Although Laura Belding was only finishing her soph.o.m.ore year at Central High, she had become so popular that she was chairman of this important committee, in which, in fact, the policy of the Girls' Branch Athletics was decided. The moment the old business had been disposed of and the way was open for new matters, Laura burst out with:

"Oh, girls! I've got the most exciting thing to tell you!"

"Don't tell us of any other big robbery," sighed Nellie Agnew. "We've heard nothing but robbery at our house ever since Stresch & Potter were broken into. And poor Billy Long!"

"Humph!" muttered Hester Grimes. "I hope they catch him and that he gets all that is coming to him. He always was a mean little brat!"

"Not at all!" cried one of the seniors. "Billy Long never did a mean thing in his life. But he is full of mischief."

"He'll get it, I fancy if the police catch him," laughed Lily Pendleton, unpleasantly.

"Order!" said Laura, gravely. "I did not introduce my subject in a very proper way, I know; but the trouble of Billy Long is far from our business to-night. As chairman of your committee I have received a communication which originally came from the Luna Boat Club. That is the wealthiest boat club on the lake, you know. They really have more to do with our Big Day than any other organization. And what do you think?"

"Why don't you get to it?" demanded Hester. "You're as slow as cold mola.s.ses running up a hill in January."

"Oh, give her a chance," admonished Jess, taking any criticism of her chum--but her own--in ill part.

"Well," said Laura, unruffled, "the secretary of the Luna Boat Club writes that the club as a whole is much interested in the trial of speed between the eight-oared sh.e.l.ls of the several Girls' Highs and as a trophy for that particular race will present to the winner a silver cup--and you can just bet, girls, if it is anything the Luna Club presents, it will be a handsome one. Isn't that fine?"

"Oh, if we could only win it!" cried Jess, clasping her hands.

"You've got about as much chance of winning over Keyport as I have of flying," said Hester Grimes.

"If goodness is necessary to your wearing wings, Hester, I am afraid you really haven't much chance," said one of the seniors, sweetly, and there was a little giggle of approval from the younger girls.

"It is a sure thing that we can't win with our old tub," agreed Laura, nodding a thoughtful head.

"Pah!" snapped Hester. "You girls in that eight couldn't win anyway."

"I don't know why you say that, Hester," complained Nellie Agnew, who pulled Number 15 in the eight-oared sh.e.l.l. "We do our very best."

"That's what I say," laughed the Grimes girl. "And your 'very best' is about as slow as anything on the lake."

"Let me tell you that doesn't sound very loyal to the school, Miss,"

spoke up another senior.

"And who's to teach _me_ how to talk?" demanded Hester, tossing her head. "I am not asking you, Miss."

"Order, please!" commanded Laura, firmly. "It is not a question of how badly or how well the eight rows. Not just now. We have received a notice of this prize. We must respond properly to the secretary of the Luna Club."

This item was disposed of; but Laura had another thing connected with it on her mind.

"It is quite true," she said, "that with the old sh.e.l.l we have been rowing in, it will be perfectly impossible for our eight to win the race. We are all agreed on that?"

"And all the sane ones are agreed that you couldn't win in _any_ boat,"

declared Hester, in her very meanest way.

"Now, I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Hessie," complained Nellie Agnew.

"And it isn't so, either!" exclaimed Jess Morse.

"Give us a good sh.e.l.l and we'll show you," said Dorothy Lockwood.

"That is what we need," agreed her twin.

"Of course we can win under any decent circ.u.mstances," said Laura, "now that we have Bobby Hargrew to be c.o.xswain again."

Hester was silenced for the time. "Bobby," or Clara Hargrew, had been in difficulties with the school authorities a few weeks before, and had been debarred from all the after-hour athletics--and Hester Grimes had been partly to blame for Bobby's trouble.

"The point of the whole matter is," said Celia Prime, one of the older girls, who was on the point of graduating from Central High, "that the eight need and must have a new sh.e.l.l. Our present boat is a disgrace."

"I object to our centering all our efforts upon that particular boat and crew," snapped Hester.

"So do I," declared Lily, her chum.

"The canoes and the single and double oars have better chances to win than the eight," pursued Hester. "We are centering on the eight because the bulk of the present crew are members of this committee."

"That is not so, Hessie," declared Mary O'Rourke, another senior who rowed in the eight.

"The whole school is interested," said a junior member of the executive board. "The girls talk more about the eight than about anything else."

"And that talk is all very skilfully worked up by Laura, here, and her friends," declared Hester. "Oh! some of us have eyes and ears, I hope."

"And a tongue that is hung in the middle and wags both ways!" whispered Jess.

"We are wrangling without coming to any conclusion," said Laura, sighing. "What shall we do about the sh.e.l.l? Can we get a new one----"

"Who'll buy it for us?" demanded Lily.

"That's just it," agreed Laura.

"Let's ask our folks to all chip in a quarter," said Jess.

"If the parents of every girl at school did that we'd scarcely be able to buy a new sh.e.l.l," returned the chairman.

"I know that my father will never give a penny toward a new sh.e.l.l--not while the crew remains as inefficient as it is at present," said Hester, tossing her head.

"But if you were in Celia's place, at stroke," snapped Jess, who was rather peppery in temper, "I suppose he would go right down into his pocket and purchase a boat for us himself?"

"Perhaps he would, Miss Smartie!" returned the butcher's daughter.

"Any change in the crew is up to Mrs. Case and the girls of the a.s.sociation--you know that, Hessie," Laura said, gravely. "We all got our positions because the instructor thought we were the better rowers----"

"Oh, bah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the angry Hester. "We all know how _you_ are favored in everything, Miss! As for the new sh.e.l.l--I sha'n't do a thing toward helping get one; make up your mind to that."

"That certainly is a terrible stroke of bad news, Hester," drawled one of the older girls. "Now, you would better keep still and let some of the rest of us talk a while. For a soph.o.m.ore, you have a lot to say that is inconsequential."

Some of the younger girls chuckled at this. But the occasion and the dispute itself were too serious to engender much hilarity. The question of the new sh.e.l.l was exhaustively discussed, and it was finally decided that a subscription paper be drawn and presented to the parents and friends of Central High, and a sufficient sum be raised immediately, if possible, to pay for a new eight-oared sh.e.l.l.