Betty Lee, Freshman

by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER XIV: SENT TO THE PRINCIPAL

  Betty went to her locker, put away all her books and took out her wraps.She would _never_ come back if they thought she cheated! As in a dreamshe mounted the stairs and rounded the hall toward the office of theassistant principal. Several pupils were about the central hall, some ofthem leaving the office toward which she was making her way. JakeyBechstein was slapping a cap upon his quite good?looking head andstarting for the big outer doors with two companions. His big dark eyeswere upon the nearest boy and he did not see Betty, though he closelypassed her.

  “What did he say to you, Jakey?” the boys was asking. It was one of theother freshman boys.

  “’Lo, Betty, going home?” asked a girl behind her. Betty turned andwaved pleasantly to the girl, whom she knew slightly. “Not now,Adelaide–sorry. I have to stop at the office a minute.”

  “Been into mischief, I suppose,” laughed Adelaide.

  “Of course,” returned Betty, knowing that Adelaide was only in fun. Butalas, it was only too true that something was wrong.

  As Betty entered the office a boy was just leaving the desk, going outwith tense mouth and a frown. But the assistant principal looked up in afriendly way at Betty, whose face showed plainly her troubled mind.

  “Sit down, Betty. This is Betty Lee, I suppose.” Mr. Franklin, who asassistant principal usually saw all the offenders in school disciplinebefore his chief, now came from behind his desk and drew up a chair notfar from Betty’s. He looked tired as he stretched out a pair of longlegs, crossed his feet and leaned back, one hand reaching the desk, theother dropped in his lap. Here was only an innocent?looking child, whomhe did not recall meeting.

  “Yes, sir; I am Betty Lee. Miss Masterman told me that I was to comehere.”

  “M?m. Tell you why you were to come?”

  “She said that she thought I–I cheated in examination.”

  The tears which Betty thought she would be able to keep back sprangquickly to her eyes, but she set her lips, wiped her eyes hastily, andcontinued. “But I did not cheat and I did not see it if the whole roomcheated. I tried to make a good paper for Miss Heath!”

  “You like Miss Heath, do you?”

  “Oh, yes sir! If she had only–” Betty stopped, for she would not implyanything against the substitute.

  “Sometimes it is a temptation to try to do well for some one.” Mr.Franklin was looking at her kindly, but soberly.

  “I’ve been taught that it is wrong to cheat, sir; and I don’t believe itpays in the long run. Father says that the teacher usually finds outwhat you know or don’t know.”

  “Usually, but not always when there are so many. Tell me about it,Betty.”

  “But there isn’t anything to tell! I can’t think why anybody _thinks_ Icheated. I worked hard on the review and went over the things I wasweakest on, I thought, and ran over the vocabulary we’ve had, the nightbefore. But I’m pretty good on vocabulary.”

  “Girls sometimes are,” joked Mr. Franklin, at which Betty took heart.

  “Won’t you tell me what happened, Mr. Franklin, to make her think Icheated?”

  “Not yet. Near whom did you sit, Betty?”

  “Why, Dora Jenkins sits in front of me; and on the aisle next, to theright, Mickey Carlin is across from Dora and Sim, James Simmonds, Imean, sits across from me and on the other aisle, across from me,there’s Sally Wright, a colored girl, and Peggy Pollard back of her. Thealphabet is all mixed up in this class.”

  “Who is back of you?”

  “Andy–oh, no, Mr. Franklin, it was all different that day. I rememberthe boys changed–but I shouldn’t tell you!”

  “Go on. One of the boys told me that they changed seats for fun on theday you had a substitute and it was not an exactly criminal act, thoughI don’t stand for it. Then they didn’t change back?”

  “I suppose they thought they’d better not since she had seen them there,though I imagine Miss Heath’s roll is made out that way.”

  “Never mind. Haven’t you the least remembrance who sat behind you or tothe side back?”

  “Seems to me it was Jakey Bechstein behind me and the boys seemed to beall mixed up around there. But I wasn’t thinking about it.”

  “Did you leave your seat at any time?”

  Betty thought. “Yes sir. I have an extra fountain pen and I thought I’dbetter fill it when I was partly through. But the ink at the desk wasout. Then the ink in my pen that I was using gave out and I went up,twice, to sharpen pencils, thinking that I would need sharp points tomake it legible enough for Miss Heath. She is always talking about ourmaking our test papers especially legible.”

  Mr. Franklin smiled. “Sensible woman. Well, Betty, I will tell you thatthere are three papers almost exactly alike and one of them is yours. Doyou suspect any one of copying from you?”

