As boys are made more manly by physical exercise and sports, so girls can be made more womanly by them. A healthy girlhood is the finest preparation obtainable for the higher duties of life. As Dr. Agnew, Nellie’s father, was fond of saying: “I don’t care how much of a bookworm a girl is, if she swings a pair of two and a half-pound Indian clubs, she’ll come out all right!”
The report of the organization committee was adopted at an enthusiastic meeting on the following Saturday. Mrs. Case promised that money for equipment of at least one basket-ball court, better swimming facilities, and the preparation of a field for track athletics would be supplied.
The Board of Education would do some of this work. A field on the edge of Lake Luna—right behind the school’s swimming pool, and adjoining Colonel Swayne’s estate—had been obtained and in a few weeks track athletics could be practised there. A fence was to be built to screen the girls from too much publicity, and the paths for running laid out. Tennis courts might be established here, too, if the money held out.
In the basement of the Central High building was a well equipped gymnasium, open to the girls and boys on alternate days. But not many games of skill could be played there. For one thing, the ceiling was not high enough. And the girls—many of them—were eager to learn basket-ball, captain’s ball, tennis, and other vigorous sports approved by the Girls’ Branch Association.
It was approaching that important day in the school year at Central High when the M. O. R.’s “touched” those girls selected for membership. That certain Friday afternoon was looked forward to by most of the sophs and juniors with much anxiety. The freshmen had no part in it. The faculty did not allow the freshmen to belong to the secret society; but it was something for the sophs and juniors particularly to strive for.
Some of the girls passed through the entire four years’ course without being chosen for membership in the M. O. R.’s. But a girl who was popular in her class, stood well in her studies, was approved by the teachers for her deportment, and displayed wit and skill in anything at all, was quite sure of being chosen in either her third or fourth year; but few sophomores were “called.” Therefore it was considered a particular honor to become an M. O. R. in the second year at the school.
This Friday afternoon, known as “the day of the touch,” all the girls of Central High gathered in the girls’ yard. The M. O. R.’s had a modest club house—an old-fashioned three-story, narrow dwelling on the same street as the school, and only a block away—and from that house the committee of nomination marched to the crowded schoolyard.
The committee consisted of four of the seniors who had longest been members of the secret society. They walked through the crowd of girls and with the little be-ribboned baton each carried touched upon the shoulder the girls selected for initiation.
Girls thus indicated were supposed to go home at once and wait for the committee to call for them that evening. Then they would be introduced to the club; but the initiation would come later. There was always something of a novel nature connected with the yearly initiation of candidates.
It was both an honor and a social privilege to be “touched” for the M. O. R.’s. Both Laura Belding and Josephine Morse desired greatly to be among the favored few of the sophomores to gain this boon. But nobody could prophesy which girls would be chosen.