dorothy’s wits at work

“the night of the white giant,” whispered ned ebony, shrilly, as she put her head in at the door of the chums’ room at glenwood.

“boo! how you scared me!” exclaimed tavia, preparing to throw her latin grammar—it was a book she would willingly have spared altogether—at ned’s devoted head.

“hist!”

nita brent looked over the stooping edna. above her head at the narrow opening appeared the rather puffy-looking face of cologne. it was evident that the “heavy lady” had been asleep, but now she yawned and said:

“hist twice! come on, girls!”

“don’t shoot, tavia. like davy crockett’s coon, we’ll come down,” said ned, dodging the threatening book.

“you’ll have olaine—or some other teacher—upon our trail,” gasped nita.

“what’s up?” demanded dorothy, shutting her book and leaving a hairpin for a bookmark.

133 “we are. so must you be. and they will have to!” declared ned. “we’re for getting the whole bunch. it’s the night of the white giant, i tell you.”

“oh, goody, goody-gander!” exclaimed tavia, clapping her hands—but softly. “i had forgotten. we haven’t had one this winter.”

“it’s kid tricks, girls,” complained dorothy.

“list to her! wow!” gasped tavia, and landed a soft sofa pillow right in the back of dorothy’s neck. “don’t you dare suggest we’re growing old.”

“‘silver threads among the gold’,” quoted cologne. “i know. she’s getting rheumatic, too. second childhood is close upon her——”

“stop ranting and come on!” commanded ned ebony. “high overshoes—mittens—everything! the snow is just soft enough. if we’re careful we’ll make olaine’s eyes bulge out in the morning. she never saw an old-fashioned glenwood ‘white giant.’”

“‘the little dimpled darling has never seen christmas yet,’” quoted tavia in a high, mincing tone. “where’s my rub-a-dub-dubs, dorothy dale? did you eat ’em, i want to know?”

but when the chums were dressed, and the other girls of the upper class filed into the corridor, dressed for the frolic, there was little noise. this134 was an escapade that was not indulged in every winter by the glenwood girls, for not often was the snow in the state it was at present.

there was plenty of it; it was soft and “packy,” and there was starlight enough to aid them in their work, although there was no moon.

the pedestal of the statue they proposed erecting was made of several huge balls rolled on the campus and then set upright in a circle, in the middle of the lawn, facing the teachers’ windows.

other smaller balls were rolled swiftly and, as they had to be brought from a greater distance as the figure progressed, they were rolled upon sleds and dragged to the scene of operations. with pieces of board and a couple of shovels tavia, dorothy and cologne shaped the round body of the giant as it grew in bulk and height.

“we’ll make the biggest and the tallest giant glenwood ever saw,” declared tavia. “come on with that ball, neddie. hoist it up here!”

when one of the snowballs, raised in the arms of four girls to be adjusted upon the figure, chanced to burst like a bomb, there was much smothered hilarity—from those who were not engulfed in the mishap.

“oh! oh! oh!” cried nita. “i feel as if i’d been caught in an avalanche in the alps! goodness me! how wet that snow is!”

135 “all the dry snow’s ‘give out’, nita. we’ve got to use the wet kind,” giggled tavia.

“if you had two quarts of snow down your back——” began ned ebony, in disgust.

“come on! come on!” urged cologne. “you’re wasting time. who knows but olaine will be out here any minute?”

“oh, i hope not!” cried one of the other girls. “i am trying my very best to treat her nicely; and i am sorry for her. but she is the most cantankerous thing! so there!”

“come on! come on!” tavia kept urging. “hand ’em up here—— my goodness gracious, agnes! i almost went down that time. if i only had a nice young man up here to help me hold on this slippery eminence——”

“where would you ever get a young man—nice or otherwise—at glenwood?” demanded ned ebony.

“don’t know. advertise for one, i guess,” grunted the struggling tavia. “‘lost, strayed, or stolen—one young man—preferably blue eyed.’ going to put that in the ‘agony column’ of the new york screecher——”

“oh, tavia!” gasped dorothy, standing up straight on the giant’s “waist line” and staring up at her friend.

“what’s up now? mercy!” ejaculated tavia,136 making a grab for her. “you’ll be down next, if you don’t look out. what’s the matter?”

“you—you gave me an idea,” said dorothy, slowly.

“hope i never give you another,” declared tavia. “look out, now! here comes that part of the giant called—colloquially—his ‘dining room’. it must be adjusted properly. let’s have a real shapely giant—do.”

“he’ll look as though he had swallowed jack the giant killer, all right,” panted ned ebony.

