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diff --git a/31387-h/31387-h.htm b/31387-h/31387-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eab5ce8 --- /dev/null +++ b/31387-h/31387-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8577 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" > +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Betty Wales Freshman, by Edith K. Dunton</title> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;} +p {margin-top:1ex; margin-bottom:0; text-align:justify;} +.pagenum {display:inline; font-size:x-small; text-align:right; text-indent:0; + position:absolute; right:2%; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none; + background-color:inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} +.pncolor {color:silver;} +h1,h2 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal;} +h1 {font-size:1.6em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} +h1.pg {text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size:190%; margin-top:0ex; margin-bottom:0ex;} +h2 {font-size:1.4em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} +a {text-decoration:none;} +div.toc a {text-decoration:underline;} +div.loi a {text-decoration:underline;} +hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;} +div.figcenter {text-align:center; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em;} +div.figcenter p {text-align:center;} +p.center {text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} +p.caption {font-size:smaller;} +div.titlepage {} +div.titlepage p {text-align:center;} +.fs20 {font-size:2.0em;} +.mb25 {margin-bottom:25px;} +.i {font-style:italic;} +.mb10 {margin-bottom:10px;} +.fs12 {font-size:1.2em;} +.mb20 {margin-bottom:20px;} +table {margin:auto;} +.tpi {margin:25px auto;text-align:center;} +.mt20 {margin-top:20px;} +.mt20 {margin-top:20px;} +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; clear:both;} +td.tcol1 {text-align:right; padding-right:1ex; vertical-align:top;} +td.tcol2 {text-align:left; padding-right:2ex; font-variant:small-caps; vertical-align:top;} +td.tcol3 {text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;} +td.center {text-align:center;} +td.fs12 {font-size:1.2em;} +td.fs08 {font-size:0.8em;} +td.tar {text-align:right;} +span.h2fs {font-size:smaller;} +hr.tb {border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; margin-top:10px; margin-bottom:10px; margin-left:30%; width:40%;} +p.tar {text-align:right;} +.mr20 {margin-right:20px;} +.sc {font-variant:small-caps;} +div.poetry {text-indent:0em; margin-left:2em; margin-bottom:4px; margin-top:4px;} +.c {text-align:center;} +.fs08 {font-size:0.8em;} +.mt40 {margin-top:40px;} + + .center { text-align: center; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Betty Wales Freshman, by Edith K. Dunton</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Betty Wales Freshman</p> +<p>Author: Edith K. Dunton</p> +<p>Release Date: February 24, 2010 [eBook #31387]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES FRESHMAN***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="center">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a id='link_i1'></a><img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' /> +<p class='center caption'> +“I’M IN A DREADFUL FIX” +</p> +</div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<div class='titlepage'> +<p class='fs20 mb25'>Betty Wales<br />Freshman</p> +<p class='i mb10'>BY</p> +<p class='fs12 mb20'>MARGARET WARDE</p> +<p class='i mb10'>Author of</p> +</div> + +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p>Betty Wales, Sophomore<br /> Betty Wales, Junior<br /> Betty Wales, +Senior<br /> Betty Wales, B. A.<br /> Betty Wales & Co.<br /> Betty +Wales on the Campus<br /> Betty Wales Decides</p></td></tr></table> + +<div class='titlepage'> +<div class='tpi'> +<img alt='emblem' src='images/illus-emb.jpg' /> +</div> + +<p class='fs12'>THE PENN PUBLISHING<br />COMPANY PHILADELPHIA</p> +<p>1921</p></div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<div class='titlepage'> +<div class='tpi'> +<img alt='emblem' src='images/illus-cpy.jpg' /> +</div> + +<p class='mt20'>Betty Wales, Freshman</p> +</div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<table summary='TOC'> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'>Contents</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'></td></tr> +<tr><td class='fs08'>CHAPTER</td><td colspan='2' class='tar fs08'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>I</td><td class='tcol2'>First Impressions</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_1'>7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>II</td><td class='tcol2'>Beginnings</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_2'>21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>III</td><td class='tcol2'>Dancing Lessons and a Class-Meeting</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_3'>35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>IV</td><td class='tcol2'>Whose Photograph?</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_4'>50</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>V</td><td class='tcol2'>Up Hill–and Down</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_5'>63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VI</td><td class='tcol2'>Letters Home</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_6'>80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VII</td><td class='tcol2'>A Dramatic Chapter</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_7'>95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VIII</td><td class='tcol2'>After the Play</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_8'>112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>IX</td><td class='tcol2'>Paying the Piper</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_9'>128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>X</td><td class='tcol2'>A Rumor</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_10'>146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XI</td><td class='tcol2'>Mid-years and a Dust-Pan</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_11'>166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XII</td><td class='tcol2'>A Triumph for Democracy</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_12'>185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIII</td><td class='tcol2'>Saint Valentine’s Assistants</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_13'>208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIV</td><td class='tcol2'>A Beginning and a Sequel</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_14'>233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XV</td><td class='tcol2'>At the Great Game</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_15'>255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVI</td><td class='tcol2'>A Chance to Help</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_16'>279</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVII</td><td class='tcol2'>An Ounce of Prevention</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_17'>299</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVIII</td><td class='tcol2'>Into Paradise–and Out</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_18'>321</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIX</td><td class='tcol2'>A Last Chance</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_19'>337</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XX</td><td class='tcol2'>Loose Threads</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_20'>355</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<h1>BETTY WALES</h1> + +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span><a id='link_1'></a>CHAPTER I<br /><span class='h2fs'>FIRST IMPRESSIONS</span></h2> + +<p>“Oh, dear, what if she shouldn’t meet me!” sighed Betty +Wales for the hundredth time at least, as she gathered up her bags and umbrella, +and followed the crowd of noisy, chattering girls off the train.</p> + +<p>“So long, Mary. See you to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Get a carriage, Nellie, that’s a dear. You’re so little +you can always break through the crowd.”</p> + +<p>“Hello, Susanna! Did you get on the campus too?”</p> + +<p>“Thanks awfully, but I can’t to-night. My freshman cousin’s +up, you know, and homesick and―”</p> + +<p>“Oh, girls, isn’t it fun to be back?”</p> + +<p>It all sounded so jolly and familiar. Weren’t <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span> any of them freshmen? Did they guess that +she was a freshman “and homesick”? Betty straightened proudly and +resolved that they should not. If only the registrar had got father’s +telegram. As she stood hesitating on the station platform, amazed at the +wilderness of trunks and certain that no one could possibly find her until that +shouting, rushing mob in front of her had dispersed, a pretty girl in immaculate +white duck hurried up to her.</p> + +<p>“Pardon me,” she said, reaching out a hand for Betty’s golf +clubs, “but aren’t you a stranger here? Could I help you, perhaps, +about getting your luggage up?”</p> + +<p>Betty looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know,” she said. +“Yes, I’m going to enter college, and my elder sister couldn’t +get here until a later train. But father telegraphed the registrar to meet me. +Do you know her? Could you point her out?”</p> + +<p>The pretty girl’s lips curved into the faint suggestion of a smile. +“Yes,” she said, “I know her–only too well for my peace +of mind occasionally. But I’m afraid she hasn’t come to meet you. +You see she’s very busy <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_9'></a>9</span> these first days–there are a great many of you +freshman, all wanting different things. So she sends us down instead.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I see.” Betty’s face brightened. “Then if you +would tell me how to get to Mrs. Chapin’s on Meriden Place.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Chapin’s!” exclaimed the pretty girl. +“That’s easy. Most of you want such outlandish streets. But +that’s close to the campus, where I’m going myself. My time is just +up, I’m happy to say. Give me your checks and your house number, and then +we’ll take a car, unless you wouldn’t mind walking. It’s not +far.”</p> + +<p>On the way to Mrs. Chapin’s Betty learned that her new friend’s +name was Dorothy King, that she was a junior and roomed in the Hilton House, +that she went in for science, but was fond of music and was a member of the Glee +Club; that she was back a day early for the express purpose of meeting freshmen +at the trains. In return Betty explained how she had been obliged at the last +moment to come east alone; how sister Nan, who was nine years older than she and +five years out of college, was coming down from a house <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span> party at Kittery Point, but +couldn’t get in till eight that night; and father had insisted that Betty +be sure to arrive by daylight.</p> + +<p>“Wales–Wales―” repeated the pretty junior. +“Why, your sister must have been the clever Miss Wales in ’9-, the one who +wrote so well and all. She is? How fine! I’m sorry, but I leave you here. +Mrs. Chapin’s is that big yellow house, the second on the left +side–yes. I know you’ll like it there. And Miss Wales, you +mustn’t mind if the sophomores get hold of that joke about your asking the +registrar to meet you. I won’t tell, but it will be sure to leak out +somehow. You see it’s really awfully funny. The registrar is almost as +important as the president, and a lot more dignified and unapproachable, until +you get to know her. She’ll think it too good to keep, and the sophomores +will be sure to get hold of it and put it in the book of grinds for their +reception–souvenirs they give you, you know. Now good-bye. May I call +later? Thank you so much. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Betty was blushing hotly as she climbed Mrs. Chapin’s steps. But her +chagrin at having proved herself so “verdant” a freshman <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span> was tempered with elation +at the junior’s cordiality. “Nan said I wasn’t to run into +friendships,” she reflected. “But she must be nice. She knows the +Clays. Oh, I hope she won’t forget to come!”</p> + +<p>Betty Wales had come to college without any particular enthusiasm for it, +though she was naturally an enthusiastic person. She loved Nan dearly, but +didn’t approve of her scheme of life, and wasn’t at all prepared to +like college just because Nan had. Being so much younger than her sister, she +had never visited her at Harding, but she had met a good many of her friends; +and comparing their stories of life at Harding with the experiences of one or +two of her own mates who were at the boarding-school, she had decided that of +two evils she should prefer college, because there seemed to be more freedom and +variety about it. Being of a philosophical turn of mind, she was now determined +to enjoy herself, if possible. She pinned her faith to a remark that her +favorite among all Nan’s friends had made to her that summer. “Oh, +you’ll like college, Betty,” she had said. “Not just as Nan or +I did, of course. Every girl has her own reasons <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span> for liking college–but every nice +girl likes it.”</p> + +<p>Betty decided that she had already found two of her reasons: the pretty Miss +King and Mrs. Chapin’s piazza, which was exceedingly attractive for a +boarding-house. A girl was lounging in a hammock behind the vines, and another +in a big piazza chair was reading aloud to her. “They must be old +girls,” thought Betty, “to seem so much at home.” Then she +remembered that Mrs. Chapin had said hers would probably be an “all +freshman house,” and decided that they were friends from the same +town.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chapin presently appeared, to show Betty to her room and explain that +her roommate would not arrive till the next morning. Betty dressed and then sat +down to study for her French examination, which came next day; but before she +had finished deciding which couch she preferred or where they could possibly put +two desks and a tea-table, the bell rang for dinner.</p> + +<p>This bid fair to be a silent and dismal meal. All the girls had come except +Betty’s roommate, and most of them, being freshmen, were <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span> in the depths of +examinations and homesickness. But there was one shining exception, a very +lively sophomore, who had waited till the last moment hoping to get an +assignment on the campus, and then had come to Mrs. Chapin’s in the place +of a freshman who had failed in her examinations.</p> + +<p>“She had six, poor thing!” explained the sophomore to Betty, who +sat beside her. “And just think! She’d had a riding horse and a +mahogany desk with a secret drawer sent on from home. Wish I could inherit them +along with her room. Now, my name is Mary Brooks. Tell me yours, and I’ll +ask the girl on the other side and introduce you; and that will start the ball +rolling.”</p> + +<p>These energetic measures succeeded much better than Mrs. Chapin’s +somewhat perfunctory remarks about the dry weather, and the whole table was soon +talking busily. The two piazza girls proved to be sisters, Mary and Adelaide +Rich, from Haddam, Connecticut. Betty decided that they were rather stupid and +too inclined to stick together to be much fun. A tall, homely girl at the end of +the table created a laugh by introducing <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_14'></a>14</span> herself as Miss Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee.</p> + +<p>“The state is Illinois,” she added, “but that spoils the +alliteration.”</p> + +<p>“The what?” whispered Betty to the sophomore.</p> + +<p>But Miss Brooks only laughed and said, “Wait till you’ve finished +freshman English.”</p> + +<p>Betty’s other neighbor was a pale, quiet little girl, with short hair +and a drawl. Betty couldn’t decide whether she meant to be +“snippy” or was only shy and offish. After she had said that her +name was Roberta Lewis and her home Philadelphia, Betty inquired politely +whether she expected to like college.</p> + +<p>“I expect to detest it,” replied Miss Lewis slowly and +distinctly, and spoke not another word during dinner. But though she ate busily +and kept her eyes on her plate, Betty was sure that she heard all that was said, +and would have liked to join in, only she didn’t know how.</p> + +<p>The one really beautiful girl at the table was Miss Eleanor Watson. Her +complexion was the daintiest pink and white, her black <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span> hair waved softly under the big hat which +she had not stopped to take off, and her hazel eyes were plaintive one moment +and sparkling the next, as her mood changed. She talked a good deal and very +well, and it was hard to realize that she was only sixteen and a freshman. She +had fitted for college at a big preparatory school in the east, and so, although +she happened to be the only Denver girl in college, she had a great many friends +in the upper classes and appeared to know quite as much about college customs as +Miss Brooks. All this impressed Betty, who admired beauty and pretty clothes +immensely. She resolved to have Eleanor Watson for a friend if she could, and +was pleased when Miss Watson inquired how many examinations she had, and +suggested that they would probably be in the same divisions, since their names +both began with W.</p> + +<p>The remaining girl at Mrs. Chapin’s table was not particularly +striking. She had a great mass of golden brown hair, which she wore coiled +loosely in her neck. Her keen grey eyes looked the world straight in the face, +and her turned-up nose and the dimple in her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_16'></a>16</span> chin gave her a merry, cheerful air. She did not talk +much, and not at all about herself, but she gave the impression of being a +thoroughly nice, bright, capable girl. Her name was Rachel Morrison.</p> + +<p>After dinner Betty was starting up-stairs when Mary Brooks called her back. +“Won’t you walk over to the campus with me, little girl?” she +asked. “I have one or two errands. Oh no, you don’t need a hat. You +never do here.”</p> + +<p>So they wandered off bareheaded in the moonlight, which made the elm-shaded +streets look prettier than ever. On the dusky campus girls strolled about in +devoted pairs and sociable quartettes. On the piazza of one of the +dwelling-houses somebody was singing a fascinating little Scotch ballad with a +tinkling mandolin accompaniment.</p> + +<p>“Must be Dorothy King,” said the sophomore. “I thought she +wouldn’t come till eight. Most people don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, “I know her!” And she related +her adventure at the station.</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” said Miss Brooks. “I’d forgotten. +She’s awfully popular, you know, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_17'></a>17</span> very prominent,–belongs to no end of societies. +But whatever the Young Women’s Christian Association wants of her she +does. You know they appoint girls to meet freshmen and help them find +boarding-places and so on. She’s evidently on that committee. Let’s +stop and say hello to her.”</p> + +<p>Betty, hanging behind, was amazed to see the commotion caused by Miss +Brooks’s arrival. The song stopped abruptly, the mandolin slammed to the +floor, and performers and audience fell as one woman upon the newcomer.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mary Brooks! When did you come?”</p> + +<p>“Did you get a room, honey?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mary, where did you put on that lovely tan?”</p> + +<p>“Mary, is Sarah coming back, do you know?”</p> + +<p>“Hush up, girls, and let her tell us!”