“She ought to know me better,” declared Mary. Then she carried her lunch-box to the lunch-room with Betty Peters. There was a crowd there. At first they did not see Laura but when they did, there was no chance to reach her in the crowd. “She did that on purpose,” suggested Betty Peters. Mary called to her, but either Laura didn’t hear or pretended not to, even though some of the other girls spoke to her and Betty Peters was sure Laura must have been aware of the calls. Such a thing as a quarrel between Mary and Laura had never before happened. Nobody knew what to make of it. Mary was mortified and determined to reach Laura so as to explain and make it all right, but when Betty Peters and Mary reached her, Laura walked right in the opposite direction. Mary called after her that it was only a joke, but Laura was icy. So at last, Mary decided that Laura would have to find out for herself what “Die, der, der, die and das, des, dem, das” meant. “Two can play at that game,” she snapped, as Laura disappeared. “If she won’t speak to me, neither will I speak to her!” Betty Peters ate her lunch in the lunch-room but Mary took hers out into the garden. It was snowy there and she was all alone. It couldn’t have been a very nice place to eat lunch! Where Laura went, nobody knew. She was busy studying all the last part of the recreation period. When Mary came in as the bell rang, she never moved. Her back was twisted around toward Mary’s seat. Everybody in the class noticed it, but Miss Allen said nothing. Perhaps she thought that it would pass off by and by.
But the next week they did not speak either! It was worse. Mary had to rub the chalk off the blackboard with her handkerchief because Laura, who was next to her, had the blackboard eraser; and Laura kept it on her side and Mary wouldn’t ask her for it. Miss Allen took Mary’s book to give to a visitor who came into history class, but Laura wouldn’t pass half of hers over to Mary. When Miss Allen saw that she said, “Laura!” in a sharp voice. So Laura put the book upon the desk between them and it stayed there. Nobody turned its pages.
At lunch hour, Mary avoided Betty Peters. Laura disappeared and Sallie Overton found her eating her lunch off on the studio stairs—away from everything. Mary ate hers alone in the cold garden. It must have been that Miss Allen realized how silly they were behaving, for she tried to set matters right. She found out from Betty where Mary was and she put on her long blue cloak and went into the garden after her. What happened in the garden, nobody knew, though some of the girls watched out of the windows and saw Miss Allen talking and Mary using a handkerchief. They came in together. Sallie Overton told Miss Allen where Laura was and the class thought Miss Allen had talked to her, too. It was circulated that Miss Allen had asked them to meet each other and shake hands. But neither of them seemed to have done it, for in class things went on as on previous days. It seemed worse than a Chinese puzzle to solve the difficulty. Some of the girls talked to Mary and some talked to Laura and begged them to make it up. Both declared the other wrong and refused to take the first step. “Please,” begged Betty Peters, the Buttinski. “Please, Laura.” But still nothing happened. Both seemed to feel dreadfully. Both were about as blue as Blue Monday. Miss Allen took time from study hour and talked to the class about friendship and what it meant in terms of self-sacrifice, generosity and loyalty. Both Mary and Laura wept, but still, after dismission, they did not shake hands or speak. And both walked home alone every day.
Miss Allen was correcting papers at her desk as Betty Peters walked down the aisle to go home. Betty Peters seemed as depressed as Miss Allen. Indeed, she almost acted as if she had been to blame for the whole thing and she tried and tried to get Mary to let her tell Laura what “Die, der, der, die and das, des, dem, das” meant. Mary wouldn’t let her tell. She said that Laura could find out herself.
“Well, Betty?” smiled Miss Allen, looking up from the papers she was correcting. It seemed to Betty almost as if Miss Allen were thinking of Laura and Mary. It sounded so.
“It seems a dreadfully hard problem to solve, if two halves are separated,” suggested Betty Peters, thoughtfully. She stopped beside Miss Allen’s desk and watched the blue pencil that was marking a cross upon Laura’s written work.
“Do you mean David and Jonathan?” inquired Miss Allen, with a twinkle in her eye as she looked at Betty.
Betty nodded.
“How did they go home?”
“On different sides of the street.”