“Cheer up, Polly! it can’t be as bad as all that,” Betty said, laughing, in spite of herself. For the spectacle of her friend’s woe-begone expression was too exaggerated to be funny.

“I didn’t think the game was so bad,” Lois remarked, cheerfully; “nothing to worry over.”

They had just returned from the gym, where the regular team had been practicing in preparation for the coming indoor meet.

February was almost at an end, and the girls had completely recovered from the Junior Prom. The date for the game was settled, and Seddon Hall was to play the Whitehead school team the following week.

“If we were only playing in our own gym,” Polly said, forlornly, “we might have a chance; but to have to travel for an hour on the train first, have luncheon in a new place, and then play in a strange gym, why we’ll none of us be up to our best.”

“You talk as if we were all very nervous and highly strung children,” Betty said, impatiently. “We’ve all played in other gyms before.”

“Fanny never has,” Lois reminded her.

“Well, what of it? She won’t get scared. I know her better than you do,” Betty insisted. “We’ve two more days to practice, anyway.”

“Two more days? Do you suppose that’s enough time for Eleanor to learn not to make fouls, and for Fanny to learn your passes?” Polly demanded. “It’s all very well for you to be cheerful; you’re not captain.”

“But worrying won’t help any, Poll,” Lois said, quietly. “If you are going to get in a blue funk, what can you expect of the others?”

“Nothing!” Polly answered; “I know I’m silly, but that team beat us last year on our own floor, and our team was twice as strong then as it is now.”

Lois and Betty gave up arguing. They understood exactly how Polly felt, but they knew, too, as soon as the game began she could be depended upon to regain her courage and hope.

The next two days the team worked hard. They practiced passes and signals, and Eleanor did her best to remember the unaccustomed lines. By Saturday morning Polly felt a little more cheerful.

“What time do we leave?” Lois asked, after breakfast. “Ten-thirty?”

“Yes; and I’m going to post a notice that every one is to be ready at ten. Then I’ll be sure of them,” Polly said.

“I wish we could take Maud as a sub, instead of Caroline Webb,” Lois said, slowly. “She’s worth more.”

Polly shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, really,” she said. “Our sub-team is so weak that we simply can’t rely on it. We’ll have to play it all through ourselves, and we mustn’t get hurt; that’s all there is to it. If one of us gets out of this game to-day, it will mean we lose,” she concluded, decidedly.

“Oh, captain, how do you feel?” Betty inquired, coming in with her gym suit over her arm. “I’ve been talking to some of the girls; they’re just sufficiently nervous all except Eleanor she’s too cocksure. I don’t like it,” she added, shaking her head doubtfully. No one knew better than she how dangerous over-confidence was before a game; it was much more liable to prove disastrous than a severe case of fear.

“I’ll talk to her,” Polly said. “Don’t worry; she’ll get over any extra amount of confidence when she sees the other team that is, if they’re the size they were last year.”

“Which I hope and pray they are not,” Lois added, fervently.

They started at ten-thirty, after a little delay caused by Fanny forgetting her gym shoes, and Betty her favorite hair ribbon. The school gave them a hearty send-off, cheering the carryall as far as the gate.

They arrived at Whitehead in time for luncheon.

“They don’t seem awfully cheerful here,” Polly said, when she and Lois were alone for a minute. “I wonder what’s the matter?”

“Doris Bates, you know, the girl who plays forward, told me she had a terrible sore throat,” Lois replied. “Perhaps she’s given it to the rest.”

“I have an idea they’ll use their subs,” Polly said. “If they do ” She let Lois finish the remainder of the sentence for herself.

The game began at two o’clock. The Whitehead gymnasium was a big, high ceilinged room with small windows. It was really a converted barn. The light was so poor that on winter afternoons they had always to use the big arc lamps that were incased in wire, and hung at either end of the room. There was no gallery for the spectators. They sat around in groups wherever they could find a place. Some of them were so near the lines that Polly felt sure she would run into them and, hardest drawback of all, the floor was slippery. The school used the gym for all their entertainments and it had been waxed not a week before.

Polly took in all these disadvantages at once and realized their probable effect on her team.

“Don’t lose your nerve or your head,” she said, cautioning them before the game started. “The lights are a bother, but try not to pay any attention to them. If you hit them, never mind. Be careful of the floor, and if you want to go after a ball, let the girls on the side lines look out for you.”

“I do wish they’d move back,” Fanny said, almost tearfully. “They might just as well be following you around, holding your hand? They’re so close I declare I can hear them breathing.”

“The lines are awfully faint,” Eleanor said, dejectedly. She was looking hard at the big broad-shouldered girl it would be her duty to guard.

Polly glanced from one face to the other. Even Lois’ and Betty’s reflected apprehension. She sighed.

“Remember,” she said, as they took their places, “we’re playing for Seddon Hall.”

When the first whistle blew she felt that she was facing a sure defeat and she tried valiantly to keep her glance from straying in the direction of the silver cup. But, as the game progressed, she discovered that, though her team was heavily handicapped, the only danger that they really had to face was surprise. For they had expected to fight, and fight hard for every point, and they were totally unprepared for the unexplainable collapse of the opposing team. From the very start, the ball was theirs. It took time for them to recover from the shock before they could use their advantage. Before the end of the first half, Whitehead had put in four substitutes.

“What can be the matter?” Lois demanded between halves. “Why, they’re not putting up any fight at all.”

“They’re all sick,” Betty said. “Both the centers have terrible colds. It’s a shame.”

