“If it were she, I don’t believe she did it purposely,” responded Marjorie. “Even if she did, I’m not going to worry about it. I rather expected she might. Mignon used to do that sort of thing. You remember what a time we had about it last year. But her team and ours were concerned in it. That’s why I took it up. As it was only I to whom it happened this time, I shall say nothing. I don’t wish to start trouble over basket ball this year. If I spoke of it to Ellen she would take it up. You know what Rowena Farnham would say. She’d declare it was simply a case of spite on my part. That I was using it only as an excuse for not being able to throw that last ball to basket. Then she’d go around and tell others that we were whining because we were beaten in a fair fight. I might better say nothing at all. The only thing for us to do is to keep our own counsel and win the next game.”
“I guess your head is level,” was Jerry’s gloomy admission. She was as much distressed over their defeat as were the juniors themselves.
“Marjorie’s head is always level,” smiled Constance Stevens. “I am almost certain that you girls will win the next game. Luck just happened to be with the sophomores to-day. I don’t think they work together as well as you. Miss Farnham is a much better player than the others. Still, I imagine that she might not always do so well as she did in this game. If she saw that things were going against her, she would be quite likely to get furiously angry and lose her head.” Quiet Constance had been making a close study of Rowena during the game. Raised in the hard school of experience, she had considerable insight into character. She seldom criticized openly, but when she did, her opinions were received with respect.
“Your head’s on the same level plane with Marjorie’s, Connie,” agreed Jerry. “I think, too, that Rowena Farnham would be apt to make blunders if she got good and mad. Speaking of getting mad reminds me that Lucy Warner is pouting about those suits of ours. She told Harriet to-day that she thought they were simply hideous. Harriet said that she wouldn’t go in with you girls when you ordered them. She considered them a waste of money. Said if she had one, she’d never get a chance to wear it. Pleasant young person, isn’t she?”
“Perhaps she couldn’t afford to have one,” remarked Constance thoughtfully. “You know her mother is a widow and supports the two of them by doing plain sewing. I imagine they must be quite poor. They live in a tiny house on Radcliffe Street, and Lucy never goes to even the high school parties, or to Sargent’s, or any place that costs money. She is a queer little thing. I’ve tried ever so many times to be nice to her, but she always snubs me. Maybe she thinks I’m trying to patronize her. I can’t help feeling sorry for her. You see I know so well what it means to be very poor—and proud,” ended Constance, flushing.
“She’s a born grouch,” asserted Jerry. “She’s been one ever since I’ve known her. Even in grammar school she was like that. She’s always had a fixed idea that because she’s poor everyone looks down on her. It’s too bad. She’s very bright in her studies, and she’d be quite pretty if she didn’t go around all the time looking ready to bite.”
“Isn’t it funny?” mused Marjorie. “I’ve never noticed her particularly or thought much about her until she made the team as a sub. Since then I’ve tried several times to talk to her. Each time she has acted as though she didn’t like to have me speak to her. I thought maybe she might be a friend of Mignon’s. But I suppose it’s just because she feels so ashamed of being poor. As if that mattered. We ought to try to make her think differently. She must be terribly unhappy.”
“I doubt it,” contradicted Jerry. “Some people enjoy being miserable. Probably she’s one of that sort. As I said before, ‘it’s too bad.’ Still, one doesn’t care to get down on one’s knees to somebody, just because that somebody hates herself. She can’t expect people are going to like her if she keeps them a mile away from her.”
“You are both right,” commented Constance. “She ought to be made to understand that being poor isn’t a crime. But you can’t force that into her head. The only way to do is to wait until a chance comes to prove it to her. We must watch for the psychological moment.” Her droll utterance of the last words set her listeners to giggling. Miss Merton was prone to dwell upon that same marvelous psychological moment.
That evening, as Marjorie diligently studied her lessons, the queer, green-eyed little junior again invaded her thoughts. A vision rose of her thin, white face with its pointed chin, sensitive, close-lipped mouth, and wide eyes of bluish-green that frequently changed to a decided green. What a curious, secretive face she had. Marjorie wondered how she had happened to pass by so lightly such a baffling personality. She charitably determined to make up for it by learning to know the true Lucy Warner. She upbraided herself severely for having been so selfish. Absorbed in her own friends, she had neglected to think of how much there was to be done to make the outsiders happy.