Gertrude Morrison - The Girls of Central High on Track and Field

“You’d have to take mud baths,” giggled Dorothy.

“That road below is in fine shape for that purpose, then,” said Jess, looking through the pouring rain at the puddles in the roadway.

“You’d have to wear flannels,” said Dora.

“Hah!” cried Bobby. “That’s it. Flannels are a sure cure. You know,

“Go on!” exclaimed Jess, laughing. “You sound like ‘Alice in Wonderland.’”

“Say, rather, ‘Bobby in Blunderland,’” added Laura. “But to get back to athletics – ”

“‘To return to our muttons,’” quoth Bobby, unrepressed.

“We have a chance to win the championship – our school has – if we can bring the relay teams up to the mark, and win the jumping events. It is on field and track that we have got to gain the points. No doubt of that.”

“Then our track teams need strengthening – much,” said Nellie Agnew, thoughtfully.

“I should say so!” exclaimed Bobby. “I could put on one of Lil Pendleton’s peg-top skirts and beat most of the junior runners right now!”

“If it’s as bad as that, we have all got to go into the track athletics, and pull up our score,” declared Laura.

“Hurrah!” cried Dorothy, suddenly. “It’s stopped raining.”

“That little shower didn’t even wet under the bushes,” said Eve, with satisfaction.

“Let’s get along, then, before another comes and washes us away,” said Bobby. “Straight ahead, Evangeline?”

“Yes. Right down to that dead oak you see on the lower hillside.”

“Good! A mark is set before me, and if my luck holds good I’ll reach it. But why prate of ‘luck’? Is there such a thing?”

“Give it up. What’s the answer?” asked Dora Lockwood, directly behind her.

“Luck is a foolish thing – or a belief in it is,” complained Bobby. “List to my tale of woe:

“Don’t sing us any more doggerel, but lead on!” commanded Laura.

Bobby was first at the dead tree. There she stopped, not for breath, but because, below her, in a sheltered hollow, where a spring drifted away across a grassy lawn, there was an encampment. She held up her hand and motioned for silence.

There were three large, covered wagons such is Gypsies usually drive. A dozen horses were tethered where the young grass was particularly lush. A fire over which a big kettle of some savory stew bubbled, burned in the midst of the encampment. There were two gaudily painted canvas tents staked on the green, too, although from the opened doors of the wagons it was evident that the Gypsies, at this time of year, mainly lived within their vehicles.

“Oh!” exclaimed Bobby, when the other girls were crowding about her, and looking as hard as she was at the camp. “This is what the girl we saw, ran away from.”

“Isn’t that romantic?” cried Jess, under her breath. “Wouldn’t you like to live in the open like that, Laura?”

“Sometimes. Then again I might want a steam-heated house,” laughed Mother Wit.

“And see that darling little baby!” gasped Nellie Agnew, as a little fellow in gay apparel ran out of one of the tents.

A young woman followed him. She had black hair, and very black eyes, and wore a necklace, and earrings, and bracelets galore. When she ran after the crowing little one the tinkling of these ornaments was audible to the group of girls on the hillside.

This gaily dressed woman caught up the laughing child, and as she turned her gaze went over his head and struck full upon the seven girls.

She set the little boy down quietly, said something to him, and he ran to cover like a frightened chicken. She spoke another word – aloud – and two men and three other women appeared from the wagons, or tents. They all gazed up at the half-frightened girls.

“Come down, pretty young ladies,” said the gaily bedecked Gypsy woman, in a wheedling tone. “We will not harm you. If you cross our palms with silver we may be able to tell you something pleasant.”

She spoke English well enough; but her address mainly was a formula used; to attract trade.

“What’ll we do?” gasped Dorothy Lockwood, clinging to her twin’s hand.

“Keep your courage, Dorry,” said her sister.

“Don’t let them see we’re afraid of them,” Nellie advised, but in a shaking voice.

“And why should we be afraid?” asked Laura, quite calmly.

“Oh, I’ve seen that woman before,” said Eve. “She’s one of the Vareys. They are English Gypsies, like the Stanleys. She was at our place last summer.”

She started down the steep hillside into the camp. The first Gypsy woman said something in the Romany dialect to the others, and the men drifted away, only the woman awaiting the coming of the girls of Central High.

As the seven friends approached they saw that the Varey woman was very handsome, in her bold, dark way. Silver ornaments were entwined in her coarse, blue-black hair; her dress, though garish in color, was neat and of rich material. The bangle, bracelets, necklace and all were either of silver or gold – no sham about them, as Laura Belding very well knew, her father being a jeweler and she knowing something about good jewelry.

“She’s queen of the tribe,” whispered Eve to Laura. “And her husband, Jim Varey, is leader of this clan. He is a horse trader, and sells oilcloth and tinware, while the women sell baskets, and the like, and pick up a quarter now and then telling fortunes.”

“Oh, Eve!” whispered Jess, behind, “did you ever have your fortune told?”

“Yes. It’s silly,” replied Eve, flushing.

“It would be lots of fun,” said Bobby, quite as eager as Jess.

“Let’s all do it,” urged Nellie. “If we give them a little money they probably will not molest us.”

“They wouldn’t dare trouble us, anyway,” said Eve. “And why should they?”

But the other girls, who were not so well acquainted with the Romany people, felt that the adventure in the Gypsy camp promised much excitement. In a minute they were all on the greensward in front of the tent of the Gypsy queen.

“Cross the poor Gypsy’s palm with silver,” whined Grace Varey, in a wheedling tone, “and each of you shall learn what the future has in store for you.”

“Suppose you can’t tell us anything pleasant?” said Bobby Hargrew, boldly. “Then we’d rather not know it.”

“But such pretty little ladies are bound to have pretty fortunes,” replied the Romany woman. “Come! for a shilling – two shillings, in your American money – I will tell you each what you want to know most.”

“You will?”

“Yes, indeed, for but two shillings in your American money.”

“She means a quarter,” said Eve.

“You try it first, Mother Wit,” urged Nellie, nudging Laura.

At the words Grace Varey looked sharply at Laura Belding’s earnest face and thoughtful gray eyes. Instantly she said:

“You do not fear. You lead these others. You have a quick mind and you invent things. You are usually first in everything; but power does not spoil you. You win love as well as admiration – there is a difference. You have parents and at least one brother. You have no sister. There is a – ” She shut her eyes for a moment, and hesitated. “There is a black person – a woman – who has something to do with you – ”