Betty Lee, Junior

by Harriet Pyne Grove

“Mother says that you play very well, Betty, and that means something from her.”

“Your mother is a dear. Mine is crazy about her.”

Betty’s mother would scarcely have used the same terms about her feeling toward Mrs. Dorrance, with whom she had become very well acquainted, but Chet understood the common parlance of the girls and was not likely to assume that Betty’s mother was perishing with admiration.

They had been walking quite a little distance to catch a car which would drop them near the church. Now they swung on and finding a seat without trouble, watched the winter landscape as they rode and talked. Some other young people whom they knew were on the car and quite a crowd came from this and another car just ahead, to swell the numbers at the church. But as often happens, though they were a little late, the supper, too, was not being served at quite the appointed hour and Betty and Chet sat down at the first tables to find themselves with many others that they knew. And oh, that good turkey and the full plates! “If you want plenty to eat for your money, Chet,” remarked the boy next to him, “just come to one of the suppers here!”

But whom did Betty find next to her but Clara Lovel, the rival candidate for president of Lyon “Y”? Both girls felt a little self-conscious. Betty and Chet had been seated first and Betty knew that Clara, who came with Brad Warren, did not notice at all who was near her, when she whipped into a seat as she was joking with two or three others. All were pretending to scramble for places. Clara was inclined to make herself a little conspicuous as a rule and was now rather over-dressed for the occasion, though going out with an escort might be considered as demanding special preparation.

As they were served almost at once, it was several minutes before Clara noticed Betty. Betty, who was expecting it, observed from Clara’s expression that her surprise was not an agreeable one, but Betty, who was picking up her fork, pleasantly said “good evening, Clara. This seems to be a good place to come for supper.”

Clara’s murmured reply was scarcely audible and she began to talk in an animated fashion with Brad, who leaned back in his chair, however, to say “how-do-you-do” to Betty and Chet. Supper engaged their attention, with the passing of rolls and butter, cream and sugar, the big dish of cranberry sauce and one or two other homey and appetizing accompaniments of the turkey supper. But Betty did wish that she had a chance to tell Clara that she had not worked for that office against her. Still, it was probably best not to mention it. Clara was quite stiff in her necessary remarks as something must be passed, or when Chet, saying something to Brad, drew Clara into the conversation.

Impulsively, at last, as they were finishing on pumpkin pie, Betty spoke in a low tone, not to be heard in the midst of other conversation about them. Chet was talking to the “waitress,” who had brought him his pie and whom they all knew. She was a junior girl at Lyon High. Brad had turned to the boy next to him with some question about the coming game.

“Clara,” said Betty, “I’ve been wanting to tell you all evening that I didn’t do a thing to work for that being president of Lyon ‘Y.’ The whole thing was a surprise to me and it wasn’t even mentioned to me till just before the election. I imagine that it was the surprise of it to everybody that gave me the most votes—or something like that.”

“The girls who were there wanted you or you would not have been elected,” stiffly said Clara in reply. “But I really have so many things on hand, with my sorority and all we do, and my part in the Christmas play, and my music and art, that I could not do justice to being president of anything. I really can’t approve of a junior’s being president. I was very much surprised that the leader permitted it at all; but I’m sure that you will do very well and I hope that you get through with it without any trouble.”