Betty Lee, Freshman

by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER XV: DETECTIVE WORK

  In the good, steadfast atmosphere of a sensible home, whose heads werenot easily stampeded, Betty felt better. Father was told quietly byMother. But Betty’s sleep was troubled that night and it was with manyan inward qualm that she started to school the next morning. Sheintended to go on through the day, as her mother advised her, with asmuch quiet dignity as she could command, discussing the matter with noone.

  Peggy, however, referred to the conversation of the day before when shemet her by her locker, next to Betty’s. “The boys _were_ up tosomething, as I told you. It wasn’t Jakey but the boy behind him, Sam,that I was glaring at, as you said. He tried to snatch a piece of paperoff my desk, a blank sheet, it was, and I thought the boys were doingthat just to be smart, taking things off the girls’ desks and seeingwhat they could do without being caught. I mean that bunch of boys, youknow, not Mickey or Andy. So maybe somebody got hold of part of yourpaper.”

  “The wind from that open window blew some paper off my desk once,” musedBetty. “I believe it must have been Jakey that handed it to me, but Ididn’t think it was part of my paper that was written on. I stuck itunder the rest. I did write out my translations on an extra paper first,for I didn’t want to make any erasures and have a messy paper. But Jakeyknows as much as I do. It certainly wasn’t Jakey whose paper was likemine.”

  “Time will tell,” said Peggy. “Don’t worry too much, Betty. Whateverhappens, your friends among us girls will believe what you say.”

  “Thanks, Peggy. You’re a comfort. Please don’t say anything to Carolynyet.”

  “She might know something.”

  “How could she?”

  “I don’t know. But at least I can tell her how I was questioned, andeverybody knew that you had to stay after school, so how can you helptelling her?”

  “I’ll tell her that I was questioned, too.”

  Betty however, had started to school as late as she dared. Inconsequence lessons and the day’s program were upon them. At lunch sheremained in the room until after Carolyn and the rest of those going upto lunch had gone, and pretended to be detained by some notes she waswriting. Perhaps it was not a pretense either, she thought, for sheneeded the notes. But she would not have taken them then if she had notwanted to avoid being with the rest of the girls. A few who were notgoing to lunch were nibbling crackers or chocolate bars and stirringabout the room a little. The colored girl in her Latin class was thereand Betty wondered if she had enough money for the lunch, little as someof it cost.

  Sure enough, there were some chocolate bars and an apple in her locker!She had the chocolate bars in her sweater pocket and the apple had beenpresented to her in the hall by no less a friend than Budd LeRoy. She,too, would miss lunch and divide with Sally. Quickly she ran out to herlocker, rifled the pocket of her sweater, discarded since the early coldmorning, and brought her apple and her pocket knife.

  “Have a bar with me, Sally,” she said, “if you are not going to luncheither, and I’ll cut this apple in two.”

  “Why–thanks, Betty. That looks good. No, I thought I wouldn’t go tolunch today. But you’d better keep all of your apple.”

  “It’s too big and it looks awfully juicy,” added Betty as she cut theapple in halves. “With my compliments, Miss Sally,” and Betty assumedquite an air as she handed the fruit to Sally, who laughed and thankedBetty again.

  “Have you always lived in this city?” asked Betty for something to say,as Sally sat down in her own seat which was opposite Betty’s, by chance,just as in the Latin class.

  In the soft voice and accent peculiar to her race at its best, Sallyanswered this question and asked Betty how she liked this and thatteacher, Miss Heath among others. Miss Heath had not met her class thatmorning, to Betty’s deep disappointment.

  “I saw Miss Heath come in the uppah hall,” said Sally, “jus’ befo’ thelast class. She hurried into the office and I suppose she couldn’t gethere this mawnin.’”

  “Oh, is she here?” asked Betty brightening.

  “Yes. Say, Betty, did you see Jakey Bechstein take some of your papersoff your desk at the test?”

  “No; did he?”

  “Yes, while you were sharpening your pencils. The boys were having funbehind Miss Masterson’s back when she was pulling down one window andputting up another for ventilation, though she didn’t know I supposethat they’re not supposed to do that with the system they’ve got here.They were pretendin’ to look at each other’s papers and grab a few offthe desks and Jakey grabbed yours. But he kept them a while, and I sawhim sneak them back just before you started for your seat.”

  “I didn’t notice. But Jakey knows as much about Latin as I do. Whatwould be the point?”

  “Keeping you from getting ahead of him,” said Sally, taking a large biteof the apple and being obliged to catch some of the juice in herhandkerchief. “Jakey’s not studying so much, I reckon, since he startedbasketball.”

  Betty listened soberly and remembered the remark Jakey had made aboutnot studying for the test. _Could_ it be that he had copied anythingfrom her paper?

  It was worth while staying from lunch and sharing with Sally to hearthis. Yet could she use the information to help herself out?

