But this was the end of their Senior year in high school, crowded to the limit with all the bustle and excitement and festivity of Commencement time, and the Winnebagos were so busy with examinations and essays and clothes and songs and parties that there was no time to fold their hands and grieve. Katherine, as editor of the class paper, was the star performer on Class Night, although Miss Snively, who trained the speakers, had tried to sandpaper her speech of everything clever. Katherine agreed to every change she suggested with suspicious readiness, and then when the night arrived calmly read her original paper, while the chandeliers dripped giggles and Miss Snively made sarcastic remarks about the cracked-voice orator. Somehow the story of Miss Snively’s attempt to make a hero out of her fiancé had gotten out, although Katherine always looked preoccupied whenever the subject was mentioned, and of late Miss Snively had found the seats in her recitation room occupied by rows of wise grins, which somewhat disturbed her lofty dignity. It was well that this was to be her last year of teaching.
One of the big events of the last week was the interscholastic track meet and athletic contest, to be held on the Washington High athletic field, in which ten big schools took part. The field was thronged with spectators, the grand stand was crowded, school colors floated from tree and pole, cheers burst from groups of students every few minutes and the air was electric with suppressed excitement.
First came the track events, and in these Washington High was tied with Carnegie Mechanic for second place. The Winnebagos were glad it was so, because now the Sandwiches could not crow over them. The Captain finished first in one of the hundred-yard dashes right in front of Hinpoha, where she sat in the grandstand, and he looked over the heads of the cheering boys straight at her. Hinpoha dared not applaud him, because he belonged to Washington’s bitterest rival, but she smiled brightly, and he dropped his eyes, flushing suddenly.
The girls’ events opened with a game of volley ball between Washington High and Carnegie Mechanic. Much to the surprise of the Winnebagos, they saw Katherine come in with the Washington players. Katherine was not on the team. But just before the game opened the girl’s gymnasium director had spied Katherine sitting at one side of the field, unconcernedly shaking a pebble out of her shoe in full view of the grandstand, and hurried over to her. “Will you fill in this game?” she asked breathlessly. “One of our team can’t come and we’re short a girl.”
“But I’ve never played volley ball,” protested Katherine.
“Oh,” said the gymnasium teacher disappointedly. Then she added in a kind of desperation, “Well, I don’t know as it makes any difference. I don’t seem to be able to find a girl who has played. Just stay in the background and strike at the ball with the palms of your hands every time it comes near you. Let the girls in front get it over the net.”
Katherine uncurled her length from the ground and followed the gymnasium teacher obligingly. She was not in the least sensitive about being asked at the eleventh hour to “fill in,” when she had not been asked to be on the team before. Washington’s volley ball team was not a very strong one, and went all to pieces against the concentrated team work of the Carnegie Mechanicals. The score rolled up against Washington steadily. The deafening yells from the grandstand bewildered them, and they could neither volley the ball over the net nor return the Mechanicals’ volleys. They were helpless from stage fright.
Katherine dutifully stayed in the background, sending the ball to the girls at the net, her brow drawing into anxious puckers, as they fumbled it time after time. She began to comprehend the rules of the game and was “getting the hang of it.” The Mechanicals, with fifteen points to their credit, had just lost the ball by sending it out of bounds. It was time to do something. Katherine had noticed that most of the Washington girls had been trying to volley the ball across the net from the back line, instead of passing it on, as she had been doing, and had been falling short nearly every time. With a commanding gesture, she claimed the attention of her team.
“Get back on the volley line in a row,” she ordered. They obeyed her like sheep. Then she took her place half-way between the volley line and the net, facing the girls. “Now,” she said crisply, “whosoever’s turn it is to volley, shoot the ball to me and not an inch farther. I’ll get it over the net. The first one that shoots it over my head is going to get ducked in the swimming pool!”
In their surprise at this sudden rising up of a leader, they forgot the racket around them, and the triumphantly clamoring team on the other side of the net, and calmed down. The girl with the ball sent it straight toward Katherine, and with a windmill motion of her powerful arms, she hit it a sounding whack and sent it over the net like a meteor. There was no returning such a volley.