"Who wants to go to grouchy old Towne's reception when you can go to a dance? I've got two bids to the Phi Pi's party," said a fourteen-year-old miss.
"Oh, we'll have to go or she'll flunk us in Algebra," said another girl. "I'll wear my pink silk organdy. What'll you wear?"
"My red silk. Maybe she'll let us dance. I suppose Charlie and
Kent'll both want to take me."
"Terrible thing to be popular! Hasn't Kent the sweetest eyes! Do you know what he said to me the other night at the Evans' party?"
The girls drifted out of the cloak room. Lydia sat rigid. Pink organdy! Red silk! Kent's "sweetest eyes"! Then she looked down at the inevitable sailor suit, and at her patched and broken shoes. So far she had had few pangs about her clothes. But now for the first time she realized that for some reason, she was an alien, different from the other girls—and the realization made her heart ache.
The bell rang and she went to her recitation. It was in Civil Government. Lydia sat down dejectedly next to Charlie Jackson, the splendid, swarthy Indian boy of sixteen.
"Did you learn the preamble?" he whispered to Lydia.
She nodded.
"He didn't say we had to," Charlie went on, "but I like the sound of it, so I did."
The rest of the class filed in, thirty youngsters of fourteen or fifteen, the boys surreptitiously shoving and kicking each other, the girls giggling and rearranging their hair. Mr. James rapped on his desk, and called on young Hansen.