The Girls of Central High on the Stage/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE
"Come to order!" commanded Miss Carrington, rapping on her desk with a hard knuckle.
She quickly gave the class in general a task and sent Jess to her seat.
"I will speak with you later, young lady," she said, in her most scornful way.
Jess's eyes were almost blinded by tears when she went back to her seat. But they were angry tears. The unkind suspicion and accusation of the teacher cut deeply into the girl's soul. She could see some of the girls looking at her askance—girls like Hester Grimes and Lily Pendleton, and their set. Of course, they had not heard all that Miss Carrington said; but they could easily suspect. And the whole class knew that the trouble was over the disappearance of the papers for the review.
Bobby wickedly whispered to her neighbor that she hoped the papers wouldn't ever be found. But that would not help Jess Morse out of trouble.
To Jess herself, hiding her face behind an open book, the printed page of which was a mere blur before her eyes, it seemed as though this trouble would overwhelm her. It was worse than the poverty she and her mother had to face. It was worse than having no party dress fit to be seen in. It was worse than being refused credit at Mr. Closewick's grocery store. It was worse than having old Mr. Chumley hound them for the rent
Reviewing the whole affair more calmly, Jess could understand that Miss Carrington would consider her guilty—if she could bring herself to think any girl of Central High would do such a thing.
Jess sat there, dumb, unable to work, unable to concentrate her mind on anything but the horribly unjust accusation of her teacher. How she disliked Gee Gee!
The other girls were not particularly devoted to the task set them for the moment, either. Laura did not sit very near her chum in this room. She asked permission to speak with Jess and Miss Carrington said:
"No, Miss Belding; sit down!" and she said it in her very grimmest way. Usually the teacher was very lenient with Mother Wit, for of all her pupils Laura gave her the least trouble.
A feeling of expectancy controlled the whole roomful of girls. It came to a crisis—every girl jumped!—when the door opened and Mr. Sharp walked in.
The principal of Central High seldom troubled the girls' class rooms with his presence. When he addressed the young ladies it was usually en masse. He trusted Miss Carrington, almost entirely, in the management of the girls.
His rosy cheeks shone and his eyes twinkled through his glasses as he walked quickly to the platform and sat down beside Gee Gee at her table, which faced the girls, whereas her rolltop desk was at the rear of the platform, against the wall of the room.
Principal and teacher talked in low voices for some moments. Mr. Sharp cast no confusing glances about the room. He ignored the girls, as though his entire business was with their teacher.
At length he looked around, smiling as usual, Mr. Sharp was a pleasant and fair-minded man and the girls all liked him. He had their undivided attention in a moment, without the rapping of Miss Carrington's hard knuckle on the table top. Bobby said that that knuckle of Gee Gee's middle finger had been abnormally developed by continued bringing the class to order.
"Young ladies!" said Gee Gee, snappily. "Mr. Sharp will speak to you."
The principal looked just a little annoyed—just a little; and for only the moment while he was rising to speak. He never liked to hear his pupils treated like culprits. He usually treated them at assembly with elaborate politeness if he had to criticise, and with perfect good-fellowship if praise was in order. This little scene staged by Miss Carrington grated on him.
"Our good Miss Carrington," said he, softly, "has sustained a loss. Important papers have been mislaid, we will say."
He raised his hand quickly when Miss Carrington would have spoken, and she was wise enough to let him go on in his own way.
"Now, the question is: How have the papers been lost, and where are they at the present moment? It is a problem—in deduction, we will say. We must all partake of the character of some famous detective. It used to be a rule in our family when I was a boy that, if a thing were lost, it was wisest to look for it in the most unlikely places first. I can remember once, when father lost a horse, that mother insisted in shaking out all the hens' nests and giving them new nests. But father never did find that horse."
The girls had begun to smile now; and some of them giggled. Miss Carrington looked as she usually did when Mr. Sharp joked—it pained her and set her teeth on edge. Bobby declared she looked as though she had bitten into a green persimmon.
