The Girls of Central High on Track and Field Part 8

"If Gee Gee doesn't hamper me too much with conditions and extra work, maybe I can be of some help to the school," spoke Miss Bobby. "But I can see plainly she's got it in for me."

"That's what the Gypsy fortune-teller told you," returned Jess. "Didn't she warn you to beware of one of your teachers--and a woman?"

Bobby's light-hearted chatter was stilled and she paled as Jess reminded her of the Gypsy woman.

"Pooh!" Laura quickly said. "There is nothing in that foolishness."

Bobby had utterly refused to tell them what Grace Varey, the Gypsy queen, had told her in the tent. "She could easily see that Bobby was full of good spirits and that she must always be in difficulties with her teachers--and of course it was safe to guess that she would have trouble with a female teacher. I wouldn't give a minute's thought to such foolishness."

But Bobby would not be led to say anything farther, and was very quiet for a time.

She was with Laura and the other juniors, however, over by the gate, when Nell Agnew made her great discovery. The girls had been playing captain's ball on one of the courts, and they were all warm and tired.

Wrapped in their blanket coats, on which Mrs. Case insisted at this time of the year, they were resting on the bench which faced the gateway, and the gate was open.

"My goodness me!" gasped the doctor's daughter, suddenly, "isn't that the same girl?"

"Huh?" asked Bobby. "Isn't what the same girl? You're as lucid as mud, Nell."

"Out there! Quick, Laura--don't you see her?"

Laura Belding craned her neck to see outside the yard. Across the street a girl was pa.s.sing slowly. They could not see her face, and she was wrapped in a long cloak--or waterproof garment.

"Look at that yellow handkerchief!" exclaimed Jess.

"I saw it--and I saw her face," said Nellie.

"That's like the girl we saw up there on the ridge," admitted Laura, slowly.

"The Gypsy girl!" exclaimed Jess, in excitement.

"It _was_ she. I saw her face," repeated Nell.

"Now, what do you know about that?" cried Jess. "Why, she must have gotten away from those people, after all. I'm glad of it."

Bobby said never a word, but she stared after the yellow kerchief, which showed plainly above the collar of the mantle the strange girl wore. And while her mates discussed with interest the appearance in town of the fugitive from the Gypsy camp, Bobby was only thoughtful.

CHAPTER VIII--THE GIRL IN THE STORM

Now, Bobby Hargrew was not naturally a secretive girl. Far from it. Her mates noted, however, that of late she had grown quieter. Ever since their adventure with the Gypsies she had seemed distraught at times, and not at all like her usual merry, light-hearted self.

"That horrid Gypsy woman told her something that scared her," Jess Morse said to Laura Belding. "I didn't think Bobby would be so easily gulled."

"Those people know how to make things seem awful real, I expect,"

returned her chum, thoughtfully. "If I had not been on my guard, and had the woman not tried to learn something from me, instead of attempting to mystify me, I expect I would have fallen under her spell."

"Nonsense!" laughed Jess.

"Well, it seems Bobby was impressed," said Laura.

"I should say she was. And whatever the woman told her, it is something that is supposed to happen in the future. Bobby is looking forward to it with terror."

"I wish I knew what it was."

"But Bobs won't take you into her confidence," sighed Jess.

"No. I've sounded her. And it is no mere trouble that she expects in school. It is something more serious than Miss Carrington's severity,"

Laura rejoined.

Clara Hargrew probably had more friends among the girls of Central High than any other girl on the Hill; yet she had not one "crush." She was "hail-fellow-well-met" with all her schoolmates, and never paired off with any particular girl. She had n.o.body in whom she would naturally confide--not even at home.

For there had been no mother in the Hargrew home for several years. Mr.

Hargrew idolized Bobby, who was the oldest of his three girls; but a father can never be like a mother to a girl. Her two sisters were small--the youngest only six years old. The housekeeper and nurse looked out for the little girls; but Bobby was answerable to n.o.body but her father, and he was a very easy-going man indeed. He was proud of Bobby, and of her smartness and whimsicality; and about everything she did was right in his eyes.

The fact that his oldest daughter had been a good deal of a tomboy never troubled the groceryman in the least. "She was as good as any boy," he often laughingly said, and it was he who had nicknamed her "Bobby."

But the girl was just now at the age and stage of growth when she needed a mother's advice and companions.h.i.+p more than any other time in her life. And she felt woefully alone these days.

She was usually the life of the house when she was indoors, and the little girls, Elsie and Mabel, loved to have her as their playmate. In the evenings, too, she was used to being much with her father. But of late Mr. Hargrew had been going out one or two evenings each week--a new practice for him--and on these evenings when her father was absent, Bobby was so gloomy that it was not long before the little girls complained.

"You're sick, child," declared Mrs. Ballister, the old lady who had been with them since long before Mrs. Hargrew died.

"No, I'm not," declared Bobby.

"Then you've done something that's settin' heavy on your conscience,"

declared the old lady, nodding. "Nothing else would make you so quiet, Clara."

And Bobby felt too miserable to "answer back," and swallowed the accusation without comment.

It was early in the week following the Sat.u.r.day on which the girls had seen the fugitive from the Gypsy camp pa.s.sing the athletic field. Soon after the mid-day recess a sudden spring thunder storm came up, the sky darkened, the air grew thick, and sharp lightning played across the clouds before the threatened downpour.

Some of the girls were so frightened that they ran in from the recreation ground before the gong rang. The heavens were overcast and the trees before the schoolhouse began to writhe in the rising wind.

The first heavy drops were falling when Bobby, who had been excused by Miss Carrington to do an errand during the recess, turned the corner and faced the sudden blast. It swooped down upon her with surprising power, whirled her around, flung her against the fence, and then, in rebounding, she found herself in another person's arms.

"Oh, dear me! Excuse me--do!" gasped Bobby, blinded for the moment and clinging to the person with whom she had collided. "I--I didn't mean to run you down."

At that instant there was a blinding flash followed by a roll of thunder that seemed to march clear across the sky. Bobby felt this girl whom she clung to shrink and tremble at the sound. Now, Bobby herself was not particularly afraid of thunder and lightning, and she immediately grew braver.

"Come on!" she said. "We'll get wet here. Let's run into the boys'

vestibule--that's nearest."

The boys' yard was empty; indeed, the afternoon session had been called to order now in all the cla.s.srooms. Bobby and the strange girl ran, half blindly, into the graveled yard and up the steps.

Just as they entered the vestibule the downpour came. The flood descended and had they been out in it half a minute longer the fugitives would have been saturated.