MARJORIE DEAN, High School Sophomore

MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE

CHAPTER I

WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE


"Come on in, Connie. The water's fine!" invited Marjorie Dean, beckoning
with one round, dripping arm to the girl on the sands, while with the
other she kept herself lazily afloat.

The sun of a perfect August morning poured down upon the white beach,
dotted here and there with ambitious bathers, who had grasped Time
firmly by his venerated forelock, and fared forth with the proverbial
early bird for a morning dip in a deceitfully dimpled and smiling sea.

It was not yet nine o'clock, but, fearful of losing a minute of her
precious seaside vacation, Marjorie Dean had come down to her favorite
playground for her usual early morning swim.

"I know it's fine," laughed Constance Stevens, "but this nice white sand
is even finer."

"You'll never learn to swim if you just sit on the beach and dream,"
reminded Marjorie. "I feel that it's my stern duty to see that your
education as a water paddler is not neglected. So here goes!"

With a few skilful strokes she brought up in shallow water. There was a
quick rush of lithe feet, the sound of sweet, high laughter, then a
little, good-natured gurgle of protest from the golden-haired, blue-eyed
girl curled up on the sand as she found herself being dragged into the
water by a pair of sturdy young arms.

"Now--sink or swim, survive or perish!" panted Marjorie, as the lapping
shallows broke over the yielding figure of her friend. "You'll simply
have to be a water baby, Connie, dear. It's as important as being a
sophomore in Sanford High, and you know just how important that is! Now,
watch me and do likewise."

Her day dream thus rudely interrupted, Constance Stevens laughingly
resigned herself to Marjorie's energetic commands, and, now thoroughly
awake to the important business at hand, tried her best to follow her
friend's instructions. A fifteen minutes' lesson in the art of learning
to float followed, and at the end of that time, by common consent, the
two girls waded ashore and flung themselves on the warm sand.

"I'll never learn to swim. I feel it in my bones," asserted Constance,
as she lazily rose, wrung the water from her bathing suit and seated
herself on the white beach beside Marjorie, who lay stretched at full
length, her head propped upon her elbows, her alert gaze upon the few
bathers who were disporting themselves in the water.

"Then your bones are false prophets," declared Marjorie calmly. "You
know how to float already, and that's half the battle. We'll rest a
little and talk some more, and then we'll try it again. Next time I'll
teach you an easy stroke. Isn't it funny, Connie, we never seem to get
'talked out.' We've been here together five whole weeks and yet there
always seems to be something new to say. You are really a most
entertaining person."

"That's precisely my opinion of you." Constance's blue eyes twinkled.

The two girls laughed joyously. Two wet hands stretched forth and met in
a loving little squeeze.

"It's been wonderful to be here with you, Marjorie. Last year at this
time I never dreamed that anything so wonderful could possibly happen to
me." The golden-haired girl's voice was not quite steady.

"And I've loved being here with you. What a lot of things can happen in
a year," mused Marjorie. "Why, at this time last year I never even knew
that there was a town called Sanford on the map, and when I found out
there was really such a place, and that I was going to live there
instead of staying in B---- and going to Franklin High, I felt perfectly
_awful_ about it."

It had, indeed, been a most unhappy period for sunny, lovable Marjorie
Dean when the call of her father's business had made it necessary for
him to remove his family from the beautiful city of B----, where
Marjorie had been born and lived sixteen untroubled years of life, to
the smaller northern city of Sanford, where she didn't know a soul.

All that happened to Marjorie Dean from the first day in her new home
has been faithfully recorded in "MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN."
In that narrative was set forth her trials, which had been many, and her
triumphs, which had been proportionately greater, as a freshman in
Sanford High School. How she had become acquainted with Constance
Stevens and how, after never-to-be-forgotten days of storm and sunshine,
the friendship between the two young girls had flowered into perfect
understanding, formed a story of more than ordinary interest.