Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma. Wheeler Janet D.

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Don’t be so nice to me,” she said, in a hard voice, “until you know who I am!”

      Billie was given no opportunity to comment on this peculiar observation for at the moment Vi and Laura dashed in from the woods, rushed to Billie and flung their arms about her. They had come by the woods path “around Robin Hood’s barn” and had reached her as soon as possible.

      “Oh-h, look out! Don’t hug so tightly, darlings. I’m – to put it mildly – sensitive. Yes, I’m alive – as you see. No there are no bones broken – I think. But I’ll have to soak in arnica to-night. Bruises – hundreds of ’em. But I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I am just to be alive!”

      Animated by the same thought, Laura and Vi left off hugging Billie and turned to the strange girl.

      “We don’t know how to thank you,” Vi began.

      “If you knew how much I hate thanks you wouldn’t go to the bother,” responded the stranger ungraciously. “I don’t do such things for thanks. Well – good-by!” She turned abruptly and would have plunged into the woods had not Billie called her.

      “I don’t know why you have taken such a sudden dislike to me – to us,” she said. “I am sorry if I have done or said anything to offend you. After saving my life, I don’t like you to go away angry.”

      “I’m not mad,” muttered the girl. “And I don’t dislike you. I think you’re grand!”

      Was ever such a contradictory, amazing creature? Billie stared at her in helpless bewilderment.

      “Well, then!”

      The girl suddenly flung up her head. Her round face was stern and her mouth was combative, but there were tears in her eyes!

      “You won’t be so nice to me when you know who I am, I tell you,” she blurted. “You’ll be like all the rest of the sneerin’, titterin’ lot of ’em. I hate them, I hate every last one of them!”

      This outburst amazed the three girls and roused their curiosity. What did the strange creature mean?

      “It’s true I don’t know your name or where you come from,” said Billie. “But I am sure I shall like you just as much and be just as grateful to you for having saved my life, whoever you are.”

      “Well, then, my name is Edina Tooker,” the girl threw out the information like a challenge. “And I’m livin’, just at present, at Three Towers Hall!”

      The girls merely stared at her, doubting if they had heard aright. The self-styled Edina Tooker laughed harshly.

      “You see! A crazy lookin’ jay like me couldn’t be goin’ to your select boarding school, could she? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Oh, you don’t need to answer me! I can see it in your faces!”

      There was a world of bitterness behind the girl’s harsh tone.

      “She has been hurt,” thought Billie. “Pretty badly hurt and her pride is up in arms.”

      Before she could speak Laura said impulsively:

      “Why, you can’t be a student at Three Towers Hall. I’ve never even seen you there!”

      “I only come a few days ago,” the girl explained. “And after the first day I – I kep’ close to my own room.”

      That explained it, thought Billie. She had heard of the new girl from the wild open spaces who dressed like a freak, talked worse, and kept to her dormitory as though it were a burrow from which she seldom emerged except to attend classes. Characteristically, these uncomplimentary rumors had come to her through Amanda Peabody. Billie had intended vaguely to look up the new girl to see if she could be of any help. Instead, the new girl had looked her up – and in a most dramatic fashion!

      “I know who you are,” Billie said, friendly eyes on the sullen face of Edina Tooker. “I’m glad you introduced yourself. I was going to look you up, anyway.”

      The sullen expression on Edina Tooker’s face did not lift. She regarded Billie suspiciously.

      “What for?” she demanded. “So you could see what a freak I am and laugh at me behind my back?”

      This accusation was almost too much for even Billie’s good nature. A sharp retort rose to her lips – but got no further. She realized in time how much this strange girl must have suffered to make her so bitter and resentful. She was showing tooth and claw because that was her only method of defense. Like some wild creature of the woods, she was backed up against a wall, unable to distinguish friend from foe, fighting valiantly and indiscriminately, fearing nothing but surrender.

      Billie, holding a firm check upon her temper, replied gently:

      “My main – in fact, my only idea in deciding to look you up was to see if I could help you.”

      “Why should you think I needed help?” retorted Edina Tooker harshly. “I suppose you’d been hearin’ things about me – what a freak I am and all.”

      “No one ever said you were a freak,” Billie pursued patiently. “But you were a new girl from a distant city and I thought you might be glad to have someone sort of – well, show you the ropes.”

      The corners of Edina’s straight young mouth turned downward in a sneer.

      “Sounds good, the way you tell it. But you can’t fool me. You’re all alike up to that school, with your highfallutin’ manners and uppity ways. You’d come to see me, yes, so that you could laugh at me and talk about me afterward. ‘Native,’ ‘barbarian,’ that’s a couple o’ the names I’ve heard your swell friends call me. Mebbe you could add some to the string.”

      “If Billie can’t, I will!” cried Laura, with sudden fury. “You’re nothing but a heathen and an ungrateful wretch! You don’t know who Billie Bradley is, maybe, but I’ll teach you!”

      “Hush, Laura, please! Come away!”

      Laura would not be silenced. She brushed the interruption aside impatiently and rushed on, her words pouring forth in a torrent:

      “Billie Bradley is the most popular girl at Three Towers Hall. She does almost everything better than anybody else and yet the girls love her just the same. Maybe you’ve got sense enough to know what that means. She’s a perfect peach and any girl she takes up may count herself in luck. You just think of that when you are all alone and try to realize what you’ve lost. Come on Billie, let’s get away from here!”

      Laura turned away with one last, inimical look at Edina Tooker. Vi joined her, but Billie still lingered behind.

      “I’m sorry you feel this way,” she said to the girl who had saved her life. “I owe you a debt and I’d like to be friends.” Billie paused but as Edina remained silent with sullenly averted face, Billie went on to join Laura and Vi.

      She did not know that the strange girl looked after her with eyes suddenly blurred by tears.

      CHAPTER V

      A PUBLIC REBUKE

      Laura Jordon’s resentment against Edina Tooker and her attitude toward Billie did not abate at once. For the greater part СКАЧАТЬ