That Betty missed pneumonia was providential, her mother told her; but feeling that she was taking cold, Betty herself took the usual preventives and went to bed. It was late, to be sure, and she had intended to get up early the next morning. But she forgot to set the alarm on the little clock and woke only when her mother called her. She set a book before her at the breakfast table and studied on the street car as best she could; but what a poor beginning to the day it was! There was nothing but the game to anticipate, so far as pleasure was concerned. Her throat tickled, but Carolyn, who also had a slight cold, had some cough drops. They positively could not miss that game!
Betty was not sure of herself in recitation that Friday. She stumbled through English, in which she was usually so good that her teacher looked surprised, but refrained from comment, as Betty was one of her best pupils. Her mind would not work in “Math,” but she managed to get through with a recitation in that. One bright spot in the gloom was that there was no recitation in Latin. Miss Heath was ill, the substitute hadn’t come, and they had study hall instead.
Betty, who liked Miss Heath, hoped that she was not too ill and asked Carolyn if it “wouldn’t turn out like that!”
“The one lesson we got, Carolyn, we didn’t have to recite and my study hall came too late to save me. I just about half recited this morning!”
“Well, remember we’ve our Monday’s lesson ahead, Betty.”
“Sure enough. Aren’t you encouraging?”
Betty and Carolyn shared a steamer rug, brought by Carolyn on some previous occasion and kept in her locker. The weather had moderated from the little flurry of snow and a cold day or two which they had had. But at that the game did not help Betty’s cold any. She forgot it in the general commotion, enthusiasm, singing and cheering that went on, but her handkerchief was needed to catch the sneezes.
A wintry sun shone down on field and stadium. Several hundred boys and girls and their elders tensely followed the plays, but oh, at last they won! It was by a narrow margin, for the Eagles were playing to keep the glory won the year before; but what shouts went up from the Lyon High rooters when the last score was made and the boys carried “Kentucky” from the field on their shoulders. “Kentucky” had made the last touchdown.
“And Kentucky will be on the team next year, too, Carolyn,” said Betty. “He’s a conditioned senior, but they say he isn’t going to try to make it this year. He’s going to take some extra work he wants and stay another year!”
“Go home and put that cold to bed, Betty,” was Carolyn’s last bit of advice.