"Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel
further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the
basketball team and the hockey team at college."
"Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very
straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year
about doing things to build up the school spirit?"
Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss
Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do
everything for that. This is my last year--I'm going to just see that
Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!"
Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that
poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be--her face had the pink
and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples
and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes;
she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have
made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the
whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the
chaperoned escort of older boys.
"Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail
him.
Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen
years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an
unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite
a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell
before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face.
His sisters deluged him now with questions.
"Why don't you go out there and look at it yourselves?" But he was too
enthusiastic about the new school to withhold his information. The
living room and the old library had been built into one big room for a
reference library; the classrooms were no end jolly; the billiard room
had been enlarged and was to be an assembly room. A wing had been added
for an indoor gymnasium. He and Stuart King had climbed way to the
tower, but the tower room was locked.
"I remember--mother and Uncle Johnny said that Uncle Peter's papers and
books had been put up there. Mother wouldn't have them here."
"Isn't it funny," mused Gyp as she balanced on the footboard of her bed.
"Everybody hated old Uncle Peter, he was such a cross old thing, and
nobody ever wanted to go to Highacres, and then he turns it into a
school and we'll all just love it and make songs about it----"
"And celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday with an entertainment or
something," broke in Graham. "Maybe they'll even give us a holiday--to
show respect to his memory. Hurrah for old Bones!"
"Graham--you're _dreadful_," giggled Gyp.
"I don't care. It's Uncle Peter's own fault. It's anyone's fault if
nobody in the world likes 'em--it's because they don't like anybody
else!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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