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 gla.s.s 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 k.n.o.b 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 f.a.n.n.y.
"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," f.a.n.n.y said, feelingly. "I jumped right up from the table."
"Yes, and knocked over a gla.s.s 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 cla.s.s. 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.