</p> + +<p>It was like the station, only more so, and oh, it was nice–if you were +in it. Mary answered some of their questions and then looked around for Betty. +“I’ve lost a freshman,” she said, “Here, Miss Wales, +come <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span> up and sit on +the railing. She knows you, Dottie, and she wants to hear you sing. These others +are some of the Hilton House, Miss Wales. Please consider yourselves introduced. +Now, Dottie.”</p> + +<p>So the little Scotch ballad began again. Presently some one else came up, +there were more effusive greetings, and then another song or two, after which +Miss King and “some of the Hilton House” declared that they simply +must go and unpack. Betty, suddenly remembering her trunk and her sister, +decided to let Miss Brooks do her other “errands” alone, and found +her way back to Mrs. Chapin’s. Sure enough, Nan was sitting on the +piazza.</p> + +<p>“Hello, little sister,” she called gaily as Betty hurried up the +walk. “Don’t say you’re sorry to be late. It’s the worst +possible thing for little freshmen to mope round waiting for people, and +I’m glad you had the sense not to. Your trunk’s come, but if +you’re not too tired let’s go up and see Ethel Hale before we unpack +it.”</p> + +<p>Ethel Hale had spent a whole summer with Nan, and Betty beat her at tennis +and called <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span> her +Ethel, and she called Betty little sister, just as Nan did. But here she was a +member of the faculty. “I shall never dare come near her after you +leave,” said Betty. Just as she said it the door of the room +opened–Nan had explained that it was a freshman trick to ring front +door-bells–and Ethel rushed out and dragged them in.</p> + +<p>“Miss Blaine and Miss Mills are here,” she said.</p> + +<p>Betty gathered from the subsequent conversation that Miss Blaine and Miss +Mills were also members of the faculty; and they were. But they had just come in +from a horseback ride, and they sat in rather disheveled attitudes, eating taffy +out of a paper bag, and their conversation was very amusing and perfectly +intelligible, even to a freshman who had still an examination to pass.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t suppose the faculty ever acted like that. Why, +they’re just like other people,” declared Betty, as she tumbled into +bed a little later.</p> + +<p>“They’re exactly like other people,” returned Nan sagely, +from the closet where she was hanging up skirts. “Just remember <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span> that and you’ll have +a lot nicer time with them.”</p> + +<p>So ended Betty’s first day at college. Nan finished unpacking, and then +sat for a long time by the window. Betty loved Nan, but Nan in return worshiped +Betty. They might call her the clever Miss Wales if they liked; she would gladly +have given all her vaunted brains for the fascinating little ways that made +Betty friends so quickly and for the power to take life in Betty’s +free-and-easy fashion. “Oh, I hope she’ll like it!” she +thought. “I hope she’ll be popular with the girls. I don’t +want her to have to work so hard for all she gets. I wouldn’t exchange my +course for hers, but I want hers to be the other kind.”</p> + +<p>Betty was sound asleep.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span><a id='link_2'></a>CHAPTER II<br /><span class='h2fs'>BEGINNINGS</span></h2> + +<p>The next morning it poured.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Eleanor Watson impressively at breakfast. +“It always does the first day of college. They call it the freshman +rain.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s all go down to chapel together,” suggested Rachel +Morrison.</p> + +<p>“You’re going to order carriages, of course?” inquired +Roberta Lewis stiffly.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah! Another joke for the grind-book,” shrieked Mary Brooks. +Then she noticed Roberta’s expression of abject terror. “Never mind, +Miss Lewis,” she said kindly. “It’s really an honor to be in +the grind-book, but I promise not to tell if you’d rather I +wouldn’t. Won’t you show that you forgive me by coming down to +college under my umbrella?”</p> + +<p>“She can’t. She’s coming with me,” answered Nan +promptly. “I demand the right to first choice.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span>“Very well, +I yield,” said Mary, “because when you go my sovereignty will be +undisputed. You’ll have to hurry, children.”</p> + +<p>So the little procession of rain-coats flapping out from under dripping +umbrellas started briskly off to join the longer procession that was converging +from every direction toward College Hall. Roberta and Nan were ahead under one +umbrella, chatting like old friends.</p> + +<p>“I suppose she doesn’t think we’re worth talking to,” +said Rachel Morrison, who came next with Betty.</p> + +<p>“Probably she’s one of the kind that’s always been around +with grown people and isn’t used to girls,” suggested Betty.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” agreed Rachel. “Anyhow, I can’t get a word +out of her. She just sits by her window and reads magazines and looks bored to +death when Katherine or I go in to speak to her. Isn’t Katherine jolly? +I’m so glad I don’t room alone.”</p> + +<p>“Are you?” asked Betty. “I can tell better after my +roommate comes. Her name sounds quite nice. It’s Helen Chase Adams, and +she lives somewhere up in New Hampshire. Did you ever see so many +girls?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span>There seemed to be +no end to them. They jostled one another good-naturedly in the narrow halls, +swarmed, chattering, up the stairs, and filled the chapel to overflowing. It was +very exciting to see the whole college together. Even Roberta Lewis condescended +to look interested when Mary Brooks showed her the faculty rows, and pointed out +the college beauty, the captain of the sophomore basket-ball team, and other +local celebrities.</p> + +<p>“That’s evidently a freshman,” declared Eleanor Watson, who +was in the row behind with Katherine and the Riches. “Doesn’t she +look lost and unhappy?” And she pointed out a tall, near-sighted girl who +was stalking dejectedly down the middle aisle.</p> + +<p>A vivacious little brunette was sitting next Eleanor. “Pardon +me,” she said sweetly, “but did you mean the girl who’s gone +around to the side and is now being received with open arms by most of the +faculty? She’s a senior, the brightest girl in the class, we think, and +she’s sad because she’s lost her trunk and broken her glasses. +You’re a freshman, I judge?”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, yes,” gasped Eleanor with as <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span> much dignity as she could muster, and +resolved to keep her guesses to herself in future.</p> + +<p>The chapel service was short but very beautiful. The president’s kindly +welcome to the entering class, “which bids fair to be the largest in the +history of the institution,” completely upset the composure of some of the +aforesaid class, and a good many moist handkerchiefs grew moister, and red eyes +redder during the prayer. But on the whole the class of 190- conducted itself +with commendable propriety and discretion on this its first official appearance +in the college world.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad I don’t have that French exam.,” said +Katherine, as she and Betty picked out their umbrellas from a great, moist heap +in the corner of the hall. “Come down with me and have a soda.”</p> + +<p>Betty shook her head. “I can’t. Nan asked me to go with her and +Eth–I mean Miss Hale, but I simply must study.” And she hurried off +to begin.</p> + +<p>At the entrance to the campus Eleanor Watson overtook her. “Let’s +go home and study together,” she proposed. “I can’t see why +they left this French till so late in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_25'></a>25</span> week, when everybody has it. What did you come to +college for?” she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>Betty thought a minute. “Why, for the fun of it, I guess,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“So did I. I think we’ve stumbled into a pretty serious-minded +crowd at Mrs. Chapin’s, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I like Miss Morrison awfully well,” objected Betty, “and I +shouldn’t call Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee serious-minded, +but―”</p> + +<p>“Oh, perhaps not,” interrupted Eleanor. “Anyhow I know a +lot of fine girls outside, and you must meet them. It’s very important to +have a lot of friends up here. If you want to amount to anything, you +can’t just stick with the girls in your own house.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said Betty meekly, awed by the display of worldly +wisdom. “It will be lovely to meet your friends. Let’s study on the +piazza. I’ll get my books.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” said Eleanor quickly. “I want to tell you +something. I have at least two conditions already, and if I don’t pass +this French I don’t suppose I can possibly stay.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span>“But you +don’t act frightened a bit,” protested Betty in awestruck tones.</p> + +<p>“I am,” returned Eleanor in a queer, husky voice. “I could +never show my face again if I failed.” She brushed the tears out of her +eyes. “Now go and get your books,” she said calmly, “and +don’t ever mention the subject again. I had to tell somebody.”</p> + +<p>Betty was back in a moment, looking as if she had seen a ghost. +“She’s come,” she gasped, “and she’s crying like +everything.”</p> + +<p>“Who?” inquired Eleanor coolly.</p> + +<p>“My roommate–Helen Chase Adams.”</p> + +<p>“What did you do?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say a word–just grabbed up my books and ran. +Let’s study till Nan comes and then she’ll settle it.”</p> + +<p>It was almost one o’clock before Nan appeared. She tossed a box of +candy to the weary students, and gave a lively account of her morning, which had +included a second breakfast, three strawberry-ices, a walk to the bridge, half a +dozen calls on the campus, and a plunge in the swimming-tank.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t dream I knew so many people here,” she said. +“But now I’ve seen them <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_27'></a>27</span> all and they’ve promised to call on you, Betty, +and I must go to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Not unless she stops crying,” said Betty firmly, and told her +story.</p> + +<p>“Go up and ask her to come down-town with us and have a lunch at +Holmes’s,” suggested Nan.</p> + +<p>“Oh you come too,” begged Betty, and Nan, amused at the distress +of her usually self-reliant sister, obediently led the way up-stairs.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” called a tremulous voice.</p> + +<p>Helen Chase Adams had stopped crying, at least temporarily, and was sitting +in a pale and forlorn heap on one of the beds. She jumped up when she saw her +visitors. “I thought it was the man with my trunk,” she said. +“Is one of you my roommate? Which one?”</p> + +<p>“What a nice speech, Miss Adams!” said Nan heartily. +“I’ve been hoping ever since I came that somebody would take me for +a freshman. But this is Betty, who’s to room with you. Now will you come +down-town to lunch with us?”</p> + +<p>Betty was very quiet on the way down-town. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_28'></a>28</span> Her roommate was a bitter disappointment. She had +imagined a pretty girl like Eleanor Watson, or a jolly one like Katherine and +Rachel; and here was this homely little thing with an awkward walk, a piping +voice, and short skirts. “She’ll just spoil everything,” +thought Betty resentfully, “and it’s a mean, hateful shame.” +Over the creamed chicken, which Nan ordered because it was Holmes’s +“specialty,” just as strawberry-ice was Cuyler’s, the +situation began to look a little more cheerful. Helen Chase Adams would +certainly be an obliging roommate.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t think of touching the room till you get back from +your French,” she said eagerly. “Won’t it be fun to fix it? +Have you a lot of pretty things? I haven’t much, I’m afraid. Oh, no, +I don’t care a bit which bed I have.” Her shy, appealing manner and +her evident desire to please would have disarmed a far more critical person than +Betty, who, in spite of her love of “fine feathers” and a sort of +superficial snobbishness, was at heart absolutely unworldly, and who took a +naive interest in all badly dressed people because it was such fun to +“plan them over.” She applied <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_29'></a>29</span> this process immediately to her roommate.</p> + +<p>“Her hat’s on crooked,” she reflected, “and her +pug’s in just the wrong place. Her shirt-waist needs pulling down in front +and she sticks her head out when she talks. Otherwise she’d be rather +cute. I hope she’s the kind that will take suggestions without getting +mad.” And she hurried off to her French in a very amiable frame of +mind.</p> + +<p>Helen Chase Adams thanked Nan shyly for the luncheon, escaped from the +terrors of a tête-à-tête with an unfamiliar grown-up on the plea of having to +unpack, and curled up on the couch that Betty had not chosen, to think it over. +The day had been full of surprises, but Betty was the culmination. Why had she +come to college? She was distinctly pretty, she dressed well, and evidently +liked what pretty girls call “a good time.” In Helen Chase +Adams’s limited experience all pretty girls were stupid. The idea of +seeing crowds of them in the college chapel, much less of rooming with one, had +never entered her head. A college was a place for students. Would Miss Wales +pass her examination? <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_30'></a>30</span> Would she learn her lessons? What would it be like to +live with her day in and day out? Helen could not imagine–but she did not +feel in the least like crying.</p> + +<p>Just as the dinner-bell rang, Betty appeared, looking rather tired and pale. +“Nan’s gone,” she announced. “She found she +couldn’t make connections except by leaving at half past five, so she met +me down at the college. And just at the last minute she gave me the money to buy +a chafing-dish. Wasn’t that lovely? I know I should have cried and made a +goose of myself, but after tha–I beg your pardon–I haven’t any +sense.” She stopped in confusion.</p> + +<p>But Helen only laughed. “Go on,” she said. “I don’t +mind now. I don’t believe I’m going to be homesick any more, and if +I am I’ll do my best not to cry.”</p> + +<p>How the rest of that first week flew! Next day the freshman class list was +read, and fortunately it included all the girls at Mrs. Chapin’s. Then +there were electives to choose, complicated schedules to see through, first +recitations to find, books to buy or rent, rooms to arrange, and all sorts of +bewildering odds <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span> and +ends to attend to. Saturday came before any one was ready for it, bringing in +its wake the freshman frolic, a jolly, informal dance in the gymnasium, at which +the whole college appears, tagged with its name, and tries to get accustomed to +the size of the entering class, preparatory to becoming acquainted with parts of +it later on. To Betty’s great delight Dorothy King met her in the hall of +the Administration Building the day before and asked permission to take her to +the frolic. At the gymnasium Miss King turned her over to a bewildering +succession of partners, who asked her the stereotyped questions about liking +college, having a pleasant boarding-place, and so on, tried more or less +effectively to lead her through the crowd to the rather erratic music of one +piano, and assured her that the freshman frolic was not at all like the other +college dances. They all seemed very pleasant, but Betty felt sure she should +never know them again. Nevertheless she enjoyed it all immensely and was almost +sorry when the frolic was over and they adjourned to Dorothy’s pretty +single room in the Hilton House, where a few other upper-class girls had been +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span> invited to bring +their freshmen for refreshments.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it fun?” said Betty to a fluffy-haired, dainty +little girl who sat next her on Dorothy’s couch.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I should call it exactly fun,” said the girl +critically.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I like meeting new people, and getting into a crowd of girls, and +trying to dance with them,” explained Betty.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I liked it too,” said the girl. She had an odd trick of +lingering over the word she wished to distinguish. “I liked it because it +was so queer. Everything’s queer here, particularly roommates. Do you have +one?”</p> + +<p>Betty nodded. “Well, mine never made up her bed in her life before, and +first she thought she couldn’t, but her mother told her to take hold and +see what a Madison could do with a bed–they’re awfully proud of +their old family–so she did; but it looks dreadfully messy yet, and it +makes her late for chapel every single morning. Is yours anything like +that?”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span> “She’s very orderly. +Won’t you come and see us?”</p> + +<p>The little freshman promised. By that time the “plowed field” was +ready–an obliging friend had stayed at home from the frolic to give it an +early start–and they ate the creamy brown squares of candy with a +marshmallow stuffed into each, and praised the cook and her wares until a bell +rang and everybody jumped up and began saying good-bye at once except Betty, who +had to be enlightened by the campus girls as to the dire meaning of the +twenty-minutes-to-ten bell.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you keep the ten o’clock rule?” asked the +fluffy-haired freshman curiously.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said Betty. “Why, we couldn’t come to +college if we didn’t, could we?” And she wondered why some of the +girls laughed.</p> + +<p>“I’ve had a beautiful time,” she said, when Miss King, who +had come part way home with her, explained that she must turn back. “I +hope that when I’m a junior I can do half as much for some little freshman +as you have for me.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a nice way to put it, Miss Wales,” <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span> said Dorothy. “But +don’t wait till you’re a junior to begin.”</p> + +<p>As Betty ran home, she reflected that she had not seen Helen dancing that +evening. “Oh, Helen,” she called, as she dashed into the room, +“wasn’t it fun? How many minutes before our light goes out? Do you +know how to dance?”</p> + +<p>Helen hesitated. “I–well–I know how, but I can’t do +it in a crowd. It’s ten minutes of ten.”</p> + +<p>“Teach you before the sophomore reception,” said Betty +laconically, throwing a slipper into the closet with one hand and pulling out +hairpins with the other. “What a pity that to-morrow’s Sunday. We +shall have to wait a whole day to begin.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span><a id='link_3'></a>CHAPTER III<br /><span class='h2fs'>DANCING LESSONS AND A CLASS-MEETING</span></h2> + +<p>The next morning Helen had gone for a walk with Katherine, and Betty was +dressing for church, when Eleanor Watson knocked at the door. She looked +prettier than ever in her long silk kimono, with its ruffles of soft lace and +the great knot of pink ribbon at her throat.</p> + +<p>“So you’re going to church too,” she said, dropping down +among Betty’s pillows. “I was hoping you’d stay and talk to +me. Did you enjoy your frolic?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, didn’t you?” inquired Betty.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t go,” returned Eleanor shortly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, why not?” asked Betty so seriously that Eleanor laughed.</p> + +<p>“Because the girl who asked me first was ill; and I wouldn’t tag +along with the little Brooks and the Riches and your fascinating roommate. Now +don’t say ‘why not?’ again, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_36'></a>36</span> or I may hurt your feelings. Do you really like Miss +Brooks?”