“One of the fastest two miles ever skated on this river, bar none, Miss Baldwin,” the official scorer, the sporting editor of the Jackson City Daily Mail, announced. “That last half lap you made was a wonder.”
But Beth’s abundant success could not completely smother the objections of the small part of the school that was opposed to her. It was not the last spiteful exhibition of prejudice against Beth that ever raised its head at Rivercliff.
Now that she was breathing easily again and the pulse had stopped pounding in her ears, Beth could hear something besides applause. The congratulations of her friends did not entirely quench the criticisms of those who sided with Laura Hedden.
The latter was furious. The fact that Miss Crossleigh would pay no attention to her announcement of unjust treatment urged the stubborn and ill-natured girl to claim still greater injury than she had in the first place. Indeed, the grievance that she herself had manufactured against Beth had grown to mountainous proportions.
All the way up to the school, after the carnival broke up, Beth heard hints and innuendoes regarding the unfairness shown in the conduct of the two-mile race. At first she did not understand it; she only realized that, despite her high standing in her class and with most of the girls and the teachers, there were still those who considered her little less than the “forward pauper” that Maude Grimshaw had once called her.
Although Maude had left Rivercliff, her spirit had not been quenched among certain of the older girls. “The ill men do lives after them,” is a trite and true saying. The bad influence Miss Grimshaw had gained over her “Me toos” still existed, and hatred of Beth was fostered by Laura Hedden and girls of her type.
In this incident of the race the little, dark, unpleasant girl had a personal reason for being angry with Beth. She was really a very good skater; and had she not stopped at the beginning of the race to wrangle over the “foul,” she would have stood just as good a chance of winning as Beth.
“But who could win anything at this school when all the teachers are prejudiced in the favor of just one person?” Laura demanded loudly, as the crowd climbed the hilly street to the school.
“You are quite right, Laura,” agreed another girl, who thought she had some cause for enmity to the president of the senior class.
“Oh, you can’t beat that Beth Baldwin!” laughed a third, nastily. “What do you say, Rice? Was that race fairly won?”