BELLE RINGOLD
Whether Jessie Norwood actually “had it,” as she proclaimed, or not, she kept very quiet about her discovery of what she believed to be a brand new idea. She did not tell Amy, even, or Momsy. That would have been against the rules of the contest.
She wrote out her suggestion for the prize idea, sealed it in an envelope, and dropped it through the slit in the locked box in the parish house, placed there for that purpose. It was not long to wait until the next evening but one.
She rode down to the church in Momsy’s car, an electric runabout, and waited outside the committee room door with some of the other girls and not a few of the boys of the parish, for there had been a prize offered, too, for the boy who made the best suggestion.
“I am sure they are going to use my idea,” Belle Ringold said, with a toss of her bobbed curls.
Did we introduce you to Belle? By this speech you may know she was a very confident person, not easily persuaded that her own way was not 90 always best. She not only had her hair bobbed in the approved manner of that season, but her mother was ill-advised enough to allow her to wear long, dangling earrings, and she favored a manner of walking (when she did not forget) that Burd Alling called “the serpentine slink.” Belle thought she was wholly grown up.
“They couldn’t throw out my idea,” repeated Belle.
“What is it, Belle, honey?” asked one of her chums.
“She can’t tell,” put in Amy, who was present. “That is one of the rules.”
“Pooh!” scoffed Belle. “Guess I’ll tell if I want to. That won’t invalidate my chances. They will be only too glad to use my idea.”