Betty Lee, Junior

“Clash, Bim-bang!”

“Toot-toot,” high! “Toot-toot,” low!

“Tooral-looral-loo-oo-oo-oo,” up the scale, “tooral-looral-loo-oo-oo-oo,” down the scale.

“R-r-r-boom!”

Cymbals clashed; horns tooted; scales mounted or fell; bits of popular tunes were tried, and drums occasionally rolled; for Lyon High band was on the platform, in almost full force. All were in uniform and gathered for the greatest Pep Assembly of the year, which would begin when the proper gongs were sounded.

Betty Lee, junior, opening the door of the auditorium, smiled broadly at the sight. Ordinarily Betty would have been in her home room with the rest, waiting for the signals; but she had been sent by her home room teacher on an errand to the office. And on her arrival there, the principal had appeared from his inner office as her message was being delivered to one of the office force.

Looking around for some one who was not busy, he recognized Betty’s presence with a smile. “Betty,” said he—and Betty was proud that he knew her well enough to address her by her first name—“will you please step to the auditorium and see if the band leader has arrived? If so, tell him that I should like to see him a moment before the assembly.”

Armed with this authority, Betty Lee was now invading the present domain of boydom, while the band gathered and practiced after this noisy and irregular fashion. It was fun for everybody and Betty enjoyed her unusual privilege. She hesitated inside of the central door, which she had entered, then walked forward as far as the back row of seats, while she scanned the platform to see if the young man who trained the band had yet come in. She could not see him. There were the rows of chairs, arranged across the stage, the two central rows facing each other. The boys were getting their music in order, putting it upon the standards in front of them, or just sitting down to try out their instruments. Betty, the assured junior now, knew personally many of the band members, and the names of most of the others.

As she waited, not seeing the person she sought, the door behind her flew open to admit a hurrying boy, Chet Dorrance, a senior now and still a good friend of Betty’s. He stopped in his mad haste to speak to her. “’Lo, Betty, how’s this? Going to lead the band this morning?”

“Of course,” laughingly replied Betty. “I’m glad you came along, Chet. The principal wants to see the band leader and sent me to tell him—not the drum-major, you know, but Mr.—What’s-his-name.” Betty lifted her pretty chin a moment.

“You see I’m all fussed, Chet, over such an errand.”

“Yes—you—are!”

“Well, I do hate to go up there to find him, though I thought I might get him from the wings. But would you mind telling him for me, if he comes in pretty soon? It might be possible that he would stop in the office, and I’ll go back there to see if it’s necessary.”

Chet nodded at the explanation. “Sure I’ll tell him. There he comes now,” and Chet indicated a young man who came from the side to the center of the platform. Then, on a trot, Chet traversed the length of the big auditorium to the steps at its side which led into the wings. Betty waited a few moments, to make sure that he really would deliver the message. There he was, motioning back to her as he spoke briefly. With a high salute Chet grinned back at her and sought his horn, while the band leader hurried from the platform, down the side aisle and out at the nearest door into the hall.

“Clash, bing, bang, tooral-looral”—how funny it was! And with a terrific swing of another of the double doors that admitted pupils and teachers into the auditorium, a tall, long-legged senior tore into the room, ran on the double-quick up the aisle nearest, buttoning the coat of his uniform as he went, crossed the stage at the rear, and in an unbelievably short time lugged in the biggest horn of all, shining in its brazen glory.

Betty, still grinning at this latest arrival’s performances, turned to leave just in time to come face to face with another boy, a junior this time, Mickey Carlin, who was carrying a cornet.

“You saved yourself by turning around, Betty,” said the youth usually addressed by the boys as “Irish.” “I was just going to set off a few gentle blasts behind you to see how much you love real music. Going to join the band?”

“Certainly,” replied Betty as she threw up her hands in pretended horror at Mickey’s cornet and statement. “I had to deliver a message for the principal—honestly,” she added, as Mickey made a face which indicated some doubt of her veracity. But Betty was smiling. “I’ve got to fly now before the gong rings.”

Betty, too, joined the ranks of the hurried, as she went back to her home room to report the result of her errand and to explain the length of her absence from the room. The “adorable Miss Heath” was her home room teacher this year and she would believe her truthful. It was such a comfortable feeling to be under a teacher who trusted you and to whom you were “making good.” Betty would have been “boiled in oil,” she declared, before she would take advantage of Miss Heath’s confidence. She did feel a little guilty, however, because she had not hurried to leave the auditorium. Those killing boys! And Betty was proud of the Lyon High band, nearly fifty pieces, and “playing like professional musicians” under their instructor and leader, as one optimistic article in the school paper had declared. She gave a little skip as she thought of it, but slowed her step to enter her home room sedately.

