Clara Hargrew probably had more friends among the girls of Central High than any other girl on the Hill; yet she had not one “crush.” She was “hail-fellow-well-met” with all her schoolmates, and never paired off with any particular girl. She had nobody in whom she would naturally confide—not even at home.
For there had been no mother in the Hargrew home for several years. Mr. Hargrew idolized Bobby, who was the oldest of his three girls; but a father can never be like a mother to a girl. Her two sisters were small—the youngest only six years old. The housekeeper and nurse looked out for the little girls; but Bobby was answerable to nobody but her father, and he was a very easy-going man indeed. He was proud of Bobby, and of her smartness and whimsicality; and about everything she did was right in his eyes.
The fact that his oldest daughter had been a good deal of a tomboy never troubled the groceryman in the least. “She was as good as any boy,” he often laughingly said, and it was he who had nicknamed her “Bobby.”
But the girl was just now at the age and stage of growth when she needed a mother’s advice and companionship more than any other time in her life. And she felt woefully alone these days.
She was usually the life of the house when she was indoors, and the little girls, Elsie and Mabel, loved to have her as their playmate. In the evenings, too, she was used to being much with her father. But of late Mr. Hargrew had been going out one or two evenings each week—a new practice for him—and on these evenings when her father was absent, Bobby was so gloomy that it was not long before the little girls complained.
“You’re sick, child,” declared Mrs. Ballister, the old lady who had been with them since long before Mrs. Hargrew died.
“No, I’m not,” declared Bobby.
“Then you’ve done something that’s settin’ heavy on your conscience,” declared the old lady, nodding. “Nothing else would make you so quiet, Clara.”
And Bobby felt too miserable to “answer back,” and swallowed the accusation without comment.
It was early in the week following the Saturday on which the girls had seen the fugitive from the Gypsy camp passing the athletic field. Soon after the mid-day recess a sudden spring thunder storm came up, the sky darkened, the air grew thick, and sharp lightning played across the clouds before the threatened downpour.