IT was a great thing to take home with them on the Easter vacation: the Freshman team had beaten the Sophomores and Seniors. Only the Junior team, also a double winner, could not be conquered, and the score of the sister classes was 8-5 in the Junior's favor. The Junior was the champion team for the year and won the banner and the white sweaters with the blue H.
The respect of the college for the Freshmen had increased surprisingly. The glory of the basket-ball team reflected on the whole class. The team were spreaded and fussed over, had their pictures taken for doting classmates, and were generally lionized. The class sent Fanny roses while she was sick; and she was voted "the pluckiest Freshman and dearest little president," and her "slick" playing had won everything for the class! Fanny had no ill effects from her adventure, but with her sojourn of two weeks at home, she got well over her grippe.
As for Helen, she naturally became a leader. The team captain was a generous soul, who would not claim the glory of the victory away from Helen. She told how Helen had coached her team those last days. It was the team work, the hand to hand playing, that scored. Without it, poor little sick Fanny would never have been able to get a hand on the ball. It came to her as the best goal thrower, and, her field of action cleared, she did her part unmolested. The Freshmen never forgot Helen's dogged courage; how, in spite of all discouragements, she had pounded her spirit into them, until they believed their team invincible. She herself owned to grave doubts; the Freshmen never suspected.
They were getting to know Helen now. She no longer seemed "fresh" to them. Even upperclassmen cultivated her acquaintance, and appreciated all she had to say. Helen was strong and capable, had a sensible head, although impulsive, and struck true. Her impulsiveness would never again count against her. Her classmates thought her "great." Even her worst enemies began to think there was something in her, after all; Edith showed it by trying to get her friendship, ceasing to be caustic and sarcastic, and becoming more deferential.
Spring came with the new term. The girls returned from their Easter vacation to find robins hunting for worms amid the greening lawns -- running a few steps and standing stock-still if anybody was looking; then running a few steps more, cocking their eye, making a dive, and tugging at the tail of a fat crawler.
Spring was surely here. The trees had frail little leaves, among which here and there a north-bound song bird alighted. Bluebird and song sparrow vied with each other to herald the spring; swoops of goldfinches came from the south and took possession of the leafing larches; crow blackbirds uttered from the topmost branches of the trees on College Street their rusty notes, and the meadow lark from the fields beyond Wilder called for her children. The ground was damp with the rains and smelt of spring, and the violets and hepaticas knocked with impatient fingers to come out. Then apple blossoms waked up and made nature look and smell sweet.
One of those beautiful days in spring, Fanny and Helen put on their jackets about 4.45, and started for a walk back of Prospect. Both had got the "bird fever," and they planned to go among the tortuous coils of the brook that gave the cider mill power, to see if they could not find red-winged blackbirds in the swampy places.
The cider mill was still at that time of the year, though it might have been suspected of illicit activity. It was a queer, dilapidated structure, half a wreck and half a redeemed ruin. As you looked through the window, you saw the floor rotted away on one side, with rusty machinery clinging to it, while on the other side was installed good enough machinery and a refining apparatus, suspicious in a no-license town. It reminded one of a man paralyzed on one side, and gave no good recommendation to its owner.
The two girls had gone out of the cider-mill precincts and climbed the bars to the hilly road leading past the "bracket man's." Down this they were walking, when of a sudden they saw a bonfire blazing and crackling through the trees below them.
"Look, Fanny," said Helen, stopping short; "is that a bonfire?"
"It looks like it; but it can't be a bonfire at this time of the year. It's too large for a bonfire."
"Maybe it's a house on fire," cried Helen excitedly. "Let's run."
As they ran toward it, the truth showed itself to them. The barn of a house was on fire -- one of those half-barn, half-woodshed structures attached to the kitchen of old-fashioned New England houses, the kitchen attached to the house proper making a telescope of gables growing out of one another. It had not taken the girls more than a minute to run down to the spot, but the barn was already a mass of flames. A woman, who had been drawing buckets of water from the well, gave it up and ran into the house. In a moment she and a girl came out of the cellar with a clothes basket of things. A boy and a dog came bounding over the stone hedge toward the burning building.
" Here, give us the basket," cried the girls to the woman. "We'll take care of these things, and you go into the house for more. You know where your best things are."
They took the basket and emptied it twenty yards from the house, under an apple tree, and rushed back for more.
Over the hedge was scrambling another rescuer, and as they ran toward the house they saw it was Edith Brewster, who had straggled in from a botany expedition.
"The house is doomed," cried Edith. "We can only help take the furniture out."
"And there's not a man around!" exclaimed Fanny, thinking of her not very strong self.
"Fanny," said Helen, "you can cut across the hill to Brad's and tell them about the fire. You are not much good here, and you can get help in less than no time, you're such a sprinter!"
"I hate to leave you here," protested Fanny. "But I suppose I'd be more use getting help. Good- by."
And she ran off toward the village.
Fiercer and fiercer burned the fire. The girls went into the house and took silverware and valuables from the hands of the occupants and deposited them on the other side of the road; clocks, family portraits, and wax-and-feather things in a glass case.