"Joking aside, however," continued the principal. "This loss is a serious matter. Suppose you young ladies suggest how the question papers to be used in this mid-term examination have been whisked out of this drawer of Miss Carrington's desk, and hidden elsewhere? Can it be possible that it is the prank of a pixy? Of course, all of you young ladies are too serious-minded to do such a thing yourselves."
There was a general laugh, then, and the strain of the last few minutes began to be relieved. Somehow, even Jess Morse felt better.
"To suggest that anybody in this class—the Junior class of Central High—would deliberately misappropriate these questions is beyond imagination," declared Mr. Sharp, with sudden gravit. "It is a mistake. The mistake is explainable. Has anyone a suggestion to make?"
It was Laura Belding who broke the silence. She asked her question very modestly, but her cheeks were flushed, and she was evidently indignant.
"Is—is it positive that the papers were put in that top drawer that Miss Carrington now has open?"
"Ask Miss Morse!" snapped the teacher, before Mr. Sharp could reply.
"We will. Nothing like corroboration," said the principal, with a bow and smile. "Miss Morse?"
"Yes, sir," said Jess, in a low voice, rising. "I saw her put them there. She tied them into a bundle by themselves."
"You are observant, Miss Morse," said the principal, smiling again. "Thank you. Now, Miss Belding?" for Laura was still standing.
"I notice that the drawer is very full," said Laura, quietly. "May I come upon the platform and look at it?"
"Certainly," responded Mr. Sharp; but Miss Carrington flushed again, and exclaimed:
"I have searched that drawer thoroughly. The papers are not there."
Again Mr. Sharp made a little deprecatory gesture. "Come forward, Miss Belding," he said.
Mother Wit gave her chum a single reassuring glance. Somehow, without reason, that look comforted Jess. She still stood beside her desk, too anxious to sit down again, while Laura walked quietly forward.
"That drawer is very full, Mr. Sharp," she said, composedly enough. "May I take it out?"
"Oh, I've had it out and felt behind it," urged Miss Carrington, all of a flutter now.
"Maybe Miss Belding can show us something we did not know," said the principal, in his bantering way. It had been he who gave Laura her nickname, and he thought a great deal of the girl. He knew that she had some serious intention or she would not have come forward.
Laura pulled out the over-full drawer and set it down upon the carpet.
"Oh, it isn't there," said Miss Carrington. "The packet was tied with a mauve ribbon—a narrow ribbon"
Laura pulled out the next drawer.
"Oh, that's quite useless," exclaimed the lady teacher. "And to have everything disarranged in this way"
"We must give the counsel for the defense every opportunity, Miss Carrington," said the principal softly.
Laura drew out the third drawer—just glancing at the top layer of papers—and then the fourth and last. No bundle tied with a mauve ribbon appeared.
"Not there!" exclaimed Gee Gee, and was there a spice of satisfaction in her voice?
But Laura dropped upon her knees, ran her arm to the shoulder into the aperture where the last drawer came out, and drew forth the missing packet of papers, which lay crowded back upon the carpet.
"There!" said Mr. Sharp, quite in a matter-of-fact tone, "I have suggested to the Board of Education more than once that all these old unsanitary desks should be done away with. The only roll-top desk fit to use in the schools are those which stand upon feet, the bottom of the lower drawer being a few inches from the floor. Thank you, Miss Belding! We will now go on with the afternoon session."
But he rested his hand for a moment upon Laura's shoulder, as she was about to step down after returning the drawers to their places in the desk.
"The counsel for the defense did very well," he whispered, and then left the room as quietly as he had entered it.
Mr. Sharp had relieved Miss Carrington of the embarrassment of his presence; but she certainly was troubled by the untoward incident. Laura returned to her seat by the way of Jess's and boldly squeezed her hand. And Jess thanked her, in her heart. The rebound from being suspected of the loss of the papers gave her such relief that the coming examination seemed much less terrible. Or perhaps, Miss Carrington was, after all, a little easy on her that afternoon; for Jess Morse came through the grilling with surprisingly high marks.