Part 22 (2/2)
”Father,” Betty spoke again after a pause during which she picked a flower within reach. ”Father, don't you think that a girl ought to take advantage of her opportunities?”
”Seems to me I've heard something like that, Betty.”
”Well, I'm serious, Father.”
”To just what advantages do you refer?”
”I'm thinking about school, you know, and it does seem as if there are so many things to do in these high school years, especially here in the city, that you'll never have a chance to do again!”
”Things that you are not doing now, you mean?”
”Yes, Father. Unless you see it, you can't realize what lovely things go on at school and you can't help wanting to be in them!”
”What, for instance?”
”Well, there's the music for one thing. If you get your lessons, you haven't so much time for other things, but to be trained right here, where there's a Symphony Orchestra and everybody knowing the best music and singing and playing it.i.t doesn't seem right not to do it if you have any music in you at all. Ted Dorrance was talking about it the other day. He's a junior this year, you know. He was with some of the girls and boys in a bunch of us, talking after school.
”I imagine that Ted gets his lessons, for he's smart looking. I heard him talking to a boy the very first day I was in school, standing in line to sign up. He said he didn't know what he was going to do, not much athletics only 'swimming, of course.' You ought to see Ted swim at a swimming meet. And dive! He can turn a somersault backwards and everything.
”He said that his mother wanted him to be in the orchestra and sure enough he is. Father, he plays the violin and he's the very first violin in the orchestra, the one that does little solo parts sometimes, or whatever they do.”
”And do you want to be in the orchestra, too?”
”Mer_cee_, no! What would I play? But I'd like to go on with my piano lessons, and at the Conservatory, too, and then I'd like to be in the Glee Club. Carolyn says she's going to try to be in it next year. But you see all the practice takes a lot of time.”
”I see. Anything else, little daughter?”
Betty laughed. Father was so nice to talk to. ”Yes, a lot of things, but I like the athletics, gym, you know, and swimming. I think maybe I'll get honors in swimming. Some of the girls are more than half afraid of the water, but I feelI feel just like a fis.h.!.+”
It was Mr. Lee's turn to laugh. ”I used to feel that way, too, Betty, and I had a lake to swim in from the time I was knee-high to a duck.”
”Then I suppose I inherit it from you,” Betty declared. ”I'm much, obliged for the trick of it! But that's another thing, Father. If you do a thing, you like to do it well and I suppose it's Louise Madison, who is president of the G. A. A., that has made me so crazy about athletics.
Why, they even have riding horseback, beside tennis and everything you can think of.”
”And everything you can't think of, I suppose.”
”Aren't you funnywho'd ever say that but you?”
”Have you thought out, Betty, just what you'd like to take up?”
”No, Father, not exactly. I'm justruminating, and trying to think it out.”
”Then I'm glad you are willing to do it with me, Betty. Perhaps we can come to some conclusion.”
”Perhaps. I'm sure I need help. It's just this way. I hate to miss it all, but I can never get my lessons and do too much. Would you care awfully, Father, if I didn't stand at the head of my cla.s.s? I did at home, I mean where we did live, but I don't believe a body ever could even _know_ who is the head in the big high schools. I guess it's only in some line or other that they get prizes and things.
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