The girls, however, were eager to talk of basket-ball; they wanted to hear Marjorie’s opinion of the match game, and Jack’s; they demanded the rest of their League schedule, and they insisted upon discussing their opponents.
“The whole thing is arranged very fortunately for us,” remarked Marjorie. “We have two easy teams to play next—at least I hope they’ll be easy—from Troop Thirty-five, and Troop Eighteen. Then in February we meet Troop Six, and the very last League game of the season is our team against One-Sixty One!”
“Hooray!” shouted Queenie gleefully. “Lady Luck sure is with us! Remember I said we’d whitewash Sixteen and Thirty-five? Well, there’s no doubt about it now, after we trimmed Ninety-seven so neat!”
“I have one sad piece of news for our troop, though,” interrupted Marjorie: “Miss Andrews has announced her engagement to Mr. Roberts, and feels that she hasn’t time enough to play on our team any longer. She wants to be with her fiancé on Saturday evenings.”
“Good night!” cried Stella in dismay. “What did she have to go and get engaged for—just when our team was pullin’ together so good!”
“Anyway we can be glad it ain’t—isn’t—you, Miss Wilkinson!” observed Queenie.
“And it’s a good thing we got Sophia. But say, we’ve got a get another sub. Any of you kids done any work over Christmas?”
All three of the tenderfoot scouts shook their heads guiltily.
“Let’s make it a race,” suggested Marjorie, “and see who can be ready first. I’ll telephone Mr. Richards.”
“That’ll fix ’em—they’ll get to work!” Queenie assured her jokingly. “Specially Goldie—she’s entirely gone on him.”
Reluctantly Marjorie put aside the subject of basketball and steeled herself to put forward her new proposition.
“Girls,” she began, “would you be willing to dress some dolls for some children in a hospital ward?”
“I can’t sew!” announced Annie Marshall immediately.
Marjorie’s spirits fell. But remembering the hike, she decided not to insist.
“All right, then—that’s all about that,” she said as cheerfully as she could.
But when the girls were adjourning their meeting to the basketball floor, she was surprised to hear Goldie and Dot bring the subject up again.
“Miss Wilkinson,” whispered Dot, “Goldie and I would love to dress some dolls for sick children. Will you tell us about it?”