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Highacres, a fiction by Jane Abbott |
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Chapter 10. The Debate |
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_ CHAPTER X. THE DEBATE "Gyp--what do you think has happened?" Jerry frantically clutched Gyp's arm as they met outside of the study-room door. Jerry did not wait for Gyp to "think." "My name's been drawn for the debate--this Friday night! Miss Gray just told me. I'm taking Susan Martin's place." "What fun----" Jerry had wanted sympathy. "Not fun at all! I am scared to death." A bell rang and Gyp scampered off to her classroom, leaving Jerry to go to her desk, sit down and contemplate with a heavy heart the task that lay before her. She had never so much as spoken a "piece" in her life; since coming to Highacres she had listened, with fascination, to the weekly discussion of current topics, envying the ease with which the boys and girls of the room contributed to it. She had wondered whether she could ever grow so accustomed to large groups of people as to be able to talk before them. Now Miss Gray, waving in her face the little pink slip that had done all the damage, was driving her to the test. However, there had been a great deal in Jerry's simple childhood, spent on the trails of Kettle Mountain, that had given to her an indomitable courage for any challenge. Real fear--that horrible funk that turns the staunchest heart cowardly, Jerry had never known--what she had sometimes called fear had been only the little heartquake of expectation. Once, when she was twelve years old, she had ventured to climb Rocky Point, alone, in search of the first arbutus of the year. Spring had come to the lower slopes of the mountain but its soft hand was just breaking the upper crusts of ice and snow. As she climbed up the trail a deep rumble warned her that a snowslide was approaching. She had only the briefest moment to decide what to do--if she retraced her steps she must surely be overtaken! Near her was a tall crag of rock that jutted out from the wooded slope of the trail; on this she might be safe. With desperate haste she climbed it and, as she clung to its rough surface, tons of ice and snow thundered past her, shaking her stronghold, uprooting the smaller trees, piling in fantastic shapes against the sturdier. As Jerry watched it had been fascination, not terror, that had caught the breath in her throat; she had not recognized the threat of Death; she had glimpsed only the picture of her beloved Kettle angrily shaking old Winter from his mighty shoulders. So, as Jerry sat there in the study-room, her frowning eyes focussed on a spot straight ahead of her, her spirit slowly rose to meet the challenge of the debate. These others had all had to live through their "first," ease had come to them only with practice, she reminded herself. It was pleasantly exciting, too, to be surrounded, after school, by a group of interested schoolmates, each with a suggestion. "Just keep your hands tight behind your back," offered one. "I 'most choked to death in one debate," recalled Peggy Lee, laughing. "I had a cough-drop in my mouth to make my voice smooth and when it came my turn I was so scared I couldn't swallow it and there I had to talk with that thing in my cheek, and every minute or two it'd get out and 'most strangle me! Oh, it was dreadful. I don't believe that story about Demosthenes and the pebble." "I'd get some famous orator's speeches and practice 'em. It makes what you say sound grand!" "Don't look at anybody--just keep your eyes way up," declared Pat Everett, whose experience went no farther than reciting four French verses before a room full of fond parents, at Miss Prindle's boarding-school. All of this advice Jerry took solemnly to heart. Gyp volunteered to help her. Gyp was far more concerned that she should practice the arts of oratory than that she should build up convincing arguments for her side of the question. From the Westley library Gyp dug out a volume of "Famous Speeches by Famous Men." Curled in the deep rocker in Jerry's room she searched its pages. "Listen, Jerry--isn't this grand? 