Dotty Bradshaw, the same old Dotty, made big eyes at her, pretending to look shocked. Carolyn Gwynne, darling, precious Carolyn, still Betty’s dearest among the girls, scarcely excepting Kathryn Allen, gave Betty a demure look as she passed in front of her desk to report to Miss Heath. As Betty and Carolyn sat on front seats, across the aisle from each other, Carolyn could hear everything that Betty said, though her tone was low as she talked to Miss Heath.

“I’d been wondering what had become of you,” said Carolyn, when in a few minutes the girls of the home room were in semi-order on their way to the auditorium.

“It was fine to ‘traverse these sacred halls’ just like a teacher. O, Carolyn, I’ve something to show you. Don’t let me forget it. I brought it along so Doris or Dick wouldn’t get hold of it. I’m always forgetting and leaving things about and I can’t blame Dodie for looking at them and asking questions. But you do hate to have everything talked over in the family! I really suppose you’ll have grounds for thinking that I’m not in good taste to show it to you but I have to talk it over with somebody!”

“How flattering that you choose me!” mischievously remarked Carolyn.

“Shush! You know I always tell you things that I can tell anybody.”

“I’m consumed with curiosity. What can it be?”

“Do you remember the Don?”

“Oh, yes. You had him at your house one Thanksgiving—our freshman year. Your father had invited him or something.”

“Yes. You know that he just disappeared suddenly and nobody knew what had become of him after school was out. He was supposed to be going on with his education and he was such a wonder all year in athletics. Father missed him from the garage, where he worked and inquired, but never heard. He had intended to go on with his education. Well, I had a letter from him and that is what I want to show you. He doesn’t explain at all, but he sends regards to his friends and asks if he can come—call to see us.”

“Ah, Betty, I shall have to look at that letter!”

“Oh, it’s all right, a very proper letter. I showed it to Mother and Father, of course, for Father was speaking of Ramon Balinsky just the other day. I’ll tell the girls and boys, some of them, and give Ramon’s message, but I just can’t show the letter, for there’s one bit of it that’s a little personal, written in his foreign way. Would it be all right, do you think, if I only said that ‘we’ heard from the Don and that he is all right and sends greetings to all his high school friends?”

“Why not? People usually do say ‘we,’ no matter who got the letter, when it is a sort of family friend. You have a terrible conscience, Betty Lee.”

“No worse than yours, Carolyn Gwynne,” returned Betty with a little laugh, suited to this private conversation, which was rather hard to carry on as they walked. “Anyhow, Mother says that if you can’t trust people to be truthful, you can’t trust them at all.”

“True enough. But you don’t have to tell all you know to folks that are just plain curious! Still, how would it do to tell Kathryn, and have her tell Chauncey; and by that time it would be that ‘the Lees’ had had word about Ramon and he was sending his best regards or something to everybody that remembered him?”

“Smart girl! I knew you’d think of something!”

Kathryn, coming up behind them, asked at this instant “Why this merriment?” but it was a very quiet bit of laughter that she interrupted and there they were at the door of the auditorium.

The girls made their way to the junior section, where Betty usually sat between Carolyn and Kathryn. The band was playing a lively air by way of escort. Some of the pupils were humming a little with the band and others were talking, though by general consent manners were such as control the usual crowd. They might not have been so good, it is true, had the pupils not known that the principal would tolerate no nonsense; and no one wanted to miss any assemblies, to pass the time in study, or to be sent home.

Lucia Coletti, still in America, still in Lyon High, sat directly in front of Betty and next to Peggy Pollard, who, it may be remembered, had joined the sorority, the “Kappa Upsilons,” to which Carolyn and Betty had been invited. Lucia (pronounced Lu-_chee_-a, in Italian fashion), looked back, as she pulled down the seat of her chair, and gave the girls a salute, very brief, but Dotty Bradshaw, near by, rather daringly asked, “is that a Fascisti salute, Lucia?”

“It’s a mixture, like me,” replied Lucia, not offended, her black eyes flashing an amused glance at Betty. “Listen, Betty,” she said. “I want to see you some time today. I want you to help me out on something.”

“All right,” said Betty.

But the principal was now standing quietly on the platform, as was his custom, his very presence a check upon too vociferous converse. He clapped his hands together several times for quiet. Instantly the talking began to subside, then stopped as the attention of all was secured. All faces turned to the American flag, which stood in silken beauty of red, white and blue at the side of the platform. In the daily lesson of patriotism, pupils and teachers, led by the principal in clear, unhurried accents, repeated the pledge to the flag and country.