“We are the real people,” boasted Muriel Harding, a throbbing note of triumph in her light tones. “Marjorie, Susan, Daisy and I made the team. The fifth girl is Rita Talbot. She was the only one of the blues chosen. Poor Harriet didn’t make it. Neither did Esther. Harriet’s been chosen as a sub, though. So has that queer little green-eyed Warner girl. She’s such a quiet mouse, I never even dreamed she could play basket ball. She can, though.” Muriel rattled off all this, hardly stopping to take breath.
“So dear Miss Merton changed her mind,” burst forth Jerry irrelevantly. “How long did she keep you, Marjorie? What did she say?” They had now progressed as far as the sidewalk and had halted there to talk.
Marjorie entered into brief details, giving Muriel the lion’s share of credit for her blunt explanation to Miss Archer. “If Muriel hadn’t spoken so plainly, Miss Archer might not have seen things in the right light,” she ended.
“Don’t you believe it,” disagreed Jerry. “Miss Archer knows Miss Merton like a book. It’s a real comfort to have a principal like her. Say, I’ll bet Mignon is so mad she can’t see straight. You should have seen her when she passed us. She was talking a blue streak to that Miss Horner. She was one of the judges, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.” Marjorie’s face clouded at mention of the languidly spoken senior. It now occurred to her that she had not been at fault in believing that Charlotte Horner disliked her. No doubt Mignon was the motive for her dislike. Like Ellen, she, too, tardily recalled that the two had been occasionally seen together last year. It might account also for the emphatic wagging of heads that had gone on among the three judges before the final result of the try-out had been announced.
“I suppose you are going to play the sophomores.” Irma’s soft intonation brought Marjorie out of her brown study.
“Of course.” It was Daisy Griggs who answered. “They are to have their try-out to-morrow afternoon. I don’t believe we will be ready to play them before November. We have a lot of practice ahead of us. We’ll have to have new suits, too. But we won’t know until we have a meeting what colors to choose. We ought to ask the subs what they’d like. We can’t very well go by the junior colors this year. They are deep crimson and white, you know. We couldn’t possibly have white suits with a crimson J, and crimson suits wouldn’t be pretty, either.”
“I think they would,” put in Muriel Harding stoutly. “We could have our suits of a little darker crimson than the class color. They would be stunning with a white J on the blouse and a wide, rolling collar of white broadcloth. Besides, crimson is a victorious color. We’d just have to win. It would be inspiring.”
“It sounds good to me,” approved Susan. “They’d certainly be different from any we’ve ever had. We could all put together and buy the cloth. Then have them made by one person instead of each going to our own dressmaker.”
“I think that would be nice,” nodded Marjorie. “But we want to please Daisy, too, so perhaps——”