Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower

“Don’t be mad at us, Billie,” Connie begged, patting Billie’s hand soothingly. “Of course we all feel sorry for the poor little kiddies and their mother and we want to help them all we can. But you can’t blame us for being disappointed when you said you had had an adventure.”

“I wonder if you would call it an adventure,” mused Billie, more to herself than to them, “if one of us should find that stolen invention and claim the twenty thousand dollars reward for it!”

Her classmates stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

“Wh – what did you say?” demanded Connie.

“You heard me,” said Billie, with a grin.

“But, Billie, you know that’s absurd,” said Rose, in her best drawl. “How could we possibly hope to find a thing that has been missing for a couple of years?”

“It may be absurd,” said Billie good-naturedly, pulling the ribbon from her curls and brushing them vigorously. “I think it sounds foolish myself. But while there’s life, there’s hope. Hand me that comb, will you, Vi?”

A few minutes later the big gong sounded through the halls, announcing gratefully to the hungry girls that dinner was ready. And now that the vinegary Misses Dill had gone, delight reigned supreme in the dining hall.

The girls had all they could possibly eat of good satisfying food and they were allowed to chatter as much as they would as long as they did not become too noisy.

But although they had chicken for dinner and cranberry sauce and creamed cauliflower, things all of which she especially liked, Billie enjoyed it less than any meal she had ever eaten.

Again and again before her eyes arose the reproachful images of the three little Haddons, undersized, undernourished, half-starved.

She could hardly wait until dessert had been served, and then, with a murmured word to Laura and Vi, she excused herself from the table and went in search of Miss Walters.

She found that lady in the act of drinking her after-dinner coffee in the privacy of her own little domain.

Miss Walters had a suite of three rooms all to herself: a bedroom, a dressing-room and a sitting-room, and all three of the rooms were fitted up in a manner that befitted a queen.

The sitting-room was done in mahogany and blue. An exquisite Persian rug of dull blue covered the floor and the rich mahogany furniture was all upholstered in blue velour. The curtain draperies were all of this same rich blue over cream-colored lace. In the center of the room was a huge mahogany library table upon which stood a handsome reading lamp with a blue silk shade.

Billie, who had never been in this sanctum before and who had seen Miss Walters only in her office, was amazed when, in reply to her timid knock, the principal invited her to enter.

For a moment she stood dumbly staring, while Miss Walters set down her cup and looked up with a smile. The smile changed to a look of surprise and then to annoyance as the principal saw who the intruder was.

“It must be something very important to bring you here at this hour, Beatrice,” said Miss Walters, while poor Billie began to wish herself back in the security of dormitory C. She was too frightened to explain her presence, and yet she knew that Miss Walters expected an explanation. “What is it you wish?” asked the latter, impatiently.

“I – I’m sorry,” said Billie at last, backing away toward the door. “I shouldn’t have come – but I thought – that is, I thought it was important.” She was half through the door by this time, and Miss Walters, her annoyance changing to amusement, took pity on her.

“What was important?” she asked, adding, as Billie still continued to back away: “Come in here, Billie Bradley, and shut that door. There’s a draft in the hall.”

Relieved at the use of the familiar name Billie, the girl obeyed, shutting the door softly, then turned imploringly to the teacher.

“Sit down,” commanded the latter, pointing to one of the blue velour armchairs near by. “Now tell me the ‘important thing’ you came about while I finish my coffee.”

Billie made poor work of her story at first, for she was still wondering how she had ever had the courage to approach Miss Walters in the privacy of her sanctum sanctorum, but as she went on she became less self-conscious and was encouraged by Miss Walters’ unfeigned interest.

And when, at the end of the recital, Miss Walters reached over and patted her hand and told her she had been quite right in coming to her as she had, Billie was in the seventh heaven of delight.

“With poverty behind them, fortune and comfort ahead, and then again, desolation!” Miss Walters mused, talking more to herself than Billie. “How the human mind can stand up under the strain is a mystery to me. Poor, starving little mites and pitiful, noble mother, fighting for her young with the only weapons she has. Lucky mother to have come to the notice of a girl like you, Billie Bradley,” she added, turning upon Billie so warm and bright a smile that the girl’s heart swelled with pride and adoration.

