Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Jane Allen Junior

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foresee--although I should like to foresee how to get out of it all without scandalizing Jane." "Trust one step to lead to the next," said Shirley, and that sounded like a proverb of Jane's. (Queer how much Jane and Shirley were alike fundamentally.) "Write to Ted and we'll have one 'whale' of a time at the dance." "But I haven't decided to go?" "Oh, yes, you have, Kitten. Wait until you see the old fairy godmother unload her pumpkin. Or did she carry the dress on a broomstick? I forget the details. At any rate, while I'm thinking of a way to appease the wrath of Jane's father by not dishonoring his scholarship, it is the very least you can do to get ready for the dance. I know where you can hire a love of a dress--lots of girls do it--" as Sally drew up a little, "and it only costs five dollars. Let me give you that for Christmas. Write your letter, or shall I do it? Bamboozle Ted until he won't even guess our real meaning, but insist we are his cousins, with first names only." "But he would have to introduce us to his boy friends?" objected Sally. "Well, that's all right. He can do that and we'll just tell him we are playing a joke. College boys adore jokes, don't they?" "Pretty much of a muddle, but I'll try it," assented Sally finally. "And I suppose I could spare that five dollars." "I can at any rate. And did you see Miss Allen stare when you called me Bobbie?" "Yes, but many of the girls have taken that up. It goes so well with your bobbed hair. Don't mind do you?" "Not a bit. Call me Pickles if you like--that would go well with my disposition." Shirley was hurriedly gathering up books and papers from the little table both girls used as a desk in Sally's room under the eaves. "Do you realize we have spent one hour talking? It's all very well for you, Kitten; you can have a recitation prepared or write a theme as easily as I can fail. If I had your talent I would never leave this college without an A.B.," she declared emphatically. "I wonder, Bobbie, did we make a gigantic mistake. If we had not been so influenced by Dol Vin's idea, perhaps we might have managed some way without all that hateful pretense. I can't help blaming myself dreadfully. And to think Miss Allen is so kind without being patronizing---" "Look here, Kit," demanded Shirley. "I know YOU could have come here without that plan, but what could have put ME through? Nothing but the scholarship. So please don't be getting morbid. We may have been foolish, but we did what seemed right, and Dol Vin was a mighty convincing friend, I'll admit. The question now is the dance, then Ted, and then--I don't know, maybe I'll escape in the night," and the old time rebel spirit danced in the sharp, dark eyes. Sally piled up her notes and followed Shirley out to recitation. It was not easy now to finish the task which at first seemed almost alluring. It was like trying to uproot some gentle affection to plan to actually leave Wellington. The girls' secret was spreading poisonous tendrils over every other act and thought; nothing now seemed untouched by that malicious deception, and the very crisis now imminent--was ugly! And this was what both had planned and worked for--to leave Wellington at midyear? They had not reckoned on the power of girls' love for girls, and of education's influence on sentiment. Sally Howland had been steeling herself against "growing fond of things" and that very repression made her its victim; Shirley Duncan defied these conditions and was punished with a "true case" of the epidemic called Environment. So that both now seemed all but helpless at the crisis. A day or two before the dance, when arrangements were running as smoothly as the little lake that dripped through the big grounds of Wellington, a general hike was planned. Each department, freshmen, sophs, juniors and seniors, arranging to go out tramping over the wonderful hills of upper New York state, touching quarries, testing rocks, hunting nuts and cramming into the one pre-holiday jaunt such various needs of outdoor work as were found in the studies then being under test in all grades and classes. Thus far it was an open winter; no snow, flurries failing miserably

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