So the girls worked valiantly, despite the smoke that filled the hallways, and under Bob’s gallant leadership saved a great part of the valuable Harding library.
Meanwhile the fire had crept under the flooring and burst out in a recitation room directly beneath the library. But it was soon under control, and just as the first streaks of flame color brightened the gray east the sleepy Westcott girls filed home, leaving the night-watchman and a fireman or two to keep a lookout for further outbreaks.
Bob slept like a log till ten. On her way to an eleven o’clock class she met the night-watchman, grinning from ear to ear and bursting with importance.
THE GIRLS WORKED VALIANTLY
“The president seen me about last night and he said to me, ‘You done noble, Henry.’ Them was his very words, Miss Parker—his very words. I guess he’ll say the same to you, when next he sees you.”
“Oh I hope so! I hope he’ll say it just that way,” laughed Bob, resolving to seek out the president at once and cheer him with Henry’s unconscious humor.
The next day there was a mass meeting of the student body. The Main Building was a good deal injured and the sorting, repairing and rearranging the library would be a work of time. The president wondered if loyalty to the best interests of the college would make the students willing to lengthen their Easter recess by a week, and stay on a week longer in June. The president was very popular and the students voted unanimously to do as he wished; but “The Merry Hearts” voted with both hands. “One for ourselves and one for the college,” as Mary put it. For was not an extra week the only thing they needed to make their Nassau trip perfect? Mr. Wales had urged them to get permission to stay over, but Mary declared that the mere request would endanger her diploma, and Helen and Eleanor looked so grave over the proposal for different reasons that Betty had said no more about it. And now they had had a present of the extra week. It was all too good to be true.