  “No, sir. If Jakey was where he could do it, he would never have tobecause he is as smart as any one in the class and almost never doesn’thave his lesson.”

  “In other words, he almost always does,” smiled Mr. Franklin. “I amafraid we can not go by the usual order of seats, but I am finding outwhere the persons involved sat. You will admit that where papers are soalike there is room for suspicion.”

  “Yes, sir. Is Miss Masterson correcting, or will Miss Heath do it?”

  “Miss Masterson has read the papers carefully and discovered thesimilarity. Miss Heath will be back tomorrow. Every one has deniedcopying.”

  Betty looked at Mr. Franklin and shook her head soberly. “Of course,”she said, “and I’m only one of them, I suppose. Well, Mr. Franklin, I’mnot going to stay in school if any one thinks I’m that kind of a girl!”

  “Do you think that you would be allowed to drop out, Betty? Think thisover tonight and come to see me tomorrow at the same time. I may havemore light on it–and you may think of something to tell me.”

  Betty flushed at this. He meant if she had some confession to make! ButMr. Franklin was rising. She was dismissed, she saw. “I will come,” shesaid and went out, out of the main doors, too, down the steps, on tocatch a street car home.

  All the way Betty sat almost unconscious of the other people on the car,for at the first glance she saw no one whom she knew. From the first theincidents of the last few hours and those of the examination wentthrough her mind. She tried to gather up a few fleeting impressions.Yes, it was Jakey who sat behind her, though it was unusual to see himthere. That was why she could recall it, she supposed. He had grinned ather as she came back from the pencil sharpener. And there had been somewhisking of something somewhere, just before Peggy had been seen toglare at one of the boys. That was probably what he was doing, takingsomething from her desk or teasing her in some way. My, it was a puzzle.But it was simply terrible to be under suspicion. Could it really beBetty Lee that was going through this? And the old nursery rhyme ranthrough her head:

  “But when the old woman got home in the dark, Up jumped the little dog and he began to bark! He began to bark And she began to cry, ’Goodness, mercy on me, this is none of I!’”

  When she reached home she tried to say this to her dear mother, who wassitting by the window mending an almost hopeless stocking of Amy Lou’s.But when she got to the “this is none of I,” her lips quivered and sheran to bury her head in the comfortable lap and sob out the story assoon as she could control herself sufficiently. Here was some one whowould take her word!

  “Dear child, dear child!” soothingly said her mother. “Don’t take it tooseriously. I know how hard it is when a young person cannot justifyherself to schoolmates or friends, but surely you have already made agood impression on your teachers. Don’t you think that when Miss Heathcomes back tomorrow she will handle the matter? You said that theassistant principal is well liked and that the pupils think him fair. Ithink that they will probe the matter a little farther.”

  “But what more can they _do_?” asked Betty from the floor, her headagainst her mother’s knee. “There are t
hose three papers just alike!”

  “And you wrote yours out of your own head. Stick to that. Besides, yourfather and I believe in you. Haven’t we seen your lips moving in all thedeclensions and conjugations so far, while you committed them, andhaven’t I asked you more than once the Latin or English words of yourvocabularies?”

  “You have, sweetest mother that there is!” Betty drew a long sigh.“Anyhow it doesn’t do any good to weep and wail, does it? I believe I’llcall up Peggy and see what she knows and tell her my tale of woe. Ididn’t tell you that she had to stay after school, too, and got askedquestions.”

  “Are you sure that you’d better, child?”

  “Call Peggy? oh, yes, Mother. Peggy would be sure to ask me tomorrowmorning what Miss Masterson said. I’ll bet she’s aching to call me upright now!”

  Mrs. Lee’s face grew serious as soon as Betty left her to call up herfriend. She was more disturbed by Betty’s news than she would haveadmitted to the child herself. Betty was so comparatively new to theschool with no background of long acquaintance as in the old school. Shehad more than half a mind to go to school with her tomorrow. But shethought better of that. Let them work it out first. If necessary, she orBetty’s father would go to see the principal.

  Betty was laughing now over something funny exchanged between the girls.“But it’s really very serious,” she heard Betty say next. “I dread to goto school tomorrow. Tell me ev’rything that you can remember about thatexamination. You wouldn’t mind telling the principal what you just toldme, would you?”

  The answer must have been satisfactory, for Betty chuckled. The subjectmust have changed then, for Betty made some remark not connected withthis recent affair and shortly the telephone conversation closed.