</p> + +<p>Betty hesitated. As a matter of fact she liked Mary Brooks very much, but she +also admired Eleanor Watson and coveted her approval. “I like her well +enough,” she said slowly, and disappeared into the closet to get something +she did not want and change the subject.</p> + +<p>Eleanor laughed. “You’re so polite,” she said. “I +wish I were. That is, I wish I could make people think I was, without my taking +the trouble. Don’t go to church.”</p> + +<p>“Helen and Katherine are coming back for me. You’d better go with +us,” urged Betty.</p> + +<p>“Now that Kankakee person―” began Eleanor. The door opened +suddenly and Katherine and Helen came in. Katherine, who had heard +Eleanor’s last remark, flushed but said nothing. Eleanor rose +deliberately, smoothed the pillows she had been lying on, and walked slowly off, +remarking over her shoulder, “In common politeness, knock before you come +in.”</p> + +<p>“Or you may hear what I think of you,” <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span> added Katherine wickedly, as Eleanor shut +the door.</p> + +<p>Helen looked perplexed. “Should I, Betty?” she asked, “when +it’s my own room.”</p> + +<p>“It’s nicer,” said Betty. “Nan and I do. How do you +like our room, Katherine?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a beaut,” said Katherine, taking the hint promptly. +“I don’t see how you ever fixed your desks and couches, and left so +much space in the middle. Our room is like the aisle in a Chicago theatre. That +Japanese screen is a peach and the water-color over your desk is another. Did +you buy back the chafing-dish?”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. She had amused the house by getting up before breakfast on the +day after Nan left, in her haste to buy a chafing-dish. In the afternoon Rachel +had suggested that a teakettle was really more essential to a college +establishment, and they had gone down together to change it. But then had come +Miss King’s invitation to eat “plowed field” after the frolic; +and the chafing-dish, appearing once more the be-all and end-all of existence, +had finally replaced the teakettle.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span>“But +we’re going to have both,” ventured Helen shyly.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” broke in Betty. “Isn’t it fine of Helen to +get it and make our tea-table so complete?” As a matter of fact Betty much +preferred that the tea-table should be all her own; but Helen was so delighted +with the idea of having a part in it, and so sure that she wanted a teakettle +more than pillows for her couch, that Betty resolved not to mind the +bare-looking bed, which marred the cozy effect of the room, and above all never +to let Helen guess how she felt about the tea-table. “But next year you +better believe I’m hoping for a single room,” she confided to the +little green lizard who sat on her inkstand and ogled her while she worked.</p> + +<p>When church was over Katherine proposed a stroll around the campus before +dinner. “I haven’t found my bearings at all yet,” she said. +“Now which building is which?”</p> + +<p>Betty pointed out the Hilton House proudly. “That’s all I +know,” she said, “except these up here in front of course–the +Main Building and Chapel, and Science and Music Halls.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span>“We know the +gymnasium,” suggested Helen, “and the Belden House, where we bought +our screen, is one of the four in that row.”</p> + +<p>They found the Belden House, and picked out the Westcott by its name-plate, +which, being new and shiny, was easy to read from a distance. Then Helen made a +discovery. “Girls, there’s water down there,” she cried. Sure +enough, behind the back fence and across a road was a pretty pond, with wooded +banks and an island, which hid its further side from view.</p> + +<p>“That must be the place they call Paradise,” said Betty. +“I’ve heard Nan speak of it. I thought it was this,” and she +pointed to a slimy pool about four yards across, below them on the back campus. +“That’s the only pond I’d noticed.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” declared Katherine. “I’ve heard my +scientific roommate speak of that. It’s called the Frog Pond and ‘of it +more anon,’ as my already beloved Latin teacher occasionally remarks. To +speak plainly, she has promised to let me help her catch her first +frog.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span>They walked home +through the apple orchard that occupied one corner of the back campus.</p> + +<p>“It’s not a very big campus, and not a bit dignified or imposing, +but I like it,” said Betty, as they came out on to the main drive again, +and started toward the gateway.</p> + +<p>“Nice and cozy to live with every day,” added Katherine. Helen +was too busy comparing the red-brick, homely reality with the shaded marble +cloisters of her dreams, to say what she thought.</p> + +<p>Betty’s dancing class was a great success. With characteristic energy +she organized it Monday morning. It appeared that while all the Chapin house +girls could dance except Helen and Adelaide Rich, none of them could +“lead” but Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“And Miss King’s friends said we freshmen ought to learn before +the sophomore reception, particularly the tall ones; and most of us are +tall,” explained Betty.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” interposed Eleanor, “but take my +advice and don’t learn. If you can’t lead, the other girl always +will; and the men say it ruins a girl’s dancing.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span>“Who +cares?” demanded Katherine boldly. “Imagine Betty or Miss Brooks +trying to see over me and pull me around! I want to learn, for one–men or +no men.”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” said Rachel and Mary Rich together. “And +I,” drawled Roberta languidly.</p> + +<p>“Oh well, if you’re all set upon it, I’ll play for +you,” said Eleanor graciously. She was secretly ashamed of the speech that +Katherine had overheard the day before and bitterly regretted having antagonized +the girls in the house, when she had meant only to keep them–all but +Betty–at a respectful distance. She liked most of them personally, but she +wished her friends to be of another type–girls from large schools like her +own, who would have influence and a following from the first; girls with the +qualities of leadership, who could control votes in class-meetings and push +their little set to first place in all the organized activities of the college. +Eleanor had said that she came to college for “fun,” but +“fun” to her meant power and prominence. She was a born politician, +with a keen love of manœuvring and considerable tact and insight when +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span> she chose to +exercise it. But inexperience and the ease with which she had “run” +boarding-school affairs had made her over-confident. She saw now that she had +indulged her fondness for sarcasm too far, and was ready to do a good deal to +win back the admiration which she was sure the Chapin house girls had felt for +her at first. She was particularly anxious to do this, as the freshman +class-meeting was only a week off, and she wanted the votes of the house for the +Hill School candidate for class-president.</p> + +<p>So three evenings that week, in spite of her distaste for minor parts and bad +pianos, she meekly drummed out waltzes and two-steps on Mrs. Chapin’s +rickety instrument for a long half hour after dinner, while Betty and +Roberta–who danced beautifully and showed an unexpected aptitude in +imparting her accomplishment–acted as head-masters, and the rest of the +girls furnished the novices with the necessary variety of partners, practiced +“leading,” and incidentally got better acquainted. On Friday +evening, as they sat in the parlor resting and discussing the progress of their +pupils and the appalling length of the Livy <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_43'></a>43</span> lesson for the next day, Eleanor broached the subject +of the class-meeting.</p> + +<p>“You know it’s to-morrow at two,” she said. +“Aren’t you excited?”</p> + +<p>“It will be fun to see our class together,” said Rachel. Nobody +else seemed to take much interest in the subject.</p> + +<p>“Well, of course,” pursued Eleanor, “I’m particularly +anxious about it because a dear friend of mine is going to be proposed for class +president–Jean Eastman–you know her, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” cried Betty, enthusiastically. “She’s that +tall, dark girl who was with you yesterday at Cuyler’s. She seemed +lovely.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor nodded and got up from the piano stool. “I must go to +work,” she said, smiling cordially round the little group. “Tell +them what a good president Jean will make, Betty. And don’t one of you +forget to come.”</p> + +<p>“She can be very nice when she wants to,” said Katherine bluntly +when Eleanor was well out of hearing.</p> + +<p>“I think she’s trying to make up for Sunday,” said Betty. +“Let’s all vote for her friend.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span>The first +class-meeting of 190- passed off with unwonted smoothness. The class before had +forgotten that it is considered necessary for a corporate body to have a +constitution; and the class before that had made itself famous by suggesting the +addition of the “Woman’s Home Monthly” to the magazines in the +college reading-room. 190- avoided these and other absurdities. A constitution +mysteriously appeared, drawn up in good and regular form, and was read and +promptly adopted. Then Eleanor Watson nominated Jean Eastman for president. +After she and the other nominees had stood in a blushing row on the platform to +be inspected by their class, the voting began. Miss Eastman was declared elected +on the first ballot, with exactly four votes more than the number necessary for +a choice.</p> + +<p>“I hope she’ll remember that we did that,” Katherine +Kittredge leaned forward to say to Betty, who sat in the row ahead of her with +the fluffy-haired freshman from the Hilton and her “queer” +roommate.</p> + +<p>That night there was a supper in Jean’s honor at Holmes’s, so +Eleanor did not appear <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_45'></a>45</span> at Mrs. Chapin’s dinner-table to be duly +impressed with a sense of her obligations. “How did you like the +class-meeting?” inquired Rachel, who had been for a long walk with a girl +from her home town, and so had not seen the others.</p> + +<p>“I thought it was all right myself,” said Adelaide Rich, +“but I walked home with a girl named Alford who was dreadfully disgusted. +She said it was all cut and dried, and wanted to know who asked Eleanor Watson +to write us a constitution. She said she hoped that hereafter we wouldn’t +sit around tamely and be run by any clique.”</p> + +<p>“Well, somebody must run us,” said Betty consolingly. +“Those girls know one another and the rest of us don’t know any one +well. I think it will all work around in time. They will have their turns first, +that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” admitted Adelaide doubtfully. Her pessimistic +acquaintance had obtained a strong hold on her.</p> + +<p>“And the next thing is the sophomore reception,” said Rachel.</p> + +<p>“And Mountain Day right after that,” added Betty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_46'></a>46</span>“What?” asked Helen and Roberta +together.</p> + +<p>“Is it possible that you don’t know about Mountain Day, +children?” asked Mary Brooks soberly. “Well, you’ve heard +about the physical tests for the army and navy, haven’t you? This is like +those. If you pass your entrance examinations you are allowed a few weeks to +recuperate, and then if you can climb the required mountain you can stay on in +college.”</p> + +<p>“How very interesting!” drawled Roberta, who had some idea now +how to take Mary’s jibes. “Now, Betty, please tell us about +it.”</p> + +<p>Betty explained that the day after the sophomore reception was a holiday, and +that most of the girls seized the opportunity to take an all-day walk or drive +into the country around Harding.</p> + +<p>“Let’s all ask our junior and senior friends about the nicest +places to go,” said Rachel, emphasizing “junior and senior” +and looking at Mary. “Then we can make our plans, and engage a carriage if +we want one. I should think there might be quite a rush.”</p> + +<p>“You should, should you?” jeered Mary. “My dear, every +horse that can stand alone <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_47'></a>47</span> and every respectable vehicle was engaged weeks +ago.”</p> + +<p>“No one has engaged our lower appendages,” returned Katherine. +“So if worse comes to worst, we are quite independent of liveries. Which +of us are you going to take to the sophomore reception?”</p> + +<p>“Roberta, of course,” said Mary. “Didn’t you know +that Roberta and I have a crush on each other? A crush, my dears, in case you +are wanting to know, is a warm and adoring friendship. Sorry, but I’m +going out this evening.”</p> + +<p>“Has she really asked you, Roberta?” asked Betty.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Roberta.</p> + +<p>“How nice! I’m going with a sophomore whose sister is a friend of +Nan’s.”</p> + +<p>“And Hester Gulick is going to take me–she’s my friend from +home,” volunteered Rachel.</p> + +<p>“I was asked to-day,” added Helen. “After the class-meeting +an awfully nice girl, a junior, came up here. She said there were so many of us +that some of the juniors were going to help take us. Isn’t it nice of +them?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span>Nobody spoke for a +moment; then Katherine went on gaily. “And we other three have not yet +been called and chosen, but I happen to know that it’s because so many +people want us, and nobody will give up. So don’t the rest of you indulge +in any crowing.”</p> + +<p>“By the way, Betty,” said Rachel Morrison, “will you take +some more dancing pupils? I was telling two girls who board down the street +about our class and they said they wanted to learn before the reception and +would much rather come here than go to that big class that two seniors have in +the gym. But as they don’t know you, they would insist on paying, just as +they would at the other class.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked doubtfully at Roberta. “Shall we?” she said.</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind,” answered Roberta, “if only you all +promise not to tell my father. He wouldn’t understand. Do you suppose Miss +Watson would play?”</p> + +<p>“If not, I will,” said Mary Rich.</p> + +<p>“And we could use the money for a house spread,” added Betty, +“since we all help to earn it.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span>“And +christen the chafing-dish,” put in Katherine.</p> + +<p>“Good. Then I’ll tell them–Mondays, Tuesdays and +Fridays,” said Rachel; and the dinner-table dissolved.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span><a id='link_4'></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><span class='h2fs'>WHOSE PHOTOGRAPH?</span></h2> + +<p>The dancing class went briskly on; so did the Livy class and the geometry, +the English 1, the French required and the history elective. The freshmen were +getting acquainted with one another now, and seldom confused their classmates +with seniors or youthful members of the faculty. They no longer attempted to go +out of chapel ahead of the seniors, or invaded the president’s house in +their frantic search for Science Hall or the Art Gallery. For October was fast +wearing away. The hills about Harding showed flaming patches of scarlet, and it +was time for the sophomore reception and Mountain Day. Betty was very much +excited about the reception, but she felt also that a load would slip off her +shoulders when it was over. She was anxious about the progress of the dancing +pupils, who had increased to five, besides Helen and Adelaide, and for whom she +felt a personal responsibility, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_51'></a>51</span> because the Chapin house girls persisted in calling +the class hers. And what would father say if they didn’t get their +money’s worth? Then there was Helen’s dress for the reception, which +she was sure was a fright, but couldn’t get up the courage to inquire +about. And last and worst of all was the mysterious grind-book and Dorothy +King’s warning about father’s telegram to the registrar. She had +never mentioned the incident to anybody, but from certain annoying remarks that +Mary Brooks let fall she was sure that Mary knew all about it and that the +sophomores were planning to make telling use of it.</p> + +<p>“How’s your friend the registrar?” Mary would inquire +solemnly every few days. And if Betty refused to answer she would say slyly, +“Who met you at the station, did you tell me? Oh, only Dottie King?” +until Betty almost decided to stop her by telling the whole story.</p> + +<p>Two days before the reception she took Rachel and Katherine into her +confidence about Helen’s dress.</p> + +<p>“You see if I could only look at it, maybe I could show her how to fix +it up,” she <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span> +explained, “but I’m afraid to ask. I’m pretty sure she’s +sensitive about her looks and her clothes. I should want to be told if I was +such a fright, but maybe she’s happier without knowing.”</p> + +<p>“She can’t help knowing if she stays here long,” said +Rachel.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you get out your dress, and then perhaps she’ll +show hers,” suggested Katherine.</p> + +<p>“I could do that,” assented Betty doubtfully. “I could find +a place to mend, I guess. Chiffon tears so easily.”</p> + +<p>“Good idea,” said Rachel heartily. “Try that, and then if +she doesn’t bite you’d better let things take their course. But it +is too bad to have her go looking like a frump, after all the trouble +we’ve taken with her dancing.”</p> + +<p>Betty went back to her room, sat down at her desk and began again at her +Livy. “For I might as well finish this first,” she thought; and it +was half an hour before she shut the scarlet-covered book with a slam and +announced somewhat ostentatiously that she had finished her Latin lesson.</p> + +<p>“And now I must mend my dress for the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_53'></a>53</span> reception,” she went on consciously. +“Mother is always cautioning me not to wait till the last minute to fix +things.”</p> + +<p>“Did you look up all the constructions in the Livy?” asked Helen. +Betty was so annoyingly quick about everything.</p> + +<p>“No,” returned Betty cheerfully from the closet, where she was +rummaging for her dress. “I shall guess at those. Why don’t you try +it? Oh, dear! This is dreadfully mussed,” and she appeared in the closet +door with a fluffy white skirt over her arm.</p> + +<p>“How pretty!” exclaimed Helen, deserting her Livy to examine it. +“Is it long?”</p> + +<p>“Um-um,” said Betty taking a pin out of her mouth and hunting +frantically for a microscopic rip. “Yes, it’s long, and it has a +train. My brother Will persuaded mother to let me have one. Wasn’t he a +brick?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Helen shortly, going back to her desk and opening her +book again. Presently she hitched her chair around to face Betty. +“Mine’s awfully short,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Is it?” asked Betty politely.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Then, “Would you care to see it?” asked +Helen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span>Betty winked at +the green lizard. “Yes indeed,” she said cordially. “Why +don’t you try it on to be sure it’s all right? I’m going to +put on mine in just a minute.”</p> + +<p>She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the dress. It was a simple white +muslin. The sleeves were queer, the neck too high to be low and too low to be +high, and the skirt ridiculously short. “But it might have been a lot +worse,” reflected Betty. “If she’ll only fix it!”