To go into a thing half-heartedly was not Blue Bonnet’s fashion; before she was half-way to Woodford she was deep in plans for her paper. It should not be hard, just to tell the story of The Alamo, as her father used to tell it to her. She must find out about that Woodford man, but there were any amount of old record books at the Woodford Library; Alec had shown them to her one afternoon,—she had thought them very dull-looking.

No one else would have thought of this subject; and she would say nothing about it to anyone—not even at home—until her paper was finished. Then Grandmother should be allowed to see it before it was handed in.

It was mighty good of her and Aunt Lucinda not to have bothered her about it; perhaps—Blue Bonnet straightened herself at the thought—they had not considered it worth while,—had been sure that in spite of her protestations she would come around in the end.

“They came near being disappointed,” she said to herself; “if Cousin Tracy hadn’t given me such a good subject, I shouldn’t be going to try.”

375 Alec was waiting when the train drew into the Woodford station; “I thought Bruce and the cart would make better time than Peter and the phaeton,” he explained. “You don’t want to start the week being late to school, I suppose? So they did get you off in time?”

“They didn’t have to ‘get’ me; I met all their efforts more than half-way. I’ve had a beautiful time—and I hope Woodford’s missed me a little bit?”

“Some of it has. Mind you don’t go and do it again.”

“I may not get the opportunity.”

Alec was not the only one glad to see her; as for Solomon, he was all over her, before she was well out of the cart. There was only time to kiss Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda, before snatching up her school-books.

“Well!” Kitty demanded, waiting for her at the parsonage gate with Sarah; “I hope you’re glad to get back.”

“Even if I were not, I hope I am too polite to say so,” Blue Bonnet laughed, falling into step. Going to and coming from school was fun; it was the staying there that was apt to prove irksome.

She did not go directly home from school that afternoon; instead, she turned off in the direction of the Library, standing well back from the street in its own square of green. It had been easy to376 put Sarah and Amanda off; the rest of the club were busy “making up” these afternoons. It seemed to Blue Bonnet, that, on the whole, it was Miss Fellows who was paying the penalty for the fourteen’s act of insubordination.

Once at the Library, Blue Bonnet hurried to the little room at one side, devoted to the books concerning local history. There was no one else there, though the reading-room was filling fast with pupils on Sargent thoughts intent. Standing before the rows of musty-looking old volumes, Blue Bonnet gave an impatient thought to the originator of so much trouble. It was positively wicked to waste such a glorious Spring afternoon indoors. Perhaps, if she hurried there would still be time for a ride.

Blue Bonnet found that it was not going to be as easy to keep her secret as she had thought, neither at home nor at school. Some of the fourteen had already been granted the longed-for permission, and on the big board up at the front of the assembly-room, the list of papers turned in—including titles and names of competitors—was lengthening daily.

“I think,” Blue Bonnet confided one afternoon to Chula, as they started briskly off down the drive, “that I’ll begin to write mine on Saturday morning; I’ve got all the dates and details about ready.”

At the sound of quick steps behind her, she looked around. “Two is company, you know,” Boyd said,377 riding up beside her; “I hope you are in a mood for company—present company, at that.”

“Then you don’t call a horse and dog company?”

“Do you?”

“Certainly, and very good company.” Blue Bonnet leaned forward to pat Victor; they had become good friends since that ride together last October. “You’ve been riding Victor too hard—again,” she added, with sudden severity.

“Victor has been spoiled ridiculously. He and I have been having a bit of an argument.”

Blue Bonnet’s eyes flashed; “He is not spoiled; but he is used to his owner.”

“He will get used to me—after a while; he’s been learning a thing or two lately.”

By way of answer, Blue Bonnet wheeled Chula around towards home. She knew now why she had not liked Boyd Trent; underneath that smiling, easy politeness were selfishness and cruelty.

Boyd turned too; she was a queer girl, but she was interesting,—which was more than could be said for some of her friends,—and she rode well. “Are you always so extremely sociable?” he asked.

Blue Bonnet flushed; Aunt Lucinda would say that she had been showing her dislike too plainly. “I was thinking of—something,” she said; “I suppose you are looking forward to summer?” After all, he was even more of a newcomer in378 Woodford than she was, and he hadn’t half as many friends; even if one were horrid, one might have feelings like other people.

“Well, rather!” Boyd laughed; “I’ve seen livelier spots.”

“Don’t you like it at the academy?”

“Slow like all the rest of the place.” He pulled out a note-book; “I’ll show you some snap-shots of my school at home.”

Blue Bonnet brought Chula nearer; the snap-shots though small were clear, and the bits of school-life they gave interested her. She decided that she would like a camera; she would like some Woodford views to take back to the ranch.

“Did you take these?” she asked.

“Yes,” Boyd answered. “I’ll overhaul the camera, and we’ll go picture-hunting some Saturday morning.” He was returning the views to his note-book, and, as he spoke, some papers fell from it to the ground.

“One would think you were taking notes for a book—” Blue Bonnet began, then she stopped. They were notes, and they were all in Alec’s handwriting.

Boyd had slipped down from his horse, and was gathering the slips of paper up hurriedly; he looked confused, Blue Bonnet thought.

The little incident came back to her the next morning, as Kitty drew her to a standstill before379 the bulletin board in the assembly-room. “Three more names,” Kitty commented; “they’re coming in fast. Why, there’s Boyd Trent’s. I didn’t know he meant to try; it not being the regulation thing, apparently, for outsiders to do.”

Blue Bonnet let the little dig pass; she was bending to read the title of Boyd’s paper—“The After Stories of Some Sargent Winners.” Suddenly, Blue Bonnet saw again the little pile of papers lying in the dusty road, and Boyd’s face as he bent to pick them up.