“Then you will let us help the Haddons?” she asked breathlessly.

“More than that,” smiled Miss Walters. “I willhelp you to help them. I think it is too late to follow out your plan of taking them something to-night.” But she added as she saw Billie’s bright face fall: “But we will pack a basket full to the brim with good things early to-morrow morning and you and Laura and Violet may take them to the cottage after breakfast. Only, you must walk around the lake. I could not take the chance of your skating after what happened this afternoon.”

Billie stammered out some incoherent words of thanks, Miss Walters patted her cheek, and in another moment she found herself standing outside in the hall in a sort of happy daze.

A girl passed her, eyed her curiously, went on a few steps and then came back. It was Eliza Dilks.

“In Miss Walters’ room at night,” said the sneering voice that Billie knew only too well. “No wonder you get away with everything – teacher’s pet.”

Billie started to retort angrily, but knowing that silence was the very worst punishment one could inflict upon Eliza she merely shrugged her shoulders, turned up her straight little nose as far as it would go and walked off, leaving Eliza fuming helplessly.

When Billie reached the dormitory she found the girls waiting for her in an agitated group. There was not one of them who would have dared to approach Miss Walters after school hours unless it had been about a matter of life and death importance, and they had more than half expected that Billie would be carried back on a stretcher.

When they found out what had really happened they welcomed Billie as a hero should be welcomed. They lifted her on their shoulders and carried her round the dormitory, chanting school songs till a warning hiss from one of the girls near the door sent them scuttling. By the time Miss Arbuckle reached the dormitory, they were bent decorously over their text-books, seeking what knowledge they might discover!

Next morning, true to her word, Miss Walters herself superintended the packing of an immense basket with all the dainties at her command. There were chicken and roast beef sandwiches, half of a leg of lamb, two or three different kinds of jelly, some rice pudding left over from the night before, a big slab of cake, two quarts of fresh milk, and some beef tea made especially for the Haddons.

And the girls, feeling more important than they had ever felt before in their lives, marched off after breakfast, during school hours – Miss Walters having personally excused them from class – joyfully bent upon playing the good Samaritan.

“I never knew,” said Laura, as if she were making a great discovery, “that it could make you so happy to be kind to somebody else!”

CHAPTER VI – TROUBLE

It was the girls’ intention at first to leave the hamper of good things before the Haddons’ door so that Mrs. Haddon would have no chance of refusing the gift through pride.

But when they came to the little cottage after half an hour of steady walking, they found to their dismay that Fate had taken a hand and spoiled all their plans.

For Mrs. Haddon herself, a shawl over her head and looking even more worried and anxious than she had when they had seen her before, rounded the corner of the house and met them just as they reached the door.

For a moment the girls had a panicky impulse to drop the basket and run, but on second thought they decided that that would be just about the worst thing they could possibly do. And while they were trying to think up something to say, Mrs. Haddon took the whole situation entirely out of their hands.

At first she did not seem to recognize them, but the next instant her face lighted up with relief and she opened the door of the cottage, beckoning them to enter.

“Just stay here in the kitchen a minute where it’s warm,” she directed them in a strained tone, and before the girls had time to draw their breath she had disappeared from the room, leaving the classmates alone.

“Now we’ve gone and spilled the beans,” whispered slangy Laura, eyeing the blameless hamper disapprovingly as she warmed her chilled hands before the stove. “I don’t suppose she will touch a thing now, and after we went and walked all this way, and everything, too – ”

“Sh-h,” cautioned Billie, a hand to her lips. “She’s coming back.”

At that moment Mrs. Haddon did indeed come back into the kitchen. She closed the door very gently behind her and then came quickly toward the girls.

“Listen,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t know who sent you, just now. Maybe it was God.” She caught her breath on the words and the girls regarded her wonderingly and a little fearfully. For goodness’ sake! what was she talking about?

“Anyway, you’ve come,” went on the woman, swiftly. “And if you want to, you can do me a great favor.”

“What is it?” they asked together.

“Run for the nearest doctor, one of you – or all of you,” said the woman, her words stumbling over one another in her agitation. “Peter, my little boy, is sick. If I don’t have a doctor very soon, he may die.”