</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” she said after she had duly admired it. +“I’ll put mine on, and we’ll see how we both look dressed +up.”</p> + +<p>“You look like a regular princess out of a story-book,” said +Helen solemnly, when Betty turned to her for inspection.</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “Oh, wait till to-morrow night,” she said. +“My hair’s all mussed now. I wonder how you’d look with your +hair low, Helen.”</p> + +<p>Helen flushed and bit her lip. “I shan’t look anyhow in this +horrid short dress,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Then why don’t you make it longer, and lower in the neck?” +inquired Betty impatiently. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_55'></a>55</span> Helen was as conscientiously slow about making up her +mind as she was about learning her Livy. “It’s hemmed, isn’t +it? Anyhow you could piece it under the ruffle.”</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose mamma would care?” said Helen dubiously. +“Anyway I don’t believe I have time–only till to-morrow +night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh I’ll show you how,” Betty broke in eagerly. “And +if your mother should object you could put it back, you know. You begin ripping +out the hem, and then we’ll hang it.”</p> + +<p>Helen Chase Adams proved to be a pains-taking and extremely slow sewer. +Besides, she insisted on taking time off to learn her history and geometry, +instead of “risking” them as Betty did and urged her to do. The +result was that Betty had to refuse Mary Brooks’s invitation to +“come down to the gym and dance the wax into that blooming floor” +the next afternoon, and was tired and cross by the time she had done +Helen’s hair low, hooked her into the transformed dress, and finished her +own toilette. She had never thought to ask the name of Helen’s junior, and +was surprised and pleased when Dorothy <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_56'></a>56</span> King appeared at their door. Dorothy’s +amazement was undisguised.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to be costumer for our house plays next year, Miss +Wales,” she said, while Betty blushed and contradicted all Helen’s +explanations. “You’re coming on the campus, of course.”</p> + +<p>“So virtue isn’t its only reward after all,” said Eleanor +Watson, who had come in just in time to hear Miss King’s remark. +“Helen Chase Adams isn’t exactly a vision of loveliness yet. She +won’t be mistaken for the college beauty, but she’s vastly improved. +I only wish anybody cared to take as much trouble for me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Eleanor!” said Betty reproachfully. “As if any one +could improve you!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor’s evening dress was a pale yellow satin that brought out the +brown lights in her hair and eyes and the gleaming whiteness of her shoulders. +There were violets in her hair, which was piled high on her head, and more +violets at her waist; and as she stood full in the light, smiling at +Betty’s earnestness, Betty was sure she had never seen any one half so +lovely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span>“But I wish +you wouldn’t be so sarcastic over Helen,” she went on stoutly. +“She can’t help being such a freak.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor yawned. “I was born sarcastic,” she said. “I wish +Lil Day would hurry. Did you happen to notice that I cut three classes straight +this morning?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Betty aghast. “Oh, Eleanor, how dare you +when–” She stopped suddenly, remembering that Eleanor had asked her +not to speak of the entrance conditions.</p> + +<p>“When I have so much to make up already, you mean,” Eleanor went +on complacently. “Oh, I shall manage somehow. Here they come.”</p> + +<p>A few moments later the freshman and sophomore classes, with a sprinkling of +juniors to make the numbers even, were gathered <i>en masse</i> in the big +gymnasium. All the afternoon loyal sophomores had toiled thither from the +various campus houses, lugging palms, screens, portières and pillows. Inside +another contingent had arranged these contributions, festooned the running-track +with red and green bunting, risked their lives to fasten Japanese lanterns to +the cross-beams, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span> and +disguised the apparatus against the walls with great branches of spruce and +cedar, which still other merry, wind-blown damsels, driving a long-suffering +horse, had deposited at intervals near the back door. By five o’clock it +was finished and everybody, having assured everybody else that the gym never +looked so well before, had gone home to dress for the evening. Now the lights +softened what Mary Brooks called the “hidjous” greens of the +freshman bunting, a band played sweet music behind the palms, and pretty girls +in pretty gowns sat in couples on the divans that lined the walls, or waited in +line to speak to the receiving party. This consisted of Jean Eastman and the +sophomore president, who stood in front of the fireplace, where a line of ropes +intended to be used in gym practice had been looped back and made the best sort +of foundation for a green canopy over their heads. Ten of the prettiest +sophomores acted as ushers, and four popular and much envied seniors presided at +the frappé bowls in the four corners of the room.</p> + +<p>“There’s not much excitement about a manless dance, but +it’s a fascinating thing to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_59'></a>59</span> watch,” said Eleanor to her partner, as they +stood in the running-track looking down at the dancers.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you’re blasé, Miss Watson,” returned the +sophomore. “Only seniors are allowed to dislike girl dances.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor laughed. “Well, I seem to be the only heretic present,” +she said. “They’re certainly having a good time down +there.”</p> + +<p>They certainly were. The novelty of the occasion appealed to the freshmen, +and the more sophisticated sophomores were bound to make a reputation as gallant +beaux. So although only half the freshman could dance at once and even then the +floor was dreadfully crowded, and in spite of the fact that the only refreshment +was the rather watery frappé which gave out early in the evening, 190-’s +reception to 190- was voted a great success.</p> + +<p>At nine o’clock the sophomore ushers began arranging the couples in a +long line leading to the grind table, and Betty knew that her hour had come. The +orchestra played a march, and as the girls walked past the table the sophomore +officers presented each freshman with a small booklet bound in the freshman +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span> green, on the front +cover of which, in letters of sophomore scarlet, was the cryptic legend: +“Puzzle–name the girl.” This was explained, however, by the +inside, where appeared a small and rather cloudy blue-print, showing the back +view of a girl in shirt-waist and short skirt, with a pile of books under her +arm, and the inevitable “tam” on her head. On the opposite page was +a facsimile telegraph blank, filled out to the registrar,</p> + +<p>“Please meet my dear young daughter, who will arrive on Thursday by the +6:15, and oblige,</p> + +<p class='tar'>“Thomas ―.”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed, pushed her neighbors around for a back view, and asked the +sophomores if the telegram had truly been sent, and if this was the real +girl’s picture. So no one noticed Betty’s blushes except Mary +Brooks, upon whom she vowed eternal vengeance. For she remembered how one +afternoon the week before, she and Mary had started from the house together, and +Mary, who said she was taking her camera down-town for a new film, had dropped +behind on some pretext. Betty had been sure she heard the camera <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span> click, but Mary had +grinned and told her not to be so vain of her back.</p> + +<p>However, nobody recognized the picture. The few sophomores who knew anything +about it were pledged to secrecy, as the grinds were never allowed to become too +personal, and the freshmen treated the telegram as an amusing myth. In a few +minutes every one was dancing again, and only too soon it was ten +o’clock.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it fun?” said Betty enthusiastically, as she and +Helen undressed.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” agreed Helen. “I never had such a good time in my +life. But, do you know, Miss Watson says she was bored, and Roberta thought it +was tiresome and the grind-book silly and impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes,” said Betty sagely, +smothering a laugh in the pillows.</p> + +<p>She was asleep in five minutes, but Helen lay for a long while thinking over +the exciting events of the evening. How she had dreaded it! At home she hated +dances and never went if she could help it, because she was such a wall-flower. +She had been afraid it would be the same here, but it wasn’t. <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span> What a lovely time she had +had! She could dance so well now, and Miss King’s friends were so nice, +and college was such a beautiful place, though it was so different from what she +had expected.</p> + +<p>Across the hall Roberta had lighted her student lamp and was sitting up to +write an appreciative and very clever account of the evening to her cousin, who +was reporter on a Boston paper and had made her promise to send him an +occasional college item.</p> + +<p>And Eleanor, still in the yellow satin, sat at her desk scribbling aimlessly +on a pad of paper or staring at a clean sheet, which began, “My dear +father.” She had meant to write him that she was tired of college and +wanted to come home at once; but somehow she couldn’t begin. For she +thought, “I can see him raise his eyebrows and smile and say, ‘so you want +to throw up the sponge, do you? I was under the impression that you had promised +to stay out the year,’ as he did to the private secretary who +wouldn’t sit up with him till three in the morning to write +letters.”</p> + +<p>Finally she tore up “My dear father,” and went to bed in the +dark.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span><a id='link_5'></a>CHAPTER V<br /><span class='h2fs'>UP HILL–AND DOWN</span></h2> + +<p>The next day was just the sort that everybody had been hoping for on Mountain +Day,–crisp and clear and cool, with the inspiriting tang in the air, the +delicious warmth in the sunshine, and the soft haze over the hills, that belong +to nothing but a New England October at its best. The Chapin house +breakfast-table was unusually lively, for each girl wanted to tell what she +thought about the reception and how she was going to spend Mountain Day; and +nobody seemed anxious to listen to anybody’s else story.</p> + +<p>“Sh–sh,” demanded Mary Brooks at last. “Now children, +you’ve talked long enough. Run and get your lunch boxes and begin making +your sandwiches. Mrs. Chapin wants us to finish by ten o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Ten o’clock!” repeated Katherine. “Well, I should +hope so. Our horse is ordered for nine.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span>“Going to be +gone all day?” inquired Mary sweetly.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” answered Katherine with dignity.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t kill the poor beast,” called Mary as she ran +up-stairs for her box.</p> + +<p>Mary was going off in a barge with the sophomore decorating committee, who +wanted a good chance to congratulate and condole with one another over their +Herculean labors and ultimate triumph of the day before. The Rich sisters had +decided to spend the holiday with an aunt who lived twenty miles down the river; +Eleanor had promised early in the fall to go out with a party of horseback +riders; and Helen, whose pocketbook had been prematurely flattened to buy her +teakettle, had decided to accept the invitation of a girl in her geometry +division to join an economical walking party. This left Rachel, Katherine, +Roberta and Betty, who had hired a horse and two-seated trap for the day, +invited Alice Waite, Betty’s little friend from the Hilton House, to join +them, and were going to drive “over the notch.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t the least idea what a notch is like,” <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span> said Katherine. “We +don’t have such things where I come from. But it sounds +interesting.”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t it?” assented Rachel absently, counting the ham +sandwiches. “Do you suppose the hills are very steep, Betty?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess not. Anyhow Katherine and I told the man we were going +there and wanted a sure-footed horse.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s going to drive?” asked Roberta.</p> + +<p>“Why, you, of course,” said Katherine quickly. “You said +you were used to driving.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I am,” conceded Roberta hastily and wondered if she +would better tell them any more. It was true that she was used to horses, but +she had never conquered her fear of them, and they always found her out. It was +a standing joke in the Lewis family that the steadiest horse put on airs and +pranced for Roberta. Even old Tom, that her little cousins drove out +alone–Roberta blushed as she remembered her experience with old Tom. But +if the girls were depending on her–“Betty drives too,” she +said aloud. “She and I can take turns. Are you sure we have enough +gingersnaps?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span>Everybody laughed, +for Roberta’s fondness for gingersnaps had become proverbial. “Half +a box apiece,” said Rachel, “and it is understood that you are to +have all you want even if the rest of us don’t get any.”</p> + +<p>When the horse arrived Roberta’s last fear vanished. He was meekness +personified. His head drooped sadly and his eyes were half shut. His fuzzy nose +and large feet bespoke docile endurance, while the heavy trap to which he was +harnessed would certainly discourage all latent tendencies to undue speed. Alice +Waite, Rachel and Katherine climbed in behind, Betty and Roberta took the front +seat, and they started at a jog trot down Meriden Place.</p> + +<p>“Shall we go through Main Street?” asked Roberta. “He might +be afraid of the electric cars.”</p> + +<p>“Afraid of nothing,” said Betty decidedly. “Besides, Alice +wants to stop at the grocery.”</p> + +<p>The “beastie,” as Katherine called him, stood like a statue +before Mr. Phelps’s grocery and never so much as moved an eyelash when +three trolley cars dashed by him in quick succession.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span>“What did +you get?” asked Katherine, when Alice came out laden with bundles.</p> + +<p>“Olives―”</p> + +<p>“Good! We forgot those.”</p> + +<p>“And bananas―”</p> + +<p>“The very thing! We have grapes.”</p> + +<p>“And wafers and gingersnaps―”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed riotously. “What’s the matter now?” +inquired Alice, looking a little offended. Rachel explained.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you have enough for the lunch,” said Alice, +“let’s keep these out to eat when we feel hungry.” And the box +was accordingly stuffed between Betty and Roberta for safe keeping.</p> + +<p>Down on the meadow road it was very warm. By the time they reached the ferry, +the “beastie’s” thick coat was dripping wet and he breathed +hard.</p> + +<p>“Ben drivin’ pretty fast, hain’t you?” asked the +ferryman, patting the horse’s hairy nose.</p> + +<p>“I should think not,” said Katherine indignantly. “Why, he +walked most of the way.”</p> + +<p>“Wall, remember that there trap’s very <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span> heavy,” said the ferryman solemnly, +as he shoved off.</p> + +<p>Beyond the river the hills began. The “beastie” trailed slowly up +them. Several times Roberta pulled him out to the side of the road to let more +ambitious animals pass him.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose he’s really tired?” she whispered to Betty, +as they approached a particularly steep pitch. “He might back +down.”</p> + +<p>“Girls,” said Betty hastily, “I’m sick of sitting +still, so I’m going to walk up this next hill. Any of you want to +come?”</p> + +<p>Relieved of his four passengers the horse still hung his head and lifted each +clumsy foot with an effort.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Roberta, there’s a watering trough up here,” called +Betty from the top of the hill. “I’m sure that’ll revive +him.”</p> + +<p>By their united efforts they got the “beastie” up to the trough, +which was most inconveniently located on a steep bank beside the road; and while +Betty and Alice kept the back wheels of the trap level, Katherine unfastened the +check-rein. To her horror, as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_69'></a>69</span> the check dropped the bits came out of the +horse’s mouth.</p> + +<p>“How funny,” said Alice, “just like everything up here. Did +you ever see a harness like that, Betty?” Betty left her post at the hind +wheel and came around to investigate.</p> + +<p>“Why he has two bits,” she said. “Of course he +couldn’t go, poor creature. And see how thirsty he is!”</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s drunk enough now,” said Roberta, “and +you’ll have to put the extra bits in again–that is, if you can. +He’d trail his nose on the ground if he wasn’t checked.”</p> + +<p>The “beastie” stood submissively while the bits were replaced and +the check fastened. Then he chewed a handful of clover with avidity and went on +again as dejectedly as ever. Presently they reached a long, level stretch of +road and stopped in the shade of a big pine-tree for a consultation.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose this is the top?” asked Rachel.</p> + +<p>Just then a merry tally-ho party of freshmen, tooting horns and singing, drew +up beside them. “Is this the top of the notch?” <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span> asked Betty, waving her hand to some +girls she knew.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s three miles further on,” they called back. +“Hurrah for 190-!”</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Betty, who felt in no mood for cheering.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go back to that pretty grove two hills down and tie this +apology for a horse to the fence and spend the rest of the day there,” +suggested Katherine.</p> + +<p>Everybody agreed to this, and Roberta backed her steed round with a +flourish.</p> + +<p>“Now let’s each have a gingersnap before we start down,” +she said. So the box was opened and passed. Roberta gathered the reins in one +hand, clucked to the horse, and put her gingersnap into her mouth for the first +bite. But she never got it, for without the slightest provocation the +“beastie” gave a sudden spring forward, flopped his long tail over +the reins, and started at a gallop down the road. Betty clung to the dashboard +with one hand and tried to pluck off the obstructing tail with the other. +Roberta, with the gingersnap still in her mouth, tugged desperately at the +lines, and the back seat yelled <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_71'></a>71</span> “Whoa!” lustily, until Betty, having +rearranged the tail and regained her seat, advised them to help pull instead. +They had long since left the little grove behind, had dashed past half a dozen +carriages, and were down on the level road near the ferry, when the +“beastie” stopped as suddenly as he had started. Roberta +deliberately removed the gingersnap from her mouth, handed the reins to Betty to +avoid further interruption, and began to eat, while the rest of the party +indulged in unseemly laughter at her expense.