“Nice suggestion, Chet, but I didn’t refuse to be captain and perhaps I couldn’t have been even if I hadn’t dropped out of the games. Besides, Mathilde is as good as I am.”
“You go too far to be honest, Betty. Sure I know all about that; but it’s more than likely that you would have led your girls to victory. Our girls had a lot of confidence, besides having practiced like mad. Your girls played well, but they lacked that punch to put it over when they had a little bad luck. And they didn’t trust Mathilde as they would have trusted you. It’s funny, but there is a lot in the psychology of a game. It isn’t just good playing.”
“My, Chet! Where do you get ‘psychology?’ Is Ted taking it at the University?” Betty was laughing.
“I reckon! But I get it out of the athletics in the paper. I read the reports of the big games, you see.”
“I suppose so. I only look to see which teams beat. Dick’s the one at our house who reads the sport page.”
CHAPTER XII
COULD BETTY BE STUBBORN?
The independent girl who likes to follow her own opinions and draw her own conclusions is likely to make a few errors of judgment. These come largely from lack of experience; and that lack of experience is the chief reason for the safety to young people in following the direction of their elders in important matters.
On the other hand, as girls and boys grow older, they must be thrown upon their own responsibility in many matters and learn wisdom thereby. The holding of high ideals and the testing of action, conduct and people by them is the greatest safeguard a girl or boy can have. And when it comes to people, most important relation of all, while friendliness and confidence are fine, indeed, and a suspicious attitude to be deeply deplored, when it comes to being led by others, or to being drawn from those high ideals or even minor convictions, a fine reserve is very necessary. Sometimes it is best to withdraw altogether from a friendship rather than be drawn into what is either doubtful or wrong.
Betty Lee’s independence was not of the aggressive variety, but she did like to come to her own conclusions, for which she always thought she had grounds in the facts. Betty was a keen little observer and thought about many things, a very good habit. It was usually quite safe to be “easy-going” and friendly, and as Betty had the background of a safe home life and a circle of friends of her own sort, there was very little in social relations to trouble her, and oh, what good times there were! These were connected with the school affairs or with her friends and were sandwiched in between much hard study and her fondness for athletics, with its varied interests.
The friendship which had so distressed Doris had been adjusted without much difficulty, Doris finally taking her mother into her confidence. As Betty had suggested, Stacia was invited for a visit and made much of, with the friendliness, if dignified, which was characteristic of that home. If Stacia found the entertainment dull, she showed no evidence of it and told Doris privately that she thought her mother and father “wonderful.”