After luncheon Lois and Betty arrived for a last word; they were in their gym suits and Betty’s
hands were ice cold. Polly tried to be encouraging and cheerful.
“Do be careful of those lines, Bet,” she advised, “and don’t run with the ball.”
“Run with the ball! I probably won’t have a chance to even get my hands on it let alone run with it. Oh, I tell you, I’m in a sweet funk!” groaned Betty.
“Will you stop talking like that, Betty Thompson,” commanded Lois. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, if you can’t play against that insignificant Whitehead center, all my little faith in man is gone.”
“Do tell me something about the other team,” Polly begged. “I heard you giving them the cheer as they arrived. Do they look very dreadful?”
“No, I think we are pretty evenly matched. Their guards are tall—but there goes the bell; we’ll have to fly. Polly, darling, I’ll come and tell you all about it the second the game’s over,” promised Lois, as she and Betty ran down to the schoolroom to join the team.
As Polly lay listening she heard the girls tramping over to the gym. The sound came faintly at first, then louder, and finally halted underneath the infirmary window:
“Oh, there is a girl who’s known in these parts.
Her name is Polly Pendleton, and she’s won our hearts!
Oh, we’d like to know a girl with more go,
And we will stand by her to the end—O!”
sang fifty voices, and then the tramping started