</p> + +<p>“We’ve found out what that extra bit was for,” said Rachel +when the mirth had subsided, “and we can advise the liveryman that it +doesn’t work. But what are we going to do now?”</p> + +<p>“Murder the liveryman,” suggested Katherine.</p> + +<p>“But the horse is sure-footed; he didn’t lie,” objected +Alice so seriously that everybody burst out laughing again.</p> + +<p>“He told the truth, but not the whole truth,” said Rachel. +“Next time we’ll ask how many bits the horse has to wear and how it +takes to hills. Now what can we do?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span>“We +can’t go back to the woods, that’s sure,” said Katherine. +“And it’s too hot to stay down here. Let’s go home and get rid +of this sure-footed incubus, and then we can decide what to do next.”</p> + +<p>The ferryman greeted them cheerfully. “Back so soon?” he said. +“Had your dinner?”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” replied Katherine severely. “It’s +only twelve o’clock. We’re just out for a morning drive. Do you +remember saying that this horse was tired? Well, he brought us down the hills at +about a mile a minute.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so!” declared the ferryman with a chuckle. +“Scairt, were you? Why didn’t you git them young Winsted fellers, +that jest started up, to rescue yer? Might a ben quite a story.”</p> + +<p>“We didn’t need rescuing, thank you,” said Katherine. +“Did you see any men?” she whispered to Betty.</p> + +<p>Betty nodded. “Four, driving a span. They were awfully amused. Miss +King was in another of the carriages,” she added sadly. Then she caught +sight of Roberta and began to laugh again. “You were so funny with <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span> that cookie in your +mouth,” she said. “Were you dreadfully frightened?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Roberta, with a guilty blush. “I always expect +something to happen. Horses are such uncertain creatures.”</p> + +<p>They drove back through the meadows at a moderate pace, deposited the horse +and a certified opinion of him with an apologetic liveryman, and carried their +lunch down to Paradise. “For it’s as pretty as any place and near, +and we’re all hungry,” Alice said.</p> + +<p>Paradise was deserted, for the girls had preferred to range further afield on +Mountain Day. So the five freshmen chose two boats, rowed up stream without +misadventure, spread out their luncheon on a grassy knoll, and ate, talked, and +read till dinner time. As they crossed the campus, they met parties of dusty, +disheveled pedestrians, laden with purple asters and autumn branches. A barge +stopped at the gateway to deposit the campus contingent of the sophomore +decorating committee, and in front of the various dwelling-houses empty +buckboards, surreys and express wagons, waiting to be called for, showed that +the holiday was over.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span>“I +don’t think our first Mountain Day has been so bad after all, in spite of +that dreadful horse,” said Rachel.</p> + +<p>“So much pleasant variety about it,” added Katherine.</p> + +<p>“Let’s not tell about the runaway,” said Alice who hated to +be teased.</p> + +<p>“But Miss King saw us,” expostulated Betty, “and you can +trust Mary Brooks to know all about it.”</p> + +<p>When Mary, who was late in dressing, entered the dining-room, she gave a +theatrical cry of joy. “I’m so glad you’re all safe,” +she said. “And how about that cookie, Roberta?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, but it’s gone. They’re all gone,” +said Roberta coolly. “Now you might as well tell us how you +knew.”</p> + +<p>“Knew!” repeated Mary scornfully. “The whole college knows +by this time. We were lunching on the notch road, near the top, when four +Winsted men came up, and asked if they might join us. They knew most of us. So +we said yes, if they’d brought any candy, and they told us a strange story +about five girls–very young girls, they said,” interpolated Mary +emphatically, “that they’d <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_75'></a>75</span> seen dashing down the notch. One was trying to eat a +cookie, and another was pulling the horse’s tail, and the rest were +screaming at the top of their lungs, so naturally the horse was frightened to +death. Pretty soon three carriage loads of juniors came along and they confirmed +the awful news and gave us the names of the victims, and you can imagine how I +felt. The men want to meet you, but I told them they couldn’t because of +course you’d be drowned in the river.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you’ll relieve their minds the next time they come to see +you,” said Katherine. “Are they the youths who monopolize our piazza +every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon?”</p> + +<p>“Two of them help occasionally.”</p> + +<p>Katherine winked meaningly at the rest of the Mountain Day party. +“We’ll be there,” she said, “though it goes against my +conscience to receive calls from such untruthful young gentlemen.”</p> + +<p>The next Saturday afternoon Betty and Katherine established themselves +ostentatiously on the front piazza to await the arrival of Mary’s callers, +Rachel had gone to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span> +play basket-ball, and Roberta had refused to conspire against Mary’s peace +of mind, particularly since the plot might involve having to talk to a man. +Promptly at three o’clock two gentlemen arrived.</p> + +<p>“Miss Brooks is that sorry, but she had to go out,” announced the +maid in tones plainly audible to the two eavesdroppers. “Would you please +to come back at four?”</p> + +<p>Katherine and Betty exchanged disappointed glances. “Checked again. +She’s too much for us,” murmured Katherine. “Shall we +wait?”</p> + +<p>“And is Miss Wales in–Miss Betty Wales?” pursued the +spokesman, after a slight pause.</p> + +<p>The maid looked severely at the occupants of the piazza. “Yes, sor, you +can see that yoursilf,” she said and abruptly withdrew.</p> + +<p>The man laughed and came quickly toward Betty, who had risen to meet him. +“I’m John Parsons,” he said. “I roomed with your brother +at Andover. He told me you were here and asked me to call. Didn’t he write +to you too? Miss Brooks promised to present me, but as she isn’t +in―”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, Will wrote, and I’m very glad to <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span> meet you, Mr. Parsons,” Betty broke +in. “Only I didn’t know you were–I mean I didn’t know +that Miss Brooks’s caller was you. Miss Kittredge, Mr. Parsons. +Wasn’t your friend going to wait?”</p> + +<p>“Bob,” called Mr. Parsons after the retreating figure of his +companion, “come back and hear about the runaway. You’re +wanted.”</p> + +<p>It was fully half-past four when Messrs. Parsons and Hughes, remembering that +they had another engagement, left their escorts by request at the gymnasium and +returned from a pleasant walk through Paradise and the campus to Meriden Place, +where a rather frigid reception awaited them. Betty and Katherine, having +watched the finish of the basket-ball game, followed them, and spent the time +before dinner in painting a poster which they hung conspicuously on Mary’s +door. On it a green dragon, recently adopted as freshman class animal, charged +the sophomores’ purple cow and waved a long and very curly tail in +triumph. Underneath was written in large letters, “Quits. Who is going to +the ΚΦ dance at Winsted?”</p> + +<p>“I’m dreadfully afraid mother won’t let me <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span> go though,” said +Betty as they hammered in the pins with Helen’s paper-weight. “And +anyhow it’s not for three whole weeks.”</p> + +<p>When the drawing was securely fastened, Betty surveyed it doubtfully. +“I wonder if we’d better take it down,” she said at last. +“I don’t believe it’s very dignified. I’m afraid I +oughtn’t to have asked Mr. Parsons to call his friend back, but I did so +want to meet both of them and crow over Mary. And it was they who suggested the +walk. Katherine, do you mind if we take this down?”</p> + +<p>“Why, no, if you don’t want to leave it,” said Katherine +looking puzzled. “I’m afraid Mr. Hughes didn’t have a very +good time. Men aren’t my long suit. But otherwise I think we did this up +brown.”</p> + +<p>Just then Eleanor came up, and Katherine gave her an enthusiastic account of +the afternoon’s adventure. Betty was silent. Presently she asked, +“Girls, what is a back row reputation?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Why?” asked Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Well, you know I stopped at the college, Katherine, to get my history +paper back. Miss Ellis looked hard at me when I went in <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span> and stammered out what I wanted. She +hunted up the paper and gave it to me and then she said, ‘With which division do +you recite, Miss Wales?’ I told her at ten, and she looked at me hard +again and said, ‘You have been present in class twelve times and I’ve +never noticed you. Don’t acquire a back row reputation, Miss Wales. +Good-day,’ and I can tell you I backed out in a hurry.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose she means that we sit on the back rows when we don’t +know the lesson,” said Helen who had joined the group.</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Betty. “And do you suppose the faculty notice +such things as that and comment on them to one another?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Eleanor wisely. “They size us up right +off. So does our class, and the upper class girls.”</p> + +<p>“Gracious!” said Betty. “I wish I hadn’t promised to +go to a spread on the campus to-night. I wish― What a nuisance so many +reputations are!” And she crumpled the purple cow and the green dragon +into a shapeless wad and threw it at Rachel, who was coming up-stairs swinging +her gym shoes by their strings.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span><a id='link_6'></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><span class='h2fs'>LETTERS HOME</span></h2> + +<p>Betty was cross and “just a tiny speck homesick,” so she confided +to the green lizard. Nothing interesting had happened since she could remember, +and it had rained steadily for four days. Mr. Parsons, who played right tackle +on the Winsted team, had written that he was laid up with a lame shoulder, +which, greatly to his regret, would prevent his taking Betty to his fraternity +dance. Helen was toiling on a “lit.” paper with a zealous industry +which got her up at distressingly early hours in the morning, and was +“enough to mad a saint,” according to her exasperated roommate, +whose own brief effusion on the same subject had been hastily composed in one +evening and lay neatly copied in her desk, ready to be handed in at the proper +time. Moreover, “gym” had begun and Betty had had the misfortune to +be assigned to a class that came right in the middle of the afternoon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span>“It’s +a shame,” she grumbled, fishing out her fountain pen which had fallen off +her desk and rolled under the bureau. “I shall change my lit. to +afternoon–that’s only two afternoons spoiled instead of +four–and then tell Miss Andrews that I have a conflict. Haven’t you +finished that everlasting paper?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Helen meekly. “I’m sorry that I’m so +slow. I’ll go out if you want to have the girls in here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no,” called Betty savagely, dashing out into the hall. +Eleanor’s door was ornamented with a large sign which read, “Busy. +Don’t disturb.” But the door was half-way open, and in the dusky +room, lighted, as Eleanor liked to have it, by candles in old-fashioned brass +sticks, Eleanor sat on a pile of cushions in the corner, strumming softly on her +guitar.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” she called. “I put that up in case I wanted to +study later. Finished your lit. paper?”</p> + +<p>Betty nodded. “It’s awfully short.”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to do mine to-night–that and a little matter of +Livy and French and–let me see–Bible–no, elocution.”</p> + +<p>“Can you?” asked Betty admiringly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span>“I’m +not sure till I’ve tried. I’ve been meditating asking your roommate +to do the paper. Would you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Betty so emphatically that Eleanor stopped playing and +looked at her curiously.</p> + +<p>“Why not? Do you think it’s wrong to exchange her industry for my +dollars?”</p> + +<p>Betty considered. She still admired Eleanor, but she had learned her +limitations. Her beauty wove a spell about all that she did, and she was very +clever and phenomenally quick when she cared to apply herself. But she cared so +seldom, roused herself only when she could gain prestige, when there was +something to manipulate, to manage. And apparently she was not even to be +trusted. Still, what was the use of quarreling with her about honor and fair +play? To Betty in her present mood it seemed a mere waste of time and +energy.</p> + +<p>“Well, for one reason,” she said at last, “Helen +hasn’t her own paper done yet, and for another I don’t think she +writes as well as you probably do;” and she rose to go.</p> + +<p>“That was a joke, Bettina,” Eleanor called <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span> after her. “I am truly going to +work now–this very instant. Come back at ten and have black coffee with +me.”</p> + +<p>Betty went on without answering to Rachel’s room. “Come +in,” chorused three cheerful voices.</p> + +<p>“No, go get your lit. paper first. We’re reading choice +selections,” added Katherine.</p> + +<p>“She means she is,” corrected Rachel, handing Betty a pillow. +“You look cross, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“I am,” said Betty savagely, recounting a few of her woes. +“What can we do? I came to be amused.”</p> + +<p>“In a Miracle play of this type―” began Katherine, and +stopped to dodge a pillow. “But it is amusing, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it will amuse Miss Mills, if the rest is anything +like what you read,” said Rachel with a reminiscent smile. “What are +you doing, Roberta?”</p> + +<p>“Writing home,” drawled Roberta, without looking up from her +paper.</p> + +<p>“Well, you needn’t shake your fountain pen over me, if you +are,” said Katherine. “I also owe my honored parents a letter, but +I’ve <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span> about +made up my mind never to write to them again. Listen to this, will you.” +She rummaged in her desk for a minute. “Here it is.</p> + +<p>“‘My dear daughter’–he only begins that way when he’s +fussed. I always know how he’s feeling when I see whether it’s +‘daughter’ or ‘K.’ ‘My dear daughter:–Your interesting letter +of the 12th inst. was received and I enclose a check, which I hope will last for +some weeks.’ (“I’m sorry to say it’s nearly gone +already,” interpolated Katherine.) “‘Your mother and I enjoyed the +account of the dance you attended in the gymnasium, of the candy pull which Mrs. +Chapin so kindly arranged for her roomers, and the game of hockey that ended so +disastrously for one of your friends. We are glad that you attended the Morality +play of “Everyman,” though we are at a loss to know what you mean by +the “peanut gallery.” However it occurs to us that with your +afternoon gymnasium class, your recitations, which, as I understand it, fully +engage your mornings, and all these diversions in one week, you could have spent +but little time in the study of your lessons. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_85'></a>85</span> Do not forget that these years should be devoted to a +serious preparation for the multifarious duties of life, and do not neglect the +rich opportunities which I am proud to be able to give you. The Wetherbees +have―’ Oh well, the rest of it is just Kankakee news,” said +Katherine, folding the letter and putting it back in her desk. “But +isn’t that first bit lovely? Why, I racked my brain till it ached, +positively ached, thinking of interesting things to say in that letter, and now +because I didn’t mention that I’d worked three solid hours on my +German every day that week and stood in line at the library for an hour to get +hold of Bryce’s American Commonwealth, I receive this pathetic appeal to +my better self.”</p> + +<p>“How poetic you’re getting,” laughed Betty. “Do you +know it’s awfully funny, but I got a letter something like that too. Only +mine was from Nan, and it just said she hoped I was remembering to avoid low +grades and conditions, as they were a great bother. She said she wanted me to +have a good time, but as there would be even more to do when I got on the +campus, I ought not to fall <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_86'></a>86</span> into the habit of neglecting my work this +year.”</p> + +<p>“Mine was from Aunt Susan,” chimed in Rachel. “She said she +didn’t see when I could do any studying except late at night, and she +hoped I wasn’t being so foolish as to undermine my health and ruin my +complexion for the sake of a few girlish pleasures. Isn’t that +nice–girlish pleasures? She put in a five dollar bill, though I +couldn’t see why she should, considering her sentiments.”</p> + +<p>Roberta put the cap on to her fountain pen and propped it carefully against +an adjacent pillow. “I’ve just answered mine,” she said, +sorting the sheets in her lap with a satisfied smile.</p> + +<p>“Did you get one, too? What did you say?” demanded Betty.</p> + +<p>“The whole truth,” replied Roberta languidly. “It took +eight pages and I hope he’ll enjoy it.”</p> + +<p>“I say,” cried Katherine excitedly. “That’s a great +idea. Let’s try it.”</p> + +<p>“And read them to one another afterward,” added Rachel. +“They might be more entertaining than your lit. paper.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span>“May I +borrow some paper?” asked Betty. “I’m hoping Helen will finish +to-night if I let her alone.”</p> + +<p>Roberta helped herself to a book from the shelves and an apple from the +table, and the rest settled themselves to their epistolary labors. Except for +the scratching of Betty’s pen, and an occasional exclamation of pleasure +or perplexity from one of the scribes, the room was perfectly still. Betty had +just asked for an envelope and Katherine was numbering her pages when Mary +Brooks knocked at the door.</p> + +<p>“What on earth are you girls doing?” she inquired blandly, +selecting the biggest apple in the dish and appropriating the Morris chair, +which Katherine had temporarily vacated. “I haven’t heard a sound in +here since nine o’clock. I began to think that Helen had come in and blown +out the gas again by mistake and you were all asphyxiated.”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed at the remembrance of a recent occasion when Helen had +absent-mindedly blown out the gas while Betty was saying her prayers.</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t so funny at the time,” said Betty <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span> ruefully. “Suppose +she’d gone to sleep without remembering. We’ve been writing home, +Mary,” she said, turning to the newcomer, “and now we’re going +to read the letters, and we’ve got to hurry, for it’s almost ten. +Roberta, you begin.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no,” said Roberta, looking distressed.</p> + +<p>“I wish somebody would tell me what this is all about first,” put +in Mary. Rachel explained, while Katherine and Betty persuaded Roberta to read +her letter.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t fair,” she protested, “when I wrote a real +letter and you others were just doing it for fun.”</p> + +<p>“Go on, Roberta!” commanded Mary, and Roberta in sheer +desperation seized her letter and began to read.