There were times in those half-forgotten days when she had wished she were different. Those were the times when at school parties the smooth boys passed her up for girls with a light touch, an easy laugh and plenty of “blue slips” along with their grades.
But Isabelle hadn’t worried too much about that, for the smooth boys made her a little weary. She liked the rough kind, and one boy above all others was just that. He even had a rough and rugged name—Pete Sikes. Pete was a redhead and his hair was always in a tangle. He had freckles, wore a broad grin, was six feet three, and could throw a forward pass farther and straighter than anyone in the league. And when it came his turn to carry the ball he simply faded into the growing dusk.
Pete had on weak point—he wasn’t quite all there—at least his football togs never were. He would come to the game minus a shoe, a helmet, or even a pair of pants.
That was where Isabelle came in. Because she was good at looking after things and needed the money, she had worked at the school office after hours. That was how she knew just what Pete had left behind each time he went to the football field for a game, and why she came rushing to the grounds in a taxi—hired by herself—to slip under the ropes and somehow get a package to Pete.
Pete was bashful, so he’d just blush and mumble,—“Thunder! Isabelle, if it wasn’t for you I’d be playing football in my shirt and shorts!”
He couldn’t know that Isabelle was crazy about him—that she longed to untangle that mass of red hair and do a lot of other nice things for him. So commencement came and went. Pete went with it, and she had lost him. Forever?
Well, it had looked that way until that day the colonel took Gale to her new location. Since the colonel was away, Isabelle was on her own, and was wandering in and out among the great teakwood trees when she ran squarely into a tall, grinning, redheaded sergeant.
“Pete! You old rascal!” she exclaimed, bracing herself to avoid making a grand rush that would have ended in something quite startling to Pete. “How did you ever get here?” she demanded.
“Oh,—by boat, train, automobile and foot,” he grinned. Then he said a whole lot, for Pete. What he said was:
“Thunder! Isabelle! It’s certainly good to see you here! Any American gal would look good to any of us doughboys, but you, Isabelle—you’re just tops!”