'Let us pause, friends, let us feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the order to advance, let us behold the wild charge, the glistening bayonets, the rushing horses, the blinding----'" "But, Gyp, that's nothing about the Philippine Islands!" "Of course not--at least all that about the horses and the bayonets--but you could say, 'Let us pause----' and wave your hand--like this! Here, he's used it again," her finger traced another line, "it sounds splendid; so--so sort of--calm." Jerry pounced upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic. "Wave your hand out when you say: 'Let us pause and consider----' Oh, that's splendid! Try it again Jerry--slower. You're going to be great!" Gyp's loyal enthusiasm strengthened Jerry's confidence. There was for her, too, an added inspiration in the fact that Uncle Johnny was to be one of the judges. She wanted to do her "very best" for him. As the school weeks had flown by, each full of joys that Jerry could realize more than any of the other girls and boys, her gratitude toward John Westley had grown to such proportions that she ached for some splendid opportunity to serve him. She had told Gyp, one day, that she wished she might save his life in some way (preferably, of course, with the sacrifice of her own), but as Uncle Johnny seemed extraordinarily careful in front of automobiles and street cars, as the Westley home was too fireproof to admit of any great fire and there could not be, in November, any likelihood of a flood, poor Jerry pined vainly for her great opportunity. Once, when she had tried to tell Uncle Johnny, shyly, something of how she felt, he had drawn her affectionately to him. "Jerry-girl, you're doing enough right here for my girls to pay me back for anything I have done." Which Jerry could not understand at all. She could not know that only the evening before Mrs. Westley had told Uncle Johnny how Gyp and Tibby had both moved their desks into Jerry's room, and had added: "Gyp and Tibby never quarrel since Jerry came. She has a way of smoothing everything over--it's her sunniness, I think. Gyp is less hasty and headstrong and Tibby isn't the cry-baby she was." The day before the debate Isobel asked Jerry to show her the arguments she had prepared. "Perhaps I can add some notes that will help you," she explained condescendingly. Poor Jerry went into a flutter of joy over Isobel's apparent interest. She ran to her room and took from her desk the sheets of paper upon which were neatly written each step of her argument. She hoped Isobel would think them good. "May I look over them in school?" Isobel asked as she took them. Jerry would have consented to anything! All through that day her heart warmed at the thought of Isobel's friendliness. Like a small cloud across the happiness of her life at the Westleys had been the consciousness that Isobel disliked her; Gyp was her shadow, Tibby her adoring slave, between her and Graham was the knowledge that they two shared Pepper's loyalty, Mrs. Westley gave her exactly the same mothering she gave her own girls, but Isobel, through all the weeks, had maintained a covert indifference and coldness that hurt more than sharp words. Now--Jerry told herself--Isobel must like her a little bit! Jerry discovered, when Friday night came, that the Lincoln debates were popular events in the school life. Every girl and boy of Lincoln attended; on the platform the faculty made an imposing background for the three judges. Six empty chairs were placed, three on each side, for the debaters who were to come up upon the stage at the finish of the violin solo that opened the program. In the back of the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization of what a ridiculous figure she would present, walking up before everybody in her brown poplin that she knew now was different from any other dress she had seen at school. And Jerry could not get that shiny pump out of her mind! Her own feet, in their sturdy black, square-toed shoes, commenced to assume such elephantine proportions that, when the signal came for the debaters to go forward, she could scarcely drag them along! How much more weighty could her arguments be if she only had on a pretty dress--like Cora Stanton's; if she could only sit there in her chair smiling--like Cora Stanton--down at the girls she knew instead of crossing and uncrossing her dreadful feet! After an interval that seemed endless to Jerry, Cora Stanton rose and made a graceful little bow, first to the judges, then to the audience. The speakers had agreed among themselves how much ground in the argument each should cover; Cora Stanton was to outline the conditions in the Philippine Islands before the United States had taken them over, Jerry was to show what the United States had done and how qualified the Islands were, now, to govern themselves, and Stephen Curtiss was to conclude the argument for the affirmative by proving that, in order to maintain a safe balance of power among the eastern nations of the world it was necessary that the Philippine Islands should be self-governing. A hush followed the burst of applause that greeted Cora. Jerry settled back in her chair with something like relief--the thing had begun. She caught a little smile from Uncle Johnny that gave her courage. She must listen carefully to