</p> + +<p>“<span class='sc'>Dear Papa</span>:–I have been studying hard all +the evening and it is now nearly bedtime, but I can at least begin a letter to +you. To-day has been the fourth rainy day in succession and we have thoroughly +appreciated the splendid opportunity for uninterrupted work. Yesterday +morning–I think enough has happened in these two days to fill my +letter–I was up at seven as usual. I stuck a selection <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span> from Browning into my +mirror, as it was the basis of our elocution lesson, and nearly learned it while +I dressed. Before chapel I completed my geometry preparation. This was +fortunate, as I was called on to recite, the sixth proposition in book third +being my assignment. The next hour I had no recitation, so I went to the library +to do some reference work for my English class. Ten girls were already waiting +for the same volume of the Century Dictionary that I wanted, so I couldn’t +get hold of it till nearly the end of the hour. I spent the intervening time on +the Browning. I had Livy the next hour and was called on to translate. As I had +spent several hours on the lesson the day before, I could do so. After the +elocution recitation I went home to lunch. At quarter before two I began +studying my history. At quarter before four I started for the gymnasium. At five +I went to a tea which one of the girls was giving for her mother, so I felt +obliged to go. I stayed only half an hour and cannot remember how I spent the +half hour till dinner, so I presume it was wasted. I am afraid I am too much +given to describing such unimportant pauses in the day’s occupation <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span> and magnifying their +length and the frivolous pleasure which we thoughtlessly derive from them.</p> + +<p>“In the evening― Oh it all goes on like that,” cried +Roberta. “Just dull and stuffy and true to the facts. Some one else +read.”</p> + +<p>“It’s convincing,” chuckled Mary. “Now +Katherine.”</p> + +<p>Katherine’s letter was an absurd mixture of sense and nonsense, in +which she proved that she studied at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four. +Rachel’s was a sensible explanation of just how much time, or rather how +little, a spread, a dance or a basket-ball game takes.</p> + +<p>“That’s what they don’t understand,” she said, +“and they don’t know either how fast we can go from one thing to +another up here. Why, energy is in the air!”</p> + +<p>Betty’s letter, like her literature paper, was extremely short. +“I couldn’t think of much to say, if I told the truth,” she +explained, blushing. “I don’t suppose I do study as much as I +ought.”</p> + +<p>Mary had listened with an air of respectful <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_91'></a>91</span> attention to all the letters. When the last one was +finished she rose hastily. “I must go back,” she said. “I have +a theme to write. I only dropped in to ask if that famous spread wasn’t +coming off soon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said Betty. “Let’s have it next week +Wednesday. Is anything else going on then? I’ll ask Eleanor and you see +the Riches and Helen.”</p> + +<p>A few days later Mary appeared at the lunch table fairly bursting with +importance. “Well,” she said, beaming around the table. “What +do you suppose has happened now? Really, Mrs. Chapin, you ought to be proud of +us. We began to be famous before college opened―”</p> + +<p>“What?” interrupted Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Is it possible you didn’t know that?” inquired Mary. +“Well, it’s true nevertheless. And we were the heroines of Mountain +Day, and now we’re famous again.”</p> + +<p>“How?” demanded the table in a chorus.</p> + +<p>Mary smiled enigmatically. “This time it is a literary +sensation,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Is it Helen’s paper?” hazarded Betty.</p> + +<p>“Mine, of course,” said Katherine. “Strange <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span> Miss Mills didn’t +mention it this morning when I met her at Cuyler’s.”</p> + +<p>Mary waited until it was quiet again. “If you’ve quite finished +guessing,” she said, “I’ll tell you. You remember the evening +when I found four of you in Rachel and Katherine’s room writing deceitful +letters to your fond parents. Well, I had been racking my brains for weeks for a +pleasing and original theme subject. You know you are supposed to spend two +hours a week on this theme course, and I had spent two hours for four weeks in +just thinking what to write. I’m not sure whether that counts at all and I +didn’t like to ask–it would have been so conspicuous. So I was in +despair when I chanced upon your happy gathering and was saved. Miss Raymond +read it in class to-day,” concluded Mary triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t put us into it–our letters!” gasped +Roberta.</p> + +<p>“Indeed I did,” said Mary. “I put them all in, as nearly as +I could remember them, and Miss Raymond read it in class, and made all sorts of +clever comments about college customs and ideals and so on. I felt guilty, +because <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span> I never had +anything read before, and of course I didn’t exactly write this because +the letters were the main part of it. So after class I waited for Miss Raymond +and explained how it was. She laughed and said that she was glad I had an eye +for good material and that she supposed all authors made more or less use of +their acquaintance, and when I went off she actually asked me to come and see +her. My junior friends are hoping it will pull me into a society and I’m +hoping it will avert a condition.”</p> + +<p>“Where is the theme?” asked Eleanor. “Won’t you read +it to us?”</p> + +<p>“It’s–why, I forgot the very best part of the whole story. +Sallie Hill has it for the ‘Argus.’ She’s the literary editor, you +know, and she wants it for the next number. So you see you are famous.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t some of you elect this work?” asked Mary, when +the excitement had somewhat subsided. “It’s open to freshmen, and +it’s really great fun.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you said that you spent eight hours and were in +despair―” began Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“So I was,” said Mary. “I declare I’d forgotten <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span> that. Well, anyhow +I’m sure I shan’t have any trouble now. I think I’ve learned +how to go at it. Why, do you know, girls, I have an idea already. Not for a +theme–something else. It concerns all of you–or most of you +anyway.”</p> + +<p>“I should think you’d made enough use of us for the +present,” said Betty. “Why don’t you try to make a few +sophomores famous?”</p> + +<p>“Oh it doesn’t concern you that way. You are to― Oh wait +till I get it started,” said Mary vaguely; and absolutely refused to be +more explicit.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span><a id='link_7'></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><span class='h2fs'>A DRAMATIC CHAPTER</span></h2> + +<p>The Chapin house girls decided not to spend the proceeds of the dancing class +for an elaborate supper, as they had first intended, but to turn their +“spread” into the common college type, where “plowed +field” and chocolate made with condensed milk and boiling water are the +chief refreshments, and light-hearted sociability ensures a good time for +everybody.</p> + +<p>“But do let’s have tea too,” Betty had proposed. “I +hate the chocolate that the girls make, and I don’t believe tea keeps many +of us awake. Did I tell you that mother sent a big box of cheese +crackers?”</p> + +<p>The spread was to be in Betty’s room, partly because she owned the only +chafing-dish in the house, and partly because eighteen girls–the nine +hostesses and the one guest asked by each–could get into it without +uncomfortable crowding. Eleanor had lent her pile of floor <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span> cushions and her beloved candlesticks for +the occasion, everybody had contributed cups and saucers. Betty and Helen had +spent the afternoon “fixing up,” and the room wore a very festive +air when the girls dropped in after dinner to see if the preparations were +complete.</p> + +<p>“I think we ought to start the fudge before they come,” said +Betty, remembering the procedure at Miss King’s party.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” protested Eleanor. “Half-past eight is early +enough. Why, most of the fun of a spread is mixing the things together and +taking turns tasting and stirring.”</p> + +<p>“It would be awkward to finish eating too early, when that’s the +only entertainment,” suggested Rachel.</p> + +<p>“Or the candy might give out before ten,” added Mary Rich.</p> + +<p>The majority ruled, and as some of the girls were late, and one had some very +amusing blue-prints to exhibit, it was considerably after half-past eight before +the fudge was started. At first it furnished plenty of excitement. Betty, who +had been appointed chief fudge-maker, left it for a moment, and it took <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span> the opportunity to boil +over. When it had settled down after this exploit, it refused to do anything but +simmer. No amount of alcohol or of vigorous and persistent stirring had any +effect upon it, and Betty was in despair. But Eleanor, who happened to be in a +gracious mood, came gallantly to the rescue. She quietly disappeared and +returned in a moment, transformed into a gypsy street singer. She had pulled +down her black hair and twisted a gay scarf around it. Over her shirt-waist she +wore a little velvet jacket; and a short black skirt, a big red sash, an armful +of bangles and bracelets, and the guitar hung over her shoulder, completed her +disguise.</p> + +<p>“Sing a lil’?” she asked, smiling persuasively and kissing +her hand to the party.</p> + +<p>Then she sat down on the pile of cushions and played and sang, first a quaint +little folk-song suited to her part, and then one or two dashing popular airs, +until the unaccommodating fudge was quite forgotten, except by Betty, who +stirred and frowned, and examined the flame and tested the thickness of the rich +brown liquid, quite unnoticed. Eleanor had just shrugged her shoulders and +announced, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span> “I +no more sing, now,” when somebody else knocked on the door, or rather +pushed it open, and a grotesque figure slouched in.</p> + +<p>At least half of it was head, black and awful, with gruesome green features. +Short, unjointed arms came out of its waist, with green claws dangling where the +hands should have been; and below its short skirt flapped the tails of a +swallow-tail coat. The girls were too much astonished to speak, as the creature +advanced silently into the room, and without a word began dancing something +that, as Katherine expressed it afterward, was a cross between a double-shuffle +and a skirt-dance. When it had succeeded in reducing its audience to a state of +abject and tearful mirth, the creature stopped suddenly, announced, +“You’ve seen the Jabberwock,” in sepulchral tones, and flopped +on to the end of a couch, saying breathlessly, “Mary Brooks, please help +me out of this. I’m suffocating.”</p> + +<p>“How did you do it, Miss Lewis?” inquired the stately senior, who +was Mary’s guest, wiping her eyes and gasping for breath as she spoke.</p> + +<p>“It’s perfectly simple,” drawled Roberta indifferently. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span> “The head is +my black silk petticoat. I painted on the features, because the children like to +have me do it at home, and it’s convenient to be ready. The arms are a +broom-handle, stuck through the sleeves of this old coat, which is buttoned +around my waist.”</p> + +<p>“And now you’re going to do the Bandersnatch, aren’t +you?” inquired the senior craftily, perceiving that the other side of the +petticoat was decorated with curious red spots.</p> + +<p>“I–how did you–oh, no,” said Roberta, blushing +furiously, and stuffing the telltale petticoat under a convenient pillow. +“I don’t know why I brought the things for this. I never meant to do +it up here. I–I hope you weren’t bored. I just happened to think of +it, and Eleanor couldn’t sing forever, and that fudge―”</p> + +<p>“That fudge won’t cook,” broke in Betty in tragic tones. +“It doesn’t thicken at all, and it’s half-past nine this +minute. What shall I do?”</p> + +<p>Everybody crowded around the chafing-dish, giving advice and suggesting +unfailing remedies. But none of them worked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span>“And +there’s nothing else but tea and chocolate,” wailed Adelaide.</p> + +<p>“But you can all have both,” said Betty bravely, “and +you’ve forgotten the crackers, Adelaide. I’ll pass them while you +and Katherine go for more cups.”</p> + +<p>“And you can send the fudge round to-morrow,” suggested Mary +Brooks consolingly. “It’s quite the thing, you know. Don’t +imagine that your chafing-dish is the only one that’s too slow for the +ten-o’clock rule.”</p> + +<p>Betty insisted upon sitting up to finish the fudge, but she ended by getting +up before breakfast the next morning to cook it on Mrs. Chapin’s +stove.</p> + +<p>“Nobody seemed to care much about its being so slow, except me,” +she said to Helen, as they did it up in neat little bundles to be handed to the +guests of the evening at chapel. “Weren’t Eleanor and Roberta +fine?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” agreed Helen enthusiastically. “But isn’t it +queer that Roberta won’t let us praise her? She seems to be ashamed of +being able to be so funny.”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “That’s Roberta,” she said. “It will +be months before she’ll do it again, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_101'></a>101</span> I’m afraid. I suppose she felt last night as +if she had to do what she could for the honor of the house, so she came out of +her shell.”</p> + +<p>“She told Rachel that she did it on your account. She said you looked +as if you wanted to cry.”</p> + +<p>Betty flushed prettily. “How nice of her! I did want to cry. I felt as +if I was to blame about the fudge. I wish I had a nice stunt like that of +Eleanor’s to come to people’s rescue with.”</p> + +<p>“Were those what you call stunts?” inquired Helen earnestly. +“I didn’t know what they were, but they were fine.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Helen Chase Adams, do you mean that you’ve been in college +two months and don’t know what a stunt is―” began Betty, and +stopped, blushing furiously and fearing that she had hurt Helen’s +feelings. For the reason why she did not know about stunts was obvious.</p> + +<p>Helen took it very simply. “You know I’m not asked to things +outside,” she said, “and I don’t seem to be around when the +girls do things here. So why should I know?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span>“No reason +at all,” said Betty decidedly. “They are just silly little parlor +tricks anyway–most of them–not worth wasting time over. Do you know +Miss Willis told us in English class that a great deal of slang originated in +college, and she gave ‘stunt’ as an example. She said it had been used +here ever so long and only a few years outside, in quite a different meaning. +Isn’t that queer?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Helen indifferently. “She told my division too, +but she didn’t say what it meant here. I suppose she thought we’d +all know.”</p> + +<p>Betty, stealing a glance at her, saw her wink back the tears. “She does +care about the fun,” thought Betty. “She cares as much as Rachel or +I, or Eleanor even. And she is left out. It isn’t a bit fair, but +what’s to be done about it?”</p> + +<p>Being young and very happy herself, she speedily forgot all about the knotty +problem of the unequal distribution of this world’s goods, whether they be +potatoes or fudge parties. Occasionally she remembered again, and gave Helen a +helping hand, as she had done several times already. But college is <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span> much like the bigger +world outside. The fittest survive on their own merits, and these must be +obvious and well advertised, or they are in great danger of being overlooked. +And it is safer in the long run to do one’s own advertising and to begin +early. Eleanor understood this, but she forgot or ignored the other rules of the +game. Betty practiced it unconsciously, which is the proper method. Helen never +mastered its application and succeeded in spite of it.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>Several evenings after that one on which the fudge had refused to cook, Alice +Waite was trying to learn her history lesson, and her “queer” +roommate, who loved to get into her bed as well as she hated to make it, was +trying to go to sleep–an operation rendered difficult by the fact that the +girl next door was cracking butternuts with a marble paper-weight–when +there was a soft tap on the door.</p> + +<p>“Don’t answer,” begged the sleepy roommate.</p> + +<p>“May be important,” objected Alice, “but I won’t let +her stay. Come in!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span>The door opened +and a young gentleman in correct evening dress, with an ulster folded neatly +over his arm, entered the room and gazed, smiling and silent, about him. He was +under average height, slightly built, and had a boyish, pleasant face that +fitted ill with his apparent occupation as house-breaker and disturber of +damsels.</p> + +<p>The roommate, who had sat up in bed with the intention of repelling whatever +intruder threatened her rest, gave a shriek of mingled terror and indignation +and disappeared under the bedclothes. Alice rose, with as much dignity as the +three heavy volumes which she held in her lap, and which had to be untangled +from her kimono, would permit. She moved the screen around her now hysterical +roommate and turned fiercely upon the young gentleman.</p> + +<p>“How dare you!” she demanded sternly. “Go!” And she +stamped her foot somewhat ineffectively, since she had on her worsted bedroom +slippers.</p> + +<p>At this the young gentleman’s smile broke into an unmistakably feminine +giggle.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you are so lovely!” he gurgled. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span> “Don’t cry, Miss Madison. +It’s not a real man. It’s only I–Betty Wales.”</p> + +<p>“Betty!” gasped Alice. “Betty Wales, what are you doing? Is +it really you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Betty calmly, pulling off her wig by way of +further evidence, and sitting down with careful regard for her coattails in the +nearest chair. “I hope,” she added, “that I haven’t +really worried Miss Madison. Take the screen away, Alice, and see what +she’s doing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m all right now, thank you,” said Miss Madison, +pushing back the screen herself. “But you gave me an awful fright. What +are you doing?”</p> + +<p>“Why, we’re going to give a play at our house Saturday,” +explained Betty, “and to-night was a dress rehearsal. I wanted to bring +Alice a ticket, and I thought it would be fun to come in these clothes and +frighten her; so I put on a skirt and a rain-coat and came along. I left my +skirt in your entrance-way. Get it for me please, Alice, and I’ll put it +on before I send any one else into hysterics.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not yet,” begged Miss Madison. “I <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span> want to look at you. Please stand up +and turn around, so I can have a back view.”</p> + +<p>Betty readjusted her wig and stood up for inspection.</p> + +<p>“What’s the play?” asked Alice.</p> + +<p>Betty considered. “It’s a secret, but I’ll tell you to pay +for giving you both such a scare. It’s ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ Mary +Brooks saw the real play in New York, and she wrote this, something like the +real one, but different so we could do it. She could think up the plot +beautifully but she wasn’t good at conversation, so Katherine helped her, +and it’s fine.”