ARGERY MARSHALL had entered High School this fall. She had returned from New York with a trousseau that a bride might have envied. She was growing tall, and her beauty already was remarkable. Her little head carried its great black braid proudly. The pallor of her skin was perfectly healthy—and even the Senior lads were seen to observe her with interest and appreciation.
The results of Lydia's summer dressmaking had not been bad. She had made herself several creditable shirtwaists and a neat little blue serge skirt. Her shoes were still shabby. Poor Lydia seemed somehow never to have decent shoes. But her hands and the back of her neck were clean; and her pile of Junior school books already had been paid for—by picking small fruit for Ma Norton during the summer and helping her to can it. She came back to school with zeal and less than her usual sense of shabbiness.
It was a day toward the first of October at the noon hour that Lydia met Kent and Charlie Jackson. She had finished her lunch, which she ate in the cloakroom, and bareheaded and coatless was walking up and down the sidewalk before the schoolhouse.
"Hello, Lyd! How's everything?" asked Kent. "I haven't seen you to talk to since last spring."
"Did you have a fine summer?" said Lydia.
"Aw, only part of it. Dad made me work till the middle of August, then Charlie and I camped up on the reservation."
"Shame he had to work, isn't it?" grinned Charlie. "Poor little Kent!"
The three laughed, for Kent now towered above Lydia a half head and was as brawny as Charlie.
"There comes Margery," said Lydia. "She hardly speaks to me now, she's been to New York."
"She is a peach," exclaimed Charlie, eying Margery in her natty little blue suit appraisingly.
"Some swell dame, huh?" commented Kent, his hands in his trousers' pockets, cap on the back of his head. "Hello, Marg! Whither and why?"
"Oh, how de do, Kent!" Margery approached languidly, including Lydia and Charlie in her nod.
"Got any paper dolls in your pocket, Miss Marshall?" inquired Charlie.
Margery tossed her head. "Oh, I gave up that sort of thing long ago!"
"Land sakes!" The young Indian chuckled.
"How do you like High School, Margery?" asked Lydia.
"Oh, it's well enough for a year or so! Of course Mama, I mean—Mother's going to send me to New York to finish."
"'Mother!' suffering cats!" moaned Kent. "Marg, you're getting so refined, I almost regret having pulled you out of the lake that time."
"You! Why Kent Marshall, I pulled her out myself!" exclaimed Lydia.
"And I saved both of you—and got licked for it," said Kent.
"I hope you all had a pleasant summer," observed Margery, twisting up the curls in front of her small ears. "Mother and I were in New York."
Kent, Lydia and Charlie exchanged glances.
"I had a pretty good summer," said Lydia. "I sewed and cooked and scrubbed and swam and once Adam, Dad, Mr. Levine and I walked clear round the lake, eighteen miles. Adam nearly died, he's so fat and bow-legged. He scolded all the way."
"I don't see how your father can let that Mr. Levine come to your house!" exclaimed Margery with sudden energy. "My father says he's a dangerous man."
"He's a crook!" said Charlie, stolidly and finally.
Lydia stamped her foot. "He's not and he's my friend!" she cried.
"You'd better not admit it!" Margery's voice was scornful. "Daddy says he's going to speak to your father about him."
"Your father'd better not go up against Levine too hard," said Kent, with a superior masculine air. "Just tell him I said so."
"You don't stick up for Levine, do you, Kent?" asked Charlie, indignantly.
"Why, no, but Dave Marshall's got no business to put his nose in the air over John Levine. I don't care if he is Margery's father. Everybody in town knows that he's as cruel as a wolf about mortgages and some of his money deals won't bear daylight."
"Don't you dare to say such things about my father," shrieked Margery.
"He was awful good to Dad and me about a money matter," protested Lydia.
"Aw, all of us men are good to you, Lyd," said Kent impatiently. "You're that kind. Being good to you don't make a man a saint. Look at Levine. He's got a lot of followers, but I'll bet you're the only person he's fond of."
"He's a crook," repeated Charlie, slowly. "If what he's trying to do goes through, my tribe'll be wanderers on the face of the earth. If I thought it would do any good, I'd kill him. But some other brute of a white would take his place. It's hopeless."