what Cora said. But as Cora, prettily at ease, began speaking, in a clear voice, Jerry grew rigid, paralyzed by the storm of amazement, unbelief and anger that surged over her. For Cora Stanton was presenting, word for word, the arguments she had prepared and written on those sheets of paper! And in the very front row sat Isobel, with Amy Mathers, their handkerchiefs wadded to their lips to keep back their laughter. It was very easy for poor Jerry to recognize the treachery. She was too angry to feel hurt. And, more than anything, she was too confused--for, when it came her turn, what was she going to say? Wildly she searched her mind for something clear and coherent on the hideous subject and all that would come was Gyp's "let us pause--let us feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the order to advance--the wild charge----" She did not hear one word that the first speaker on the negative side uttered, but the clapping that followed brought her to a pitiful consciousness. She rose to her feet, somehow--those feet of hers still twice their size--and stepped out toward the edge of the platform. A thousand spots of black and white that were eyes and noses and hats danced before her; she heard a suppressed titter from the front row. Then, out of it all came Gyp's strained face. Gyp was leaning a little forward, anxiously. Jerry gulped convulsively. From somewhere a voice, not in the least like her own, began: "You have been shown what the United States has done--" (no, no--Cora Stanton had said that!) "I mean we must go back (that was quite new) to--I mean--the ideals of America have been transplanted to----" (oh, Cora Stanton had said that)! Jerry choked. Out of the horror strained Gyp's agonized face. She lifted her chin, she must say something---- "Let us pause (ah, familiar ground at last)--let us pause----" There was a dreadful silence. "Let us pause and--and--let us pause----" With the last word all power of speech died in Jerry's throat! With a convulsive movement she rushed back to her seat. If they'd only laugh--that crowd out there in the room. But that silence---- Then, before anyone could stir, Dana King, the second speaker on the negative side, leaped to his feet with a burst of oratory that was obviously for the sole purpose of distracting attention from poor Jerry. And something in the good nature of his act, in his reckless wandering from the subject of the debate to gain his end, won everyone's admiration. As one wakes from a consuming nightmare so poor Jerry roused from her stupor of ignominy; she forgot Isobel, in the front row, and clapped with the others when Dana King finished. Then came a determination to redeem herself in the rebuttal! She had caught something of the fire of Dana King's tone. She was conscious, now, of only two persons in the room, Gyp and Uncle Johnny. She turned, as she rose again to speak, so that she might look squarely at Uncle Johnny. Now she had no clamor of words jingling in her brain; very simply she set against the arguments of her opponent the full weight of those she had herself prepared--Cora Stanton, who had learned them at the last moment, parrot-fashion, had found herself, in rebuttal, left floundering quite helplessly. Dana King, speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only one premise to fall back upon"--and Jerry had decided then, with something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy she had ever, ever known. There was tumultuous applause when the judges announced that the affirmative had won. And there was a little grumbling that Dana King had "sold" his side. Jerry, wanting to hide her ignominy, contrived to get away without seeing Uncle Johnny. She could not, of course, escape Gyp, who declared valiantly and defiantly that she had been "splendid." Gyp had not closely followed Cora Stanton's address, so she had not guessed the truth, and Jerry could not tell her--Jerry could not tell anyone. For, if she did, it must be traced to Isobel, and Isobel was Uncle Johnny's niece. At that very moment Uncle Johnny was talking, down in the front of the Assembly room, to Isobel and Amy Mathers, and he stood with one arm thrown over Isobel's shoulder. But, alone in her own room, the pent-up passion that had been searing poor Jerry's soul burst; with furious fingers she tore off the brown poplin dress and threw it into a corner. "Ugly--horrid--hideous--old--thing! I hate it!" It was not, of course, the brown poplin alone she hated! The offending shoes followed the brown dress. "I hate everything about me! I wish--I wish--to-morrow would never come! I wish----" Jerry threw herself face downward upon her bed. "I wish I--was--home!" _ |
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