“Mean?” said Jennie, sharply. “If I was as mean as you are, Cora Rathmore, I’d be afraid to go to sleep without a light in the room. Just think of being left alone in the dark with anybody as mean as you are!”
“Think you’re smart! Ouch! Let go of me!”
“You quit ragging Nance Nelson, or I’ll pitch you right into the river—now you see if I don’t!” threatened Jennie.
“I’ll tell Miss Etching on you!” threatened Cora, still struggling.
“Go ahead. And I’ll tell her the things you’ve said down here every time the school crew is out. You have a funny kind of loyalty; haven’t you, Cora? Pah!”
“Mind your own business!” snapped Cora, but rubbing her elbows where Jennie had held them like a vise.
She was a little afraid of Jennie’s muscles, as well as of her sharp tongue. Jennie was not a heavy girl, but she was wiry and strong.
This fall rowing was a particular fad of the Pinewood Hall girls. In the long evenings after dinner all but the freshman class were allowed to go out on the river until Mr. Pease blew the big horn at the boathouse to call the stragglers in.
Some of the girls owned their own boats, too, for of course they could not use the racing boats except in practice hours. Others, who did not own boats, hired them of a boatman below the estate, near the railroad bridge.
Jennie and Nancy pooled their pocket money and bought a light skiff—a flat-bottomed affair which was just the thing for them to paddle about in shallow water, and was “seaworthy.” No ordinary amount of rocking could turn the skiff over.