Gertrude Morrison - The Girls of Central High at Basketball - or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery

The referee’s whistle sounded sharply, and the eighteen girls of Central High engaged in playing basketball, as well as an equal number strung along the side lines, stopped instantly and turned their eyes on Mrs. Case, the physical instructor.

“Hester Grimes! you are deliberately delaying the game. I have reprimanded you twice. The third time I will take you out of the team for the week – ”

“I didn’t, either!” cried the person addressed, a rather heavily built girl for her age, with a sturdy body and long arms – well developed in a muscular way, but without much grace. She had very high color, too, and at the present moment her natural ruddiness was heightened by anger.

“You are breaking another rule of the game by directly addressing the referee,” said Mrs. Case, grimly. “Are you ready to play, or shall I take you out of the game right now?”

The red-faced girl made no audible reply, and the teacher signalled for the ball to be put into play again. Three afternoons each week each girl of Central High, of Centerport, who was eligible for after-hour athletics, was exercised for from fifteen to thirty minutes at basketball. Thirty-six girls were on the ground at a time. Every five minutes the instructor blew her whistle, and the girls changed places. That is, the eighteen actually playing the game shifted with the eighteen who had been acting as umpires, judges, timekeepers, scorers, linesmen and coaches. This shifting occupied only a few seconds, and it put the entire thirty-six girls into the game, shift and shift about. It was in September, the beginning of the fall term, and Mrs. Case was giving much attention to the material for the inter-school games, to be held later in the year.

Hester Grimes had played the previous spring on the champion team, and held her place now at forward center. But although she had been two years at Central High, and was now a Junior, she had never learned the first and greatest truth that the physical instructor had tried to teach her girls:

“ Keep your temper! ”

Since spring several of the girls playing on the first team of Central High had left school, graduating as seniors. The work now was to whip this team into shape, and finally Mrs. Case and the girls themselves, voting upon the several names in their capacity as members of the Girls’ Branch Athletic League, had settled upon the following roster of names and positions as the “make-up” of the best-playing basketball team of Central High:

Josephine Morse, goal-keeper

Evangeline Sitz, right forward

Dora Lockwood, left forward

Hester Grimes, forward center

Laura Belding, jumping center

Lily Pendleton, back center

Dorothy Lockwood, right guard

Nellie Agnew, left guard

Bobby Hargrew, goal guard

The basketball court of Central High was located in the new Girls’ Athletic Field, not far from the school building itself, and overlooking beautiful Lake Luna and the boathouses and rowing course. At the opening of Central High this fall the new field and gymnasium had first come into use.

The athletic field, gymnasium and swimming pool were the finest in the State arranged for girls’ athletics. They had been made possible by the generosity of one of the very wealthy men of Centerport, Colonel Richard Swayne, and his interest in the high school girls and their athletics had been engaged by one of the girls themselves, Laura Belding by name, but better known among her schoolfellows and friends as “Mother Wit.”

The play went on again under the keen eye of the instructor. Mrs. Case believed most thoroughly in the efficiency of basketball for the development and training of girls; but she did not allow her charges to play the game without supervision. Lack of supervision by instructors is where the danger of basketball and kindred athletics lies.

The game is an excellent one from every point of view; yet within the last few years it has come into disfavor in some quarters, and many parents have forbidden their daughters to engage in it. Like bicycling in the past, and football with the boys, basketball has suffered “a black eye” because of the way it has been played, not because of the game itself.

But the Girls’ Branch played the game under sound rules, and under the keen oversight of the instructor engaged by the Board of Education of Centerport for that purpose. Basketball is the first, or one of the first vigorous team games to become popular among women and girls in this country, and under proper supervision will long remain a favorite pastime.

The rules under which the girls of Central High played the game were such as brought into basketball the largest number of players allowed. Whereas there were often in the games on Central High courts only right forward, left forward, center, right guard and left guard, with possibly a jumping center – these games being engaged in by the girls for their own amusement – in the regular practice and when the representative team played the teams of other schools, the girls on the field numbered nine upon a side.

Thus conforming with the new rules, Mrs. Case, and the physical instructors of the other highs of Centerport and the neighboring cities, made the interest in basketball more general and enabled a greater number of ambitious girls to gain coveted positions on the first team.

Suddenly Mrs. Case’s whistle stopped the play again. And as the bustle and activity subsided, two girls’ voices rose above all.

“You just see! It’s only Hester who gets scolded – ”

“It’s not so! If she’d play fair – ”

“Miss Pendleton and Miss Agnew are discussing something of much importance – much more important than the game,” said the referee, tartly.

“Well, she said – ” began Nellie Agnew, who was usually a very quiet girl, but who was flushed and angry now as she “looked daggers” at Lily Pendleton, who was Hester Grimes’s chum.

“That will do, Nellie!” exclaimed the instructor. “You girls evidently have not taken to heart what I have been telling you. The only way to play this – or any other team game – is to work together and talk as little as possible. And by no means allow your tempers to become heated.

“We have formed a new line-up for the fall series of games with East and West High, and the highs of Keyport and Lumberport. It would be too bad to change the make-up of the team later; but I want girls on our champion team, who play the first class teams of other schools, who know how to keep cool and to keep their mouths shut. Now! don’t let me have to repeat this again to-day at least. Time!”

Hester Grimes turned and gave Nellie Agnew an angry look and then went on playing. The girls officiating at the lines changed with the actual players. Later they shifted again, which brought the first team into the field once more with the ball.

When the practice was over Mrs. Case stopped Hester Grimes before she could run off the field. She spoke to her in a low voice, so that no other girl could hear; but she spoke firmly:

“Hester, you are making a bad impression upon the teachers as well as on the minds of your fellow pupils by your indulgence in bad temper.”

“Nobody else calls me down for it but you, Mrs. Case,” declared the big girl, bitterly.

“You are a good scholar – you do not fail at your books,” Mrs. Case continued, quietly. “You do not have occasion in the classroom to often show your real disposition. Here, in matters of athletics, it is different. Your deportment does not suit me – ”

“It never has, Mrs. Case,” exclaimed the red-faced girl. “You have criticized me ever since you came here to Central High – ”