“Really, Father, can you afford to get me a good violin and let me take lessons?”
“Yes. It is necessary to do things when they ought to be done, and we shall do this. But I’m counting on my girl to make good.”
“Oh, I will try! But you know me!”
“I’m not expecting too much, Betty, only the same effort that you always make in everything. I shall watch to keep you well and safe. Perhaps the athletics that you like so much will help to keep you well. But don’t get reckless in ‘gym.’ We’ll see about the riding some other year, perhaps.”
[CHAPTER XVII: SPRING AT LYON HIGH]
If the autumn, with its excitement of football and the starting of school activities, was thrilling to Betty Lee, what should be said of the springtime, with those same activities matured and new interests of the season? It was baseball among the boys now. Seniors were thinking of their graduation. Freshmen had nearly completed their first year of high school and had changed by contact with the older classes and with their own new ambitions.
Betty could not keep up with it all, nor attend all of the entertainments offered by the different organizations. In some of them she had a part, as when the Girl Reserves did something special with a good program, or when the swimming contests took place, for then not alone the best swimmers took part, but those of modest attainments. In this Betty had occasion to take a little pride in winning points.
Her mother accompanied her to attend the great musical affair of the year, when all the musical organizations, orchestra and glee clubs, combined to show their parents what they could do. Mrs. Lee exclaimed over the ability of the orchestra and Betty explained. “In the first place, Mother, they have a wonderful leader. He’s a foreigner and hasn’t much patience with anybody, Ted says, but it isn’t a bad thing for the way things turn out, you see. Then the boys and girls are used to hearing good music.”
“They hear some very terrible jazz, too,” remarked Mrs. Lee.
“I’ll have to admit it,” laughed Betty, “but not in school, except, perhaps, at the minstrel show they had. I wasn’t there, so I can’t state.”