“not much! give me that shovel,” cried tavia. “i am going to slice off some of his aldermanic proportions. huh! we don’t want him to look as though he’d suffered from earthquake and everything had fallen into his ‘dining room,’ do we?”

“you’re the most dreadful girl!” sighed cologne.

meanwhile dorothy was thinking deeply. there was too much going on for her to confide her “idea” to her chum. and, later, she decided to wait and see how it “panned out.”

the white giant grew apace. the girls dragged around two of the gardener’s ladders, by the aid of which they finished the effigy handsomely. he had a noble round head, set firmly on a “bull neck”; a white cardboard nose stuck in the middle of his face, with pieces of coal for teeth——

“shows the deplorable result of not using somebody’s137 toothpaste—a ‘horrible example’ for the youngsters. miss mingle is always at ’em to use their toothbrushes,” declared tavia.

the grinning mask of the white giant had black eyes, as well, and a bushel basket served as a hat. the front of his waistcoat was decorated with round turnips for buttons. altogether he was a striking-looking figure in the starlight, but was even more so the next day when the sun shone on him.

his head was as high as the second story windows. the rest of the school “oh-ed” and “ah-ed” about it, wondering how the big girls had built such an enormous statue.

miss olaine expected mrs. pangborn to consider the frolic a punishable offence. but the principal recognized the “white giant” as an established outlet for the exuberance of the senior class of her pupils. many a snowman of huge proportions stood on the campus for weeks, until the rains and winds of march and april carried away the last vestige of the heaped-up snow.

miss olaine was used to the strict discipline of the city public school; she could not understand mrs. pangborn’s leniency in her treatment of perfectly harmless escapades—and those girls who took part in them.

meanwhile dorothy’s wits—spurred by tavia’s irresponsible remark about the “agony column”138 of the newspaper—had been working overtime. the personal column of a newspaper did not appeal to her; but she believed that advertising for little celia’s brother might bring about some result.

she chose the salvation army paper, in which she knew there was a column devoted to requests for news of “absent friends,” and she wrote to the editor in new york all about celia, and why she so desired to get some trace of the missing ironworker.

the editor kindly put her paragraph in the paper and sent her a copy with the request marked with a blue pencil. and that marked paragraph occasioned more excitement in glenwood school than dorothy expected.

matters had run along pretty smoothly after the night of the white giant, and the giant himself was already a devastated, melting pillar on the school lawn. the easter vacation was in sight.

“you’ll surely go home with me, doro—to dear old dalton?” sang tavia, hugging her friend. “you promised——”

“and i wouldn’t miss it for anything!” declared dorothy, laughing gaily. “i’m just crazy to see all the folks there. and nat and ned say they’ll come—going to stop with the perritons.139 you know—abe perriton is in college with my cousins.”

“good enough!” exclaimed tavia. “perhaps there’ll be boys enough for once to ‘go ’round.’”

“oh!” exclaimed dorothy, with twinkling eyes, “somebody else will be there, too.”

“who else? joe and roger?”

“i suppose they’ll tease to come. and they can stay with their little friends just as i stay with you, and the big boys camp down on abe’s folks. but there is one other—— oh, tavia! can’t you guess?”

tavia’s cheeks had begun to burn and she shook her head firmly. “i don’t care to know. nobody in particular, of course,” she said, with an impudent assumption of not caring.

“you do care,” frowned dorothy. “and you must guess. ned just wrote me that he’s sure to be in dalton if you are there.”

“the cheek of those boys!” observed tavia, tossing her head.

“‘b.n.,’” said dorothy, teasingly.

“‘b.n.’?” queried tavia, with an elaborate air of not understanding. “are you sure it isn’t ‘n.b.’? that means ‘note well.’”

“it would never have happened if you hadn’t noted him well in the first place,” chuckled dorothy. “you have chained him to your chariot wheels—you know you have—pretty!” murmured140 dorothy, and, hugging her friend tightly, whispered in her burning ear:

“bob niles. you know he’ll be there.”

“oh!” yawned tavia, beginning to recover from her confusion. “that boy? why, i had almost forgotten him.”

“fibber!” said dorothy, pinching her.

“i really thought you meant the young brakeman on the train when we came over from new york,” sighed tavia, affectedly. “wasn’t he lovely?”

“you can’t fool me, tavia,” declared her friend, laughing. “i don’t believe you even remember the color of that railroad man’s eyes.”

“blue—to match his uniform,” said tavia, smartly.

“who ever heard of a navy blue eye?” demanded dorothy.

“sure! wait till you get struck in the eye once; i was. and for a week before it turned yellow and green, it was the most be-you-ti-ful—navy—blue——”