"Great, ugly, brutal boxers! Prize-fighters! Awful pictures, Ruth! I suppose next he will make a collection of the photographs of burglars!" and Helen laughed.
The chums were whisked back to Ardmore, having been absent five days. They were so well prepared in their recitations, however, that they did not fall behind in any particular. Indeed, these two bright-minded girls found it not difficult to keep up with their classes.
Even Jennie Stone, leisure loving as she naturally was, had no real difficulty in being well to the front in her studies. And she had become one of the most faithful of devotees of gymnastic practice.
Ardmore's second basket ball five pushed the first team hard; and Jennie Stone was on the second five. As the spring training for the boats opened she, as well as Ruth and Helen, tried for the freshmen eight-oared shell. All three won places in that crew.
Jennie was still somewhat over-weight. But the instructor put her at bow and her weight counted there. Ruth was stroke and Helen Number 2. As practice went on it was proved that the freshman crew was a very well balanced one.
They more than once "bumped" the sophomore shell in trial races, and once came very near to catching the junior eight. The seniors and juniors began now to pay more attention to the freshman class; especially to those members who showed well in athletics.
Because of their characters and their class standing, several of the instructors besides Miss Cullam, the mathematics teacher, were the friends of the Briarwoods. Miss Cullam had shown a warm appreciation of Ruth Fielding's character all through the year. Not that Ruth was a prize pupil in Miss Cullam's study, for she was not. Mathematics was the one study it was hard for Ruth to interest herself in. But when the girl of the Red Mill had a hard thing to do, she always put her whole mind to it; and, therefore, she made a good mark in mathematics in spite of her distaste for the study.
"You are doing well, Miss Fielding," Miss Cullam declared. "Better than I expected. I have no doubt that you will pass well in the year's examinations."
"And you won't be afraid that I'll crib the answers, Miss Cullam?" Ruth asked, laughing.
"Hush! don't repeat gossip," Miss Cullam said smiling, however, rather ruefully. "Even when the gossip emanates from an old cross-patch of a teacher who gets nervous and worries about improbabilities. No. I do not believe any of my girls would take advantage of the examination papers. Yet, I would give a good deal to know just where those papers and that vase went."