  “If anything should come up about Jakey, Sally, or anybody, would you bewilling to tell Miss Heath what you saw?”

  “I sure would. I guess the teacher kept you and Peggy about somethinglike that yesterday, didn’t she? I saw her look at Peggy when I heardPeggy snap off the kid that snatched at her paper.”

  “Miss Masterson did ask some questions, Sally.”

  Betty was deep in her lesson for the next hour when the girls came backfrom lunch. “Where _were_ you, Betty?” asked Carolyn.

  “Oh, I just decided that I didn’t want to go up, and I happened to havesome chocolate bars and an apple. I’ll fill up when I get home afterschool.”

  “I always do, and eat lunch, too,” said Peggy. “Miss Heath was upstairsfor lunch. I saw her go into the teachers’ lunch room. It was funny forher to come in the middle of the day, wasn’t it?”

  The girls wondered, but Miss Heath, though not feeling equal to a day ofteaching, had come over for something else, as she had an idea which shewanted to share with the assistant principal. When Betty depressed, wentinto the office of the assistant principal after school, Miss Heath wasthere and looked like a fountain in the desert, or the sun shiningthrough clouds, to Betty.

  “Good afternoon, Betty,” she said pleasantly, though with dignity. “Icame over to see about the little matter of the test. As soon as yourprincipal is at liberty, I want to go over the questions with you.”

  This was surprising–did she mean the real _principal_? Evidently not,for when Mr. Franklin came into the office, stopped on the way byseveral people, both teachers and pupils, she drew out a paper. “I amready to go over the questions with Betty, Mr. Franklin,” she said.

  “Very well,” said he, closing the door.

  “Do you remember the questions, pretty well, Betty?” asked Miss Heath.

  “I would know them if I saw them.”

  “Have you looked up anything you did not know?”

  “Yes–I wasn’t sure about several things that I wrote down; but I haveforgotten what they were now.”

  “Perhaps you will recall them as I go through the questions. I have yourpaper here,” and Miss Heath took out what Betty recognized as her ownpaper.

  What was the point of doing all this! Betty felt confused, but she wouldanswer all the questions if that would help establish her innocence ofthe cheating.

  One by one the examination questions, or directions in regard to whatwas desired, were read. Betty replied slowly, saying in several places,“I didn’t put that all down on my paper, I think, Miss Heath. I thoughtafterward that I had omitted it, though I went all over it socarefully.”

  Later, when they came to the translation, she said, “I couldn’t think ofthe name of that Dative, so I just put Indir
ect Object, because you saidthat in a way all Datives were indirect objects. But I looked it up andI could tell you now.”

  “Take a piece of paper, Betty, and write again the English to Latinsentences.”

  Mr. Franklin indicated by a nod some paper on his desk. Betty took thelist of questions, thought a moment and wrote, slowly. “I always Have totake plenty of time on the English to Latin,” she said, “and there isone that I wrote two ways, but I wasn’t sure that either were right.It’s the one that has the accusative of place to which in it.”

  Miss Heath nodded and her eyes twinkled. Whatever idea she had wasturning out successfully, it seemed. But Betty was very busy with thesentences. She handed over the paper saying “It did not take so long,because I’d thought it out before.”

  “I see. Betty, why did you use _appello_ instead of _voco_ here?”

  “Because it is calling in the sense of naming, as you told us in suchsentences.”

  “Good. Why did you use the Ablative in the second sentence?”

  “Because it specifies that in respect to which”–Betty got no fartherbecause Miss Heath interrupted her.

  “That is enough, Betty. Mr. Franklin, I’m satisfied, are you? The otherperson did not know, and the third youngster plainly copied the wholething from him.”

  Mr. Franklin nodded assent. “Betty,” he said, “you are cleared from allsuspicion of copying and cheating. We know which ones of these paperswere copied. You may thank Miss Heath for her little scheme to find out.We have already met with the others, but we can not tell you theirnames.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to know!” exclaimed Betty. “Thank you so much!”

  It was another Betty that ran down the steps, to find both Peggy andCarolyn waiting for her. Her face must have told them the story. “O,Betty! Is is all right?” eagerly asked Carolyn. “Peggy told me, when Iasked her why she was waiting for you. Oh, you should have told me andlet me worry with you! Was that why you wouldn’t come up to lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please tell us how they found out that you didn’t—” Carolyn would notfinish.

  “Well, you saw Miss Heath, that darling woman! She came over on purposeto see all about it and she had the scheme to bring the questions andfind out how much each of us really knew about things. I really don’tsee how she told, but it must be that whoever copied couldn’t give goodreasons for what he would have missed on or something. She’s a regularSherlock Holmes!”

  “And now, if you’ll never tell a soul, I’ll tell you what Sally Wrighttold me during lunch. I learned a lot by staying down and giving Sallyan old chocolate bar!”

  The girls promised, and the three, Betty in the middle, walked slowlytoward the street, heads together, arms about each other.