The flames were beginning to eat up the kitchen, and smoke drove through the entire house. The two women were running aimlessly about, and the boy was trying to keep the excited dog from getting burned. Forgetful of self, and forgetful, better still, of their enmity, the two girls ran through the clouds of smoke and came out laden with house furniture. Tables and chairs were brought out and put down in the ditch. They tore apart the beds in the first floor rooms--so neat and white and peaceful a moment before. These they hauled, too, down the front steps, tumbling back again for more things.
Neither of these girls had ever in their lives thought themselves capable of handling such heavy burdens, but they nevertheless clutched the bureaus and washstands, and together dragged them down the hilly grass plot to the road. While the women wept and bungled, and the boy cried and worried about his dog, the two disinterested parties were saving their house effects for them.
It was very hot now. The smoke was oozing from the house as from a sieve. Acrid and black it was pouring out under every board and shingle. Great rats, which the barn had harbored, were running here and there in affright; and, to make matters worse, a box of cartridges which had been in the kitchen began to explode.
"Look outl Look out!" cried the boy. "My cartridges are going off! Look out you don't get hit!"
Helen and Edith, perspiring and smudged and dirty, got behind the tree trunk, and stopped to get their breath and to fill their lungs with clean air.
Up to this time they had hardly spoken, except brisk little directions to each other as they hauled the things down. Now Edith stood looking at Helen, and her tense expression gradually relaxed and her eyes smiled. When eyes smile, the source of it is the heart.
"Helen," she said, grinning, addressing her by her Christian name for the first time, "you look like a chimney sweep!"
"Do I?" replied Helen, without smiling. "I feel like a coal heaver." She was not easily won by the turn of events. "Come on; I guess the cartridges are done popping now. Let's see what else we can do."
Together they ran round to the front door again.
By this time, shouts were heard down the road, and a wagon, piled with men, came rattling up. Mr. Bradley and his son and the clerk were in it; the postmaster and Mr. Dodge; long legged, lazy Jim Finnigan and Joe Serafin, the Italian shoemender. Fanny did not come. She was too done up with her run, and Mr. Bradley made her stay behind.
There was nothing much for girls to do now. The house was too far gone. Only the men rushed in and got down a few things left in the attic. They tore up the carpets, clambering out of windows as the ceilings fell.
The thing was blazing up to the rooftree. Only a little round summerhouse near by, which had once served as observatory to the college during seminary days, stood intact. But it was too close to the house, and, to save it for the family as a temporary shelter, the girls suggested that a carpet be thrown over it and soaked with water.
In five minutes, a carpet was up on the fire side, and they and Mr. Bradley formed a bucket brigade from the well and hurled pails of water upon it.
Suddenly, as Helen was running up the sloping grass plot in front of the house, she uttered a little cry, let the bucket of water fall, and fell on top of it.
Edith, who saw her fall, ran to her and found her in agony.
"Why, what's the matter?" she asked, trying to lift her up.
"I've sprained my ankle," groaned Helen, and she bit her lips with the pain.
"You poor child!" exclaimed Edith. "I'm so sorry. It's dreadful!"
Gently she helped Helen to a more comfortabte position against a tree, and there soon had off her shoe and was bathing her ankle and rubbing it with her palms.
"Just as soon as you get comfortable," said Edith, "I'll see about getting you home. The doctor must do something for you right away."
It seemed odd to Helen -- all this. A month ago Edith was all "back" to her, and her dislike for Helen was an open secret. Only after the games Edith became a trifle less distant. Now she was bathing her foot and handling her very tenderly.
It was some strange fate that threw them so together now, to-day of all days. Together they went into the smoke-filled house and came out with hands on the same piece of furniture. Unconsciously they began to admire each other, though each thought little of her own prowess. Now suddenly came this mishap, and it showed the humanity in Edith. Helen was surprised.
The pain brought Helen near to fainting; but Edith fanned her and bathed her forehead, and drew the pale, smudged face down on her shoulder.
"Just rest a minute there, dear," she said, "and I will ask Mr. Bradley to have his man drive us back in the wagon."
When the owners of the house heard that Helen had sprained her ankle, they did not know what to do for her. They left off looking at their burning home and grieving, and ran to the hurt girl who had injured herself for them.
"Oh, it's nothing," said Helen. " It's silly of me to sprain my ankle just now. I'm dreadfully sorry your house burned down."
"Well," said the woman, "I s'pose it had to come. Only, if Bill were here! But I'm awf'lly sorry you hurt your ankle. I'll never f'get what you girls did for me -- never! My wits were clean gone when I saw the blaze!"
Half an hour later, Helen was back in her own room in Porter, and the resident physician was bandaging up her foot. Fanny reproached herself unmercifully for leaving her roommate, and although her long sprint had left her exhausted, she would not rest until Helen had come back.
"Oh, my dear!" cried Fanny. "I wish I had stayed with you."
"Never mind," said Helen, trying to laugh. "I'd sooner you washed off my dirty face. Doctor," she went on, looking down at the dexterous coiling of the bandage, "do you think I'll have to go about on crutches for long?"