.
"That's fair enough," said Mr. Carter, who was to be referee. "You fourth graders help the first, and the third grade can be a reserve force for the second."
When enough snowballs were ready to begin with, the general of the
Blacks retired behind the white walls of his fort and the forces of the
Orange did the same. Mr. Carter blew shrilly on his whistle, and the
battle raged.
Whenever a head popped up over the wall of either fort, whiz! a snowball would be flung toward it. Sometimes the head ducked, sometimes it was caught fairly.
"Gee, don't they sting!" Palmer Davis danced about, holding one hand to his ear. "Just you let me have a whack at 'em!"
The girls were aiming furiously, if blindly. And though Meg closed her eyes tight every time she threw a snowball, Bobby reported that several of her shots had hit a victim. Thanks to the good work of the fourth grade pupils, the supply of ammunition held out well.
Suddenly Bobby, who was standing on a little snow mound that raised him slightly above the wall, received a snowball squarely in the eye. He cried out with the pain, though he tried to smother the sound with his hand over his mouth.
"That was dipped in water and packed!" said Palmer angrily, picking up the ball and examining it. "That's no fair. Mr. Carter said packed snowballs weren't to be used. Let's see your eye, Bobby. Is it swelling?"
"Don't say anything," begged Bobby, letting Palmer inspect his eye, which was rapidly swelling. "Mr. Carter would stop the fight if he heard about the ball."