“Oh dear, I suppose I must. I can’t afford to get sick with all there is to do.”
CHAPTER IV
BASKETS AND HUMBLE FRIENDS
Monday brought a Betty “chastened in spirit,” she said, to school. She had spent Saturday and Sunday in bed for the most part and walked to her classes without animation. At lunch the girls, though sorry, could not help laughing over her comical remarks. She had had nothing to do but “think of her sins of omission and commission,” she told them, and worst of all, this morning, at the last minute, she and Carolyn remembered that the lesson they “had ahead” was Cicero and they always had prose on Monday!
“Was that why your hand didn’t go up as usual?” cried Peggy Pollard. “I thought it was your cold and that you were half sick!”
“That is what I’m hoping all my teachers thought this morning; but I could look over my work in bed, so I didn’t ask to be excused from reciting. I thought I could get through.” Betty sighed. “I never had half sympathy enough for girls who aren’t strong.”
“I’m so glad you’ve had this lesson,” said a plump and rosy Carolyn. “I’m so delicate!”
Dotty Bradshaw hooted at this and Mary Emma Howland reminded Betty that there was a meeting after school to see about the Thanksgiving basket that Lyon “Y” was to send or take. “You can come and preside, can’t you, Betty?”
“I think so,” said Betty, brightening a little, “but I’m only the president, not the committee, though I was on it.”
“You’ll have to appoint a new committee, Betty,” said Kathryn, “for the chairman of the usual committee is a friend of Clara’s and I heard her say that the election ‘let her out.’”
Betty looked sober. She recalled the disagreeable experience of Thursday night, of which she had thought many times during those two days of being shut in. The ideals of a Girl Reserve group called for a pleasant spirit on the part of its president. “Well, girls, we’ll just wait and see what happens. Can I count on all of you to help me out? I think we don’t want a bit of trouble and whatever the girls want to do, we’ll just accept it, though sorry, you know.”