“What’s the matter?” Kitty asked; “Are you beginning to repent? It’s not too late even yet! Billy’s still on the tenterhooks,—I think Mr. Hunt might temper judgment with mercy a little more quickly,—and if there’s time for Billy Slade to get up a paper, there’s time enough for you. Nothing happening, you’ll be reading Katherine Clark’s name there before many days.”

“Come on!” Blue Bonnet said. “No, I’m not beginning to repent; I’ve always understood that it was a very uncomfortable process to go through with.” Her thoughts were in a whirl. Had Boyd really taken Alec’s—She couldn’t think that.

She thought about it all during opening exercises; also, all through the Latin recitation afterwards, with the result that she failed twice on questions that she knew quite as well as the girl next her who answered them so glibly.

380 “So like the dear old days!” Kitty murmured provokingly; and Blue Bonnet decided to put the matter out of her thoughts until after school. Just what she intended to do then, was not clear to her; she could hardly go to Boyd and accuse him of—that.

She wouldn’t ride that afternoon; Boyd would probably have Victor—she wished General Trent knew how seldom Alec had the use of his own horse nowadays; she and Alec would go for a walk, and—

“Elizabeth!” Miss Fellows said, “I am afraid that you are not attending to the matter in hand.”

“But I’m going to, really and truly!” Blue Bonnet promised, with an earnestness not all for Miss Fellows. “Mind you do,” she told herself, “or there won’t be any time for walking this afternoon.”

“No, I can’t go home with you!” she assured Kitty after school. “I can’t go home with any of you girls! Yes, there is something on, Little Miss Why; but I am not going to tell you what it is.”

Kitty looked impatient; “You’re the greatest girl for wrapping yourself up in mysteries!”

“I’m not!” Blue Bonnet answered; “but little girls mustn’t ask impertinent questions; good-bye, I’ll see you to-morrow morning.”

“Or before—perhaps,” Kitty retorted. “As I take the notion.”

381 Blue Bonnet found Alec reading on the side piazza; he was looking troubled about something, she told herself. “If you don’t mind, I would like to follow our brook this afternoon,” she said.

“And I am to follow you?”

“It would be more sociable if we kept together.”

They went out across the back meadow, the dogs leaping and barking on ahead, just as they had that August afternoon. A good deal had happened in the eight months since, Blue Bonnet thought; it did not seem as if any other eight months could ever bring so many new experiences; she felt considerably more than eight months older.

“What are you looking so sober over?” Alec asked.

“A great many things.”

They had reached the brook, and turning they followed it back along the way it had come until the woods were reached; here they went more slowly. The April woods were too lovely to be hurried through, Blue Bonnet thought, with the light falling soft and shimmering through the young green of the trees, and the Spring beauties making a delicate border for the brook, which laughed and splashed over the stones, as if it knew that at last the long winter were gone for good.

“Let’s go up to our old picnic place,” Blue Bonnet suggested, and they came at last to the open space where they had lunched that afternoon, with,382 it would seem, the very same squirrel eying them askance from the upper bough of a tall tree.

“Isn’t it nice here!” Blue Bonnet leaned back against the moss-covered trunk of an old tree. “Why couldn’t we come out here for school! It would be much more sensible!”

“From your point of view!”

Blue Bonnet passed a hand lovingly over the pink and white beauties which seemed to be smiling up at her. “And isn’t it good that at last all the fourteen can try for the Sargent? Billy got his discharge papers this noon.”

“I thought Mr. Hunt would prove amenable.”

“How soon do you send your paper in?” Blue Bonnet was picking a knot of the flowers for her blouse and did not look up; she hoped her question sounded sufficiently casual.

“I—oh, I’ve decided to follow your example.”

“You mean you’ve given up trying?”

“Sounds that way, doesn’t it?” Alec was looking straight ahead of him; there was a little pucker between his brows.

Blue Bonnet seemed for the moment to be giving her attention to her flowers. It was just as she had expected; by some means, evidently not fair ones, Boyd must have secured Alec’s notes and used them. Of course she had not liked him—he was selfish and cruel and mean! And she would have to pretend not to know, unless Alec made some sign, which he would not—she wasn’t good at pretending.
“‘BUT I THOUGHT,’ SHE SAID, ‘THAT IT WAS A GIRL’S PRIVILEGE TO CHANGE HER MIND?’”

383 “But I thought,” she said, “that it was a girl’s privilege to change her mind?”

“Mayn’t we borrow one of your privileges occasionally? You borrow some of ours. Besides, I won a prize last year—suppose I should do it again, wouldn’t too much glory be bad for a fellow?”

“Aunt Lucinda won it three times running when she was a girl.”

“Yes, but she was—Miss Lucinda! Come to think of it, my lady, you are not precisely in a position to lecture me for not trying.”

“But I—” Blue Bonnet caught herself up; “I don’t want to lecture anyone—to-day,” she ended, and leaning back again she looked thoughtfully up at the soft stretch of blue showing between the tree tops.

She wished Alec would up and fight Boyd on his own ground! But then, Boyd had stolen his ammunition. Good subjects for the Sargent were not lying around waiting to be picked up; no wonder, when one remembered all the papers that had been written since the originating of the competition.

Blue Bonnet caught her breath; suppose—

But he would not take her subject. Very well, he would have to be managed. She could not help feeling a very real sense of regret. She had meant384 to begin writing her paper to-morrow morning; she had become honestly interested in the doing of it, and she was looking forward to Grandmother’s and Aunt Lucinda’s surprise and pleasure when she told them. As for the girls—

Fortunately, she had said nothing about it. There would not be time to hunt up another subject; besides, she didn’t want any other, she knew how Alec felt about that; still, she was offering him a really new idea. It was the manner of offering it that was troubling her now.

“We aren’t very talkative, are we?&rdqu............