</p> + +<p>“Is there a robbery?” inquired Alice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, diamonds.”</p> + +<p>“And a murder?”</p> + +<p>“Well, a supposed murder. The audience thinks it is, but it isn’t +really. And there’s a pretend fire too, just as there is in the real +play.”</p> + +<p>“And who are you?”</p> + +<p>“I’m the villain,” said Betty. “I’m to have +curling black mustaches and a fierce frown, and then you’d know without +asking.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span>“I should +think they’d have wanted you for the heroine,” said Alice, who +admired Betty immensely.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” demurred the villain. “Eleanor is leading lady, +of course. She has three different costumes, and she looks like a queen in every +one of them. Katherine is going to be Sherlock Holmes, and Adelaide Rich is Dr. +Watson and–oh, I mustn’t tell you any more, or Alice won’t +enjoy it Saturday.”</p> + +<p>“We had a little play here,” said Miss Madison, “but it was +tame beside this. Where did you get all the men’s costumes?”</p> + +<p>“Rented them, and the wigs and mustaches and pistols,” and Betty +explained about the dancing-school money which the house had voted to +Roberta’s project instead of to the spread.</p> + +<p>“I wish I could act,” said Alice. “I should love to be a +man. But my mother wouldn’t let me, so it’s just as well that +I’m a perfect stick at it.”</p> + +<p>“Roberta’s father wouldn’t let her either,” said +Betty, “but mother didn’t mind, as long as it’s only before a +few girls. I presume she wouldn’t like my coming over here and <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span> frightening you. But I +honestly didn’t think you’d be deceived.”</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad you came,” said Miss Madison lying back +luxuriously among her pillows. “Does the story of the play take place in +the evening?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, all of it. I’m dressed for the theatre, but I’m +detained by the robbery.”</p> + +<p>“Then I have something I want to lend you. Alice, open the washstand +drawer, please–no, the middle one–in that flat green box. Thank you. +Your hat, sir villain,” she went on, snapping open an opera hat and +handing it to Betty with a flourish.</p> + +<p>“How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Betty. “But how in the +world did you happen to have it?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I stayed with my cousins for two weeks just before I came up +here, and I found it in their guest-chamber bureau. It wasn’t Cousin +Tom’s nor Uncle Dick’s, and they didn’t know whose it was; so +they gave it to me, because I liked to play with it. Should you really like to +use it?”</p> + +<p>“Like it!” repeated Betty, shutting the hat and opening it again +with a low bow. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span> +“Why it will be the cream of the whole performance. It would make the play +go just of itself,” and she put it on and studied the effect attentively +in the mirror.</p> + +<p>“It’s rather large,” said Alice. “If I were you, +I’d just carry it.”</p> + +<p>“It is big,” admitted Betty regretfully, “or at least it +makes me look very small. But I can snap it a lot, and then put it on as I exit. +Miss Madison, you’ll come to the play of course. I hadn’t but one +ticket left, but after lending us this you’re a privileged +person.”</p> + +<p>“I hoped you’d ask me,” said Miss Madison gratefully. +“The play does sound so exciting. But that wasn’t why I offered you +the hat.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, and it’s only one reason why you are +coming,” said Betty tactfully. “Now Alice, you must bring in my +skirt. I have to walk so slowly in all these things, and it must be almost +ten.”</p> + +<p>When Sir Archibald Ames, villain, had been transformed into a demure little +maiden with rumpled hair and a high, stiff collar showing above her rain-coat, +Betty took her departure. A wave of literary and dramatic enthusiasm had +inundated the Chapin house. The girls <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_110'></a>110</span> were constantly suggesting theme topics to one +another–which unfortunately no one but Mary Brooks could use, at least +until the next semester; for in the regular freshman English classes, subjects +were always assigned. And they were planning theatre parties galore, to see +Jefferson, Maude Adams, and half a dozen others if they came to Harding. Betty, +who had a happy faculty of keeping her head just above such passing waves, +smiled to herself as she hurried across the dark campus.</p> + +<p>“Next week, when our play is over it will be something else,” she +thought. Rachel was already interested in basket-ball and had prospects of being +chosen for the freshman class team. Eleanor had been practicing hard on her +guitar, hoping to “make” the mandolin club; and was dreadfully +disappointed at finding that according to a new rule freshmen were ineligible +and that her entrance conditions would have excluded her in any case.</p> + +<p>“So many things to do,” sighed Betty, who had given up a hockey +game that afternoon to study history. “I suppose we’ve got to +choose,” she added philosophically. “But I <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span> choose to be an all-around girl, like +Dorothy King. I can’t sing though. I wonder what my one talent is.</p> + +<p>“Helen,” she said, as she opened her door, “have you +noticed that all college girls have one particular talent? I wonder what ours +will turn out to be. See what I have for the play.”</p> + +<p>Helen, who looked tired and heavy-eyed, inspected the opera hat listlessly. +“I think your talent is getting the things you want,” she said, +“and I guess I haven’t any. It’s quarter of ten.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span><a id='link_8'></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>AFTER THE PLAY</span></h2> + +<p>“Sherlock Holmes” was quite as exciting as Miss Madison had +anticipated. Most college plays, except the elaborate ones given in the +gymnasium, which are carefully learned, costumed and rehearsed, and supervised +by a committee from the faculty–are amusing little farces in one or two +short scenes. “Sherlock Holmes,” on the other hand, was a four act, +blood-curdling melodrama, with three different stage settings, an abundance of +pistol shots, a flash-light fire, shrieks and a fainting fit on the part of the +heroine, the raiding of a robbers’ den in the dénouement, and “a lot +more excitement all through than there is in Mr. Gillette’s play,” +as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was necessarily cruder, as it was far +more ambitious, than the commoner sort of amateur play; but the audience, +whether little freshmen who had seen few similar performances, or upper class +girls who had seen a great many <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_113'></a>113</span> and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, +were wildly enthusiastic. Every actress, down to Helen, who made a very stiff +and stilted “Buttons,” and Rachel and Mary Rich who appeared in the +robbers’ den scene as Betty’s female accomplices, and in the +heroine’s drawing-room as her wicked mother and her stupid maid +respectively, was rapturously received; and Dr. Holmes and Sir Archibald, whose +hat was decidedly the hit of the evening, were forced to come before the +curtain. Finally, in response to repeated shouts for “author,” Mary +Brooks appeared, flushed and panting from her vigorous exertions as prompter, +stage manager, and assistant dresser, and informed the audience that owing to +the kindness of Mrs. Chapin there was lemon-ice in the dining-room, and would +every one please go out there, so that this awful mess,–with a +comprehensive wave of her hand toward the ruins of the robbers’ den piled +on top of the heroine’s drawing-room furniture, which in turn had been a +rearrangment of Dr. Holmes’s study,–could be cleared up, and they +could dance there later?</p> + +<p>At this the audience again applauded, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_114'></a>114</span> sighed to think that the play was over, and then +joyfully adjourned to the dining-room to eat Mrs. Chapin’s ice and examine +the actors at close range. All these speedily appeared, except Helen, who had +crept up-stairs quite unnoticed the moment her part was finished, and Eleanor, +who, hunting up Betty, explained that she had a dreadful headache and begged +Betty to look after her guests and not for anything to let them come up-stairs +to find her. Betty, who was busily washing off her “fierce frown” at +the time, sputtered a promise through the mixture of soap, water and vaseline +she was using, delivered the message, assured herself that the guests were +enjoying themselves, and forgot all about Eleanor until half-past nine when +every one had gone and she came up to her room to find Helen in bed and +apparently fast asleep, with her face hidden in the pillows.</p> + +<p>“How queer,” she thought. “She’s had the blues for a +week, but I thought she was all right this evening.” Then, as her +conjectures about Helen suggested Eleanor’s headache, she tiptoed out to +see if she could do anything for the prostrate heroine.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span>Eleanor’s +transom was dark and her door evidently locked, for it would not yield when +Betty, anxious at getting no answer to her knocks, tried to open it. But when +she called softly, “Eleanor, are you there? Can I do anything?” +Eleanor answered crossly, “Please go away. I’m better, but I want to +be let alone.”</p> + +<p>So, murmuring an apology, Betty went back to her own room, and as Helen +seemed to be sound asleep, she saw no reason for making a nuisance of herself a +second time, but considerately undressed in the dark and crept into bed as +softly as possible.</p> + +<p>If she had turned on her light, she would have discovered two telltale bits +of evidence, for Helen had left a very moist handkerchief on her desk and +another rolled into a damp, vindictive little wad on the chiffonier. It was not +because she knew she had done her part badly that she had gone sobbing to bed, +while the others ate lemon-ice and danced merrily down-stairs. Billy was a hard +part; Mary Brooks had said so herself, and she had only taken it because when +Roberta positively refused to act, there was no one else. Helen <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span> couldn’t act, knew +she couldn’t, and didn’t much care. But not to have any friends in +all this big, beautiful college–that was a thing to make any one cry. It +was bad enough not to be asked anywhere, but not to have any friends to invite +oneself, that was worse–it was dreadful! If she went right off up-stairs +perhaps no one would notice; they would think at first that somebody else was +looking after her guests while she dressed, and then they would forget all about +her and never know the dreadful truth that nobody she had asked to the play +would come.</p> + +<p>When it had first been decided to present “Sherlock Holmes” and +the girls had begun giving out their invitations, Helen, who felt more and more +keenly her isolation in the college, resolved to see just how the others managed +and then do as they did. She heard Rachel say, “I think Christy Mason is a +dear. I don’t know her much if any, but I’m going to ask her all the +same, and perhaps we shall get better acquainted after awhile.”</p> + +<p>That made Helen, who took the speech more literally than it was meant, think +of Caroline Barnes. One afternoon she and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_117'></a>117</span> Betty had been down-town together, and on the way +back Miss Barnes overtook them, and came up with them to see Eleanor, who was an +old friend of hers. Betty introduced her to Helen and she walked between them up +the hill and necessarily included both of them in her conversation. She was a +homely girl, with dull, inexpressive features; but she was tall and +well-proportioned and strikingly well dressed. Betty had taken an instant +dislike to her at the time of their first meeting and greatly to Eleanor’s +disgust had resisted all her advances. Eleanor had accused her frankly of not +liking Caroline.</p> + +<p>“No,” returned Betty with equal frankness, “I don’t. +I think all your other friends are lovely, but Miss Barnes rubs me the wrong +way.”</p> + +<p>Helen knew nothing of all this, and Miss Barnes’s lively, slangy +conversation and stylish, showy clothes appealed to her unsophisticated +taste.</p> + +<p>When the three parted at the head of the stairs, Miss Barnes turned back to +say, “Aren’t you coming to see me? You owe me a call, you +know.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span>Helen and Betty +were standing close together, and though part of the remark applied only to +Betty, she looked at them both.</p> + +<p>Betty said formally, “Thank you, I should like to,” and Helen, +pleased and eager, chorused, “So should I.”</p> + +<p>Later, in their own room, Betty said with apparent carelessness but with the +covert intention of dropping Helen a useful hint, “You aren’t going +to see Miss Barnes, are you? I’m not.”</p> + +<p>And Helen had flushed again, gave some stammering reply and then had had for +the first time an unkind thought about her roommate. Betty wanted to keep all +her nice friends to herself. It must be that. Why shouldn’t she go to see +Miss Barnes? She wasn’t asked so often that she could afford to ignore the +invitations she did get. And later she added, Why shouldn’t she ask Miss +Barnes to the play, since Eleanor wasn’t going to?</p> + +<p>So one afternoon Helen, arrayed in her best clothes, went down to call and +deliver her invitation. Miss Barnes was out, but her door was open and Helen +slipped in, and writing a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_119'></a>119</span> little note on her card, laid it conspicuously on +the shining mahogany desk.</p> + +<p>That was one invitation. She had given the other to a quiet, brown-eyed girl +who sat next her in geometry, not from preference, but because her name came +next on the class roll. This girl declined politely, on the plea of another +engagement.</p> + +<p>Next day Miss Barnes brushed unseeingly past her in the hall of the Science +Building. The day after that they met at gym. Finally, when almost a week had +gone by without a sign from her, Helen inquired timidly if she had found the +note.</p> + +<p>“Oh, are you Miss Adams?” inquired Miss Barnes, staring past her +with a weary air. “Thank you very much I’m sure, but I can’t +come,” and she walked off.</p> + +<p>Any one but Helen Adams would have known that Caroline Barnes and Eleanor +Watson had the reputation of being the worst “snobs” in their class, +and that Miss Ashby, her neighbor in geometry, boarded with her mother and never +went anywhere without her. But Helen knew no college gossip. She offered her +invitation to two girls who had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_120'></a>120</span> been in the dancing-class, read hypocrisy into +their hearty regrets that they were going out of town for Sunday, and asked no +one else to the play. If she had been less shy and reserved she would have told +Rachel or Betty all about her ill-luck, have been laughed at and sympathized +with, and then have forgotten all about it. But being Helen Chase Adams, she +brooded over her trouble in secret, asked nobody’s advice, and grew shyer +and more sensitive in consequence, but not a whit less determined to make a +place for herself in the college world.</p> + +<p>She would have attached less significance to Caroline Barnes’s +rudeness, had she known a little about the causes of Eleanor’s headache. +Eleanor had gone down to Caroline’s on the afternoon of the play, knocked +boldly, in spite of a “Don’t disturb” sign posted on the door, +and found the pretty rooms in great confusion and Caroline wearily overseeing +the packing of her books and pictures.</p> + +<p>Eleanor waited patiently until the men had gone off with three huge boxes, +and then insisted upon knowing what Caroline was doing.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span>“Going +home,” said Caroline sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Why?” demanded Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Public reason–trouble with my eyes; real +reason–haven’t touched my conditions yet and now I have been warned +and told to tutor in three classes. I can’t possibly do it all.”</p> + +<p>“Why Caroline Barnes, do you mean you are sent home?”</p> + +<p>Caroline nodded. “It amounts to that. I was advised to go home now, and +work off the entrance conditions and come again next fall. I thought maybe +you’d be taking the same train,” she added with a nervous laugh.</p> + +<p>Eleanor turned white. “Nonsense!” she said sharply. “What +do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you said you hadn’t done anything about your conditions, +and you’ve cut and flunked and scraped along much as I have, I +fancy.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Caroline,” said Eleanor, ignoring the +digression. “I don’t know that you care, though. You’ve said +you were bored to death up here.”</p> + +<p>“I–I say a great deal that I don’t mean,” <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span> gulped Caroline. +“Good-bye, Eleanor. Shall I see you in New York at Christmas? And +don’t forget–trouble with my eyes. Oh, the family won’t mind. +They didn’t like my coming up in the first place. I shall go abroad in the +spring. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor walked swiftly back through the campus. In the main building she +consulted the official bulletin-board with anxious eyes, and fairly tore off a +note addressed to “Miss Eleanor Watson, First Class.” It had +come–a “warning” in Latin. Once back in her own room, Eleanor +sat down to consider the situation calmly. But the more she thought about it, +the more frightened and ashamed she grew. Thanksgiving was next week, and she +had been given only until Christmas to work off her entrance conditions. She had +meant to leave them till the last moment, rush through the work with a tutor, +and if she needed it get an extension of time by some specious excuse. Had the +last minute passed? The Latin warning meant more extra work. There were other +things too. She had “cut” classes recklessly–three on the day +of the sophomore reception, and four <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_123'></a>123</span> on a Monday morning when she had promised to be +back from Boston in time for chapel. Also, she had borrowed Lil Day’s last +year’s literature paper and copied most of it verbatim. She could make a +sophistical defence of her morals to Betty Wales, but she understood perfectly +what the faculty would think about them. The only question was, how much did +they know?</p> + +<p>When the dinner-bell rang, Eleanor pulled herself together and started +down-stairs.</p> + +<p>“Did you get your note, Miss Watson?” asked Adelaide Rich from +the dining-room door.</p> + +<p>“What note?” demanded Eleanor sharply.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I can’t describe it. It was on the hall +table,” said Adelaide, turning away wrathfully. Some people were so +grateful if you tried to do them a favor!</p> + +<p>It was this incident which led Eleanor to hurry off after dinner, and again +at the end of the play, bound to escape nerve-racking questions and +congratulations. Later, when Betty knocked on her door, her first impulse was to +let her in and ask her advice. But a second thought suggested that it was safer +to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span> confide in +nobody. The next morning she was glad of the second thought, for things looked +brighter, and it would have been humiliating indeed to be discovered making a +mountain out of a mole-hill.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with Caroline was that she wasn’t willing to work +hard,” she told herself. “Now I care enough to do anything, and I +must make them see it.”