The second half was a repetition of the first, and Seddon Hall won an easy victory.

Polly felt that she had not really earned the cup when it was presented to her at the close of the game.

The score was twenty-seven to nothing in their favor.

“It’s too bad your team are all laid up,” she said to the other captain. “I’m sorry; I know that we would never have made such a score if you’d all been well.”

The other girl smiled. “Why you won it fairly,” she said. “We played a miserable game. A few colds shouldn’t have made all that difference. I don’t know what happened to us.”

“Well, you’ll have a chance for revenge next year,” Polly answered with a parting nod.

The return of the team lacked something of its triumphal spirit. There is never the same feeling of exhilaration over an easily won struggle that there is over a hard fought one. And though the rest of the girls welcomed the return of the cup, there was a general feeling of sympathy for the other team, rather than enthusiastic praise for their own.

Polly and Betty were still puzzling over the whole thing two days later in the study hall, when Lois joined them and solved the mystery.

“I have an awful sore throat. What do you suppose is the matter with me? I don’t feel like doing a thing,” she said.

“Better go and see Miss King,” Polly advised. “You look sort of tired and sick.”

“I think I will,” Lois said.

In the Infirmary a few minutes later, Miss King looked down her throat and prodded the outside. “How long have you felt this way?” she asked.

“Only yesterday and to-day,” Lois told her. “Don’t say I have to go to bed, please.”

“Sorry,” Miss King said, briskly, “but you do. Don’t go downstairs again; go right in here; I’ll get your things.”

“What have I got?” Lois demanded.

The nurse shook her head. “Nothing much, I hope,” she said, “but I want you to go to bed.”

Next morning Lois awoke in the Infirmary to see Miss King standing at the foot of the bed.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked, sleepily.

Miss King gave her a hand glass before replying.

Lois sat up in bed and looked at herself. Both sides of her face were swollen.

“Mumps!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a sight I am,” she added, laughing.

Polly and Betty came up to inquire for her, after breakfast, and heard the news.

“Mumps!” they both said at once. And Polly cried. “Why, Betty, that’s what was wrong with the Whitehead team.”

“Of course, sore throats and everything. I’ll bet they all came down with it the next day,” Betty exclaimed. “No wonder they couldn’t play any kind of a game.”

Lois did not remain alone in the Infirmary for long. One by one the team joined her. Polly was the first. During study hour that night her throat began to hurt. She felt it; it was suspiciously lumpy.

“Here I am,” she said the next morning, when Miss King had pronounced it mumps.

“Oh, Poll!” Lois was delighted. “You look funnier than I do. Only one side is swelling and it makes you look top heavy.”

Polly surveyed herself in the mirror.

“That’s easily fixed,” she said. “Watch!”

She undid her hair and rolled it into a round knob under one ear. “There, now it’s even.”

“But it doesn’t match,” Lois objected. “You look like a pie-bald pony now.”

Polly glanced about the room. A round celluloid powder-box caught her eye. She emptied the powder out and fitted the box over her hair.

“That better?” she inquired.

Lois was still laughing over this absurd picture, when the door opened, and in walked Betty and Fanny.

“You two?” Polly exclaimed. “Oh, what a lark!”

“When did you get it?” Lois asked.

“Suddenly, last night, at dinner,” Betty answered. “We had salad with French dressing. And, oh, when I swallowed that vinegar!”

“I certainly did think I was going to choke to death,” Fanny said, feelingly. “I jumped right up from the table.”

“Yes, and knocked over a glass of water,” Betty prompted, “and announced to the whole dining-room that you reckoned you had the mumps. Everybody laughed so hard they couldn’t eat any more dinner,” she concluded.

“I’m so glad you both got it,” Polly said.

“Do you suppose we’ll look like you two do to-morrow?” Betty asked rudely.

“Worse, probably,” Lois consoled her.

Eleanor and Evelin came down with it the next day. After that there were no more cases. Fortunately, it did not spread throughout the school. Perhaps some of the girls were disappointed, for the stories of the good time in the Infirmary made school seem very stupid by comparison.

One day Miss King brought Betty a note from Angela. It was wrapped around a copy of the Gossip, the Whitehead school paper.

“Dear Mumpy (she wrote):

“Read the news item on page ten. I think it’s funny. If you want to answer it in our issue of the Tatler this month, send me word what to say, and I’ll see to it. Hurry up and get well. We all miss you lots, especially in Latin class. Love to the rest.

“Ange.”

Betty opened the paper at the tenth page and read:

Important news item.

“Sudden disappearance of valuable mump germs. Last seen in a silver trophy cup on or about February twenty-fifth. Seddon Hall basket ball team under suspicion of theft, but no arrests have been made. Any information regarding same will be gratefully received.”

“That settles it.” Betty stopped reading to laugh. “We took their mump germs with a vengeance.

“Means they’ve got it, too,” laughed Lois.

“Of course we’ll have to answer it,” Polly said.

The next few days the composition of a fitting reply occupied all their time. They wrote and discarded a dozen answers before finally deciding on a poem of Betty’s. The Tatler went to press with instructions to print it on the first page, and the Whitehead girls, when they got their copy, laughed long and heartily, for this is what they read:

“Eight little germs lurked in a cup
All on a pleasant day.
Eight little maids they spied that cup
When they went out to play.
They thought they’d take it home with them;
They didn’t know, you see,
The mumpy germs were waiting there
As slyly as could be.
But when they took the cup, alas!
Those eight germs gave eight jumps
And landed in those eight maids’ throats,
And gave them each the mumps.”