</p> + +<p>She devoted her spare hours on Monday morning to “making them see +it,” with that rare combination of tact and energy that was Eleanor Watson +at her best. By noon her fears of being sent home were almost gone, and she was +alert and exhilarated as she always was when there were difficulties to be +surmounted.</p> + +<p>“Now that the play is over, I’m going to work hard,” Betty +announced at lunch, and Eleanor, who was still determined not to confide in +anybody, added nonchalantly, “So am I.” It was going to be the best +of the fun to take in the Chapin house.</p> + +<p>But the Chapin house was not taken in for long.</p> + +<p>“What’s come over Eleanor Watson?” inquired <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span> Katherine, a few days +later, as the girls filed out from dinner.</p> + +<p>“She’s working,” said Mary Brooks with a grin. “And +apparently she thinks work and dessert don’t jibe.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it was time,” said Rachel. “She’s +always cutting classes, and that puts a girl behind faster than anything else. I +wonder if she could have had a warning in anything.”</p> + +<p>“I think she could―” began Katherine, and then stopped, +laughing. “I might as well own up to one in math.,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Watson is going to stay here over Thanksgiving,” said +Mary Rich.</p> + +<p>Then plans for the two days’ vacation were discussed, and +Eleanor’s affairs forgotten, much to the relief of Betty Wales, who feared +every moment lest she should in some way betray Eleanor’s confidence.</p> + +<p>On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving Eleanor burst in on her merrily, as she +was dressing for dinner.</p> + +<p>“I just wanted to tell you that some of those conditions that worry you +so are made up,” she said. “I almost wore out my tutor, <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span> and I surprised the +history department into a compliment, but I’m through. That is, I have +only math., and one other little thing.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how you did it,” sighed Betty. “I should +never dare to get behind. I have all I want to do with the regular +work.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor leaned luxuriously back among the couch cushions. “Yes,” +she said loftily. “I suppose you haven’t the faintest idea what +real, downright hard work is, and neither can you appreciate the joys of +downright idleness. I shall try that as soon as I’ve finished the +math.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Betty. “Do you like making it up +later?”</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t have to. You know I’m getting a reputation as +an earnest, thorough student. That’s what the history department called +me. A reputation is a wonderful thing to lean back upon. I ought to have gone in +for one in September. I was at the Hill School for three years, and I never +studied after the first three months. There’s everything in making people +believe in you from the first.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the use in making people believe <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span> you’re something that +you’re not?” demanded Betty.</p> + +<p>“What a question! It saves you the trouble of being that something. If +the history department once gets into the habit of thinking me a thorough, +earnest student, it won’t condition me because I fail in a written +recitation or two. It will suppose I had an off day.”</p> + +<p>“But you’d have to do well sometimes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, occasionally. That’s easy.”</p> + +<p>“Not for me,” said Betty, “so I shall have to do +respectable work all the time. But I shall tell Helen about your idea. She works +all the time, and it makes her dull and cross. She must have secured a +reputation by this time; and I shall insist upon her leaning back on it for a +while and taking more walks.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span><a id='link_9'></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><span class='h2fs'>PAYING THE PIPER</span></h2> + +<p>“I feel as if there were about three days between Thanksgiving and +Christmas,” said Rachel, coming up the stairs, to Betty, who stood in the +door of her room half in and half out of her white evening dress.</p> + +<p>“That leaves one day and a half, then, before vacation,” laughed +Betty. “I’m sorry to bother you when you’re so pressed for +time, but could you hook me up? Helen is at the library, and every one else +seems to be off somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Rachel, dropping her armful of bundles on the +floor. “I’m only making Christmas presents. Is the ΚΦ +dance coming off at last?”</p> + +<p>“Yes–another one, that is; and Mr. Parsons asked me, to make up +for the one I had to miss. Now, would you hold my coat?”</p> + +<p>“Betty! Betty Wales! Wait a minute,” called somebody just as +Betty reached the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span> +Main Street corner, and Eleanor Watson appeared, also dressed for the dance.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you say you were going to Winsted?” she +demanded breathlessly. “Good, here’s a car.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you say you were going?” demanded Betty in her +turn as they scrambled on.</p> + +<p>“Because I didn’t intend to until the last minute. Then I decided +that I’d earned a little recreation, so I telegraphed Paul West that +I’d come after all. Who is your chaperon?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Hale.”</p> + +<p>“Well please introduce me when we get down-town, so that I can ask if I +may join her party.”</p> + +<p>Ethel Hale received Betty with enthusiasm, and Eleanor with a peculiar smile +and a very formal permission to go to Winsted under her escort. As the two were +starting off to buy their tickets, she called Betty back.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you going to sit with me on the way over, little +sister?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Betty, and they settled themselves together a +moment later for the short ride.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span>“You never +come to see me, Betty,” Miss Hale began, when they were seated.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid to,” confessed Betty sheepishly. “When +you’re a faculty and I’m only a freshman.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” laughed Miss Hale. Then she glanced at Eleanor, who +sat several seats in front of them, and changed the subject abruptly. +“What sort of girl is Miss Watson?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “All sorts, I think,” she said. “I never +knew any one who could be so nice one minute and so trying the next.”</p> + +<p>“How do you happen to know her well?” pursued Miss Hale +seriously.</p> + +<p>Betty explained.</p> + +<p>“And you think that on the whole she’s worth while?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I don’t understand―” Betty was +beginning to feel as if she was taking an examination on Eleanor’s +characteristics.</p> + +<p>“You think that on the whole she’s more good than bad; and that +there’s something to her, besides beauty. That’s all I want to know. +She is lovely, isn’t she?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed,” agreed Betty enthusiastically. “But +she’s very bright too. She’s done a lot <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span> of extra work lately and so quickly and +well. She’s very nice to me always, but she dislikes my roommate and she +and I are always disagreeing about that or something else. I don’t +think–you know she wouldn’t do a dishonorable thing for the world, +but I don’t approve of some of her ideas; they don’t seem quite fair +and square, Ethel.”</p> + +<p>“Um,” assented Ethel absently. “I’m glad you could +tell me all this, Betty. I shouldn’t have asked you, perhaps; it’s +rather taking advantage of our private friendship. But I really needed to know. +Ah, here we are!”</p> + +<p>As she spoke, the train slowed down and a gay party of Winsted men sprang on +to the platform, and jostled one another down the aisles, noisily greeting the +girls they knew and each one hunting for his particular guest of the afternoon. +They had brought a barge down to take the girls to the college, and in the +confusion of crowding into it Betty found herself separated from Ethel. “I +wish I’d asked her why she wanted to know all that,” she thought, +and then she forgot everything but the delicious excitement of actually being on +the way to a dance at Winsted.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span>Most of the +fraternity house was thrown open to the visitors, and between the dances in the +library, which was big enough to make an excellent ball-room also, they wandered +through it, finding all sorts of interesting things to admire, and pleasantly +retired nooks and corners to rest in. Mr. Parsons was a very attentive host, +providing partners in plenty; and Betty, who was passionately fond of dancing +and had been to only one “truly grown-up” dance before, was in her +element. But every once in awhile she forgot her own pleasure to notice Eleanor +and to wonder at her beauty and vivacity. She was easily belle of the ball. She +seemed to know all the men, and they crowded eagerly around her, begging for +dances and hanging on her every word. Eleanor’s usually listless face was +radiant. She had a smile and a gay sally for every one; there was never a hint +of the studied coldness with which she received any advances from Helen or the +Riches, nor of the scornful ennui with which she faced the social life of her +own college.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you glad you came?” said Betty, when they met at +the frappé table.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_133'></a>133</span>“Rather,” said Eleanor laconically. +“This is life, and I’ve only existed for months and months. What +would the world be like without men and music?”</p> + +<p>“Goodness! what a wise-sounding remark,” laughed Betty.</p> + +<p>Just then Miss Hale came up in charge of a very young and callow +freshman.</p> + +<p>“Please lend me your fan, Betty,” she said. “I was afraid +it would look forward for a chaperon to bring one, and I’m desperately +warm.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor, who had turned aside to speak to her partner, looked up quickly as +Ethel spoke, and meeting Miss Hale’s gray eyes she flushed suddenly and +moved away.</p> + +<p>Betty handed Ethel the fan. “I wish―” she began, looking +after Eleanor’s retreating figure. But as she spoke the music started +again and a vivacious youth hurried up and whisked her away before she had time +to finish her sentence; and she could not get near Ethel again.</p> + +<p>“Men do make better partners than girls,” she said to Mr. Parsons +as they danced the last waltz together. “And I think their <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span> rooms are prettier than +ours, if these are fair samples. But they can’t have any better time at +college than we do.”</p> + +<p>“We certainly couldn’t get on at all without you girls across the +river,” Mr. Parsons was saying gallantly, when the music stopped and +Eleanor, followed by Mr. West, hurried up to Betty.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me one moment, Mr. Parsons,” she said, as she drew Betty +aside. “I’ve been trying to get at you for ever so long,” she +went on. “I’m in a dreadful fix. You know I told you I hadn’t +intended to come here to-day, but I didn’t tell you the reason why. The +reason was that to-day was the time set for my math. exam, with Miss Mansfield. +I tried to get her to change it, but I couldn’t, so finally I telephoned +her that I was ill. Some one else answered the ’phone for her, saying that +she was engaged and, Betty–I’m sure it was Miss Hale.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked at her in blank amazement. “You said you were ill and then +came here!” she began. “Oh, Eleanor, how could you! But what makes +you think that Miss Hale knows?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span>“I’m +sure I recognized her voice when she asked you for the fan, and then +haven’t you noticed her distant manner?” said Eleanor gloomily. +“Are they friends, do you know?”</p> + +<p>“They live in the same house.”</p> + +<p>“Then that settles it. You seem to be very chummy with Miss Hale, +Betty. You couldn’t reconcile it with your tender conscience to say a good +word for me, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“I–why, what could I say after that dreadful message?” Then +she brightened suddenly. “Why, Eleanor, I did. We talked about you all the +way over here. Ethel asked questions and I answered them. I told her a lot of +nice things,” added Betty reassuringly, “though of course I +couldn’t imagine why she wanted to know. What luck that you hadn’t +told me sooner!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor stared at her blankly. “I suppose,” she said at last, +“that it will serve me right if Miss Hale tells Miss Mansfield that I was +here, and Miss Mansfield refuses me another examination; but do you think she +will?”</p> + +<p>Betty glanced at Ethel. She was standing at the other end of the room, +talking to two <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span> +Winsted men, and she looked so young and pretty and so like one of the girls +herself that Betty said impulsively, “She couldn’t!” Then she +remembered how different Ethel had seemed on the train, and that the girls in +her classes stood very much in awe of her. “I don’t know,” she +said slowly. “She just hates any sort of cheating. She might think it was +her duty to tell. Oh, Eleanor, why did you do it?”</p> + +<p>Eleanor shrugged her shoulders expressively. Then she turned away with a +radiant smile for Mr. West. “I am sorry to have kept you men +waiting,” she said. “How much more time do we have before the barge +comes?”</p> + +<p>Whatever Miss Hale meant to do, she kept her own counsel, deliberately +avoiding intercourse with either Ethel or Betty. She bade the girls a gay +good-bye at the station, and went off in state in the carriage they had provided +for her.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s no use asking if you had a good time,” said +Betty sympathetically, as she and Eleanor, having decided to go home in comfort, +rolled away in another.</p> + +<p>“I had a lovely time until it flashed over <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span> me about that telephone message. After +that of course I was worried almost to death, and I would give anything under +the sun if I had stayed at home and passed off my math. like a person of +sense.”</p> + +<p>“Then why don’t you tell Miss Mansfield so?” suggested +Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Betty, I couldn’t. But I shan’t probably have the +chance,” she added dryly. “Miss Hale will see her after dinner. I +hope she’ll tell her that I appeared to be enjoying life.”</p> + +<p>The next morning when Eleanor presented herself at Miss Mansfield’s +class-room for the geometry lesson, another assistant occupied the desk. +“Miss Mansfield is out of town for a few days,” she announced. +Eleanor gave Betty a despairing glance and tried to fix her attention on the +“originals” which the new teacher was explaining. It seemed as if +the class would never end. When it did she flew to the desk and inquired if Miss +Mansfield would be back to-morrow.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow? Oh no,” said the young assistant pleasantly. +“She’s in Boston for some days. No, not this week; next, I believe. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span> You are Miss +Watson? No, there was no message for you, I think.”</p> + +<p>The next week was a longer and more harassing one than any that Eleanor could +remember. She had not been blind to Betty’s scorn of her action. Ever +since she came to Harding she had noted with astonishment the high code of honor +that held sway among the girls. They shirked when they could, assumed knowledge +when they had it not, managed somehow to wear the air of leisurely +go-as-you-please that Eleanor loved; but they did not cheat, and like Betty they +despised those who did. So Eleanor, who a few months before would have boasted +of having deceived Miss Mansfield, was now in equal fear lest Miss Hale should +betray her and lest some of her mates should find her out. She wanted to ask Lil +Day or Annette Gaynor what happened if you cut a special examination; but +suppose they should ask why she cared to know? That would put another knot into +the “tangled web” of her deception. It would have been some comfort +to discuss the possibilities of the situation with Betty, but Eleanor denied +herself even that outlet. No use <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_139'></a>139</span> reminding a girl that she despises you! If only +Betty would not look so sad and sympathetic and inquiring when they met in the +halls, in classes or at table. At other times Eleanor barricaded herself behind +a “Don’t disturb” sign and studied desperately and to much +purpose. And every morning she hoped against hope that Miss Mansfield would hear +the geometry class.</p> + +<p>The suspense lasted through the whole week. Then, just two days before the +vacation, Miss Mansfield reappeared and Eleanor asked timidly for an +appointment.</p> + +<p>“Come to-day at two,” began Miss Mansfield.</p> + +<p>“Oh thank you! Thank you so much!” broke in Eleanor and stopped +in confusion.</p> + +<p>But Miss Mansfield only smiled absently. “Most of my belated freshmen +don’t express such fervent gratitude for my firmness in pushing them +through before the vacation. They try to put me off.” She had evidently +quite forgotten the other appointment.</p> + +<p>“I shall be so glad to have it over,” Eleanor murmured.</p> + +<p>Miss Mansfield looked after her thoughtfully <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_140'></a>140</span> as she went down the hall. “Perhaps +I’ve misjudged her,” she told herself. “When a girl is so +pretty, it’s hard to take her seriously.”</p> + +<p>She said as much to Ethel Hale when they walked home to lunch together, but +Ethel was not at all enthusiastic over Miss Watson’s earnestness.</p> + +<p>“She’s very late in working off a condition, I should say,” +she observed coldly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I’ve been away, you know,” explained Miss +Mansfield. “Oh, Ethel, I wish you could meet him. You don’t half +appreciate how happy I am.”</p> + +<p>Ethel, who had decided after much consideration to let Eleanor’s +affairs take their course, made a mental observation to the effect that an +engagement induces shortness of memory and tenderness of heart. Then she said +aloud that she also wished she might meet “him.”</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>Time flies between Thanksgiving and Christmas, particularly for freshmen who +are looking forward to their first vacation at home. It flies faster after they +get there, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span> +when they are back at college it rushes on quite as swiftly but rather less +merrily toward the fateful “mid-years.” None of the Chapin house +girls had been home at Thanksgiving time, but they were all going for Christmas, +except Eleanor Watson, who intended to spend the vacation with an aunt in New +York.</p> + +<p>They prepared for the flitting in characteristic ways. Rachel, who was very +systematic, did all her Christmas shopping, so that she needn’t hurry +through it at home. Roberta made but one purchase, an illustrated “Alice +in Wonderland,” for her small cousins, and spent all her spare time in +re-reading it herself. Helen, in spite of Betty’s suggestions about +leaning back on her reputation, studied harder than ever, so that she could go +home with a clear conscience, while Katherine was too excited to study at all, +and Mary Brooks jeered impartially at both of them. Betty conscientiously +returned all her calls and began packing several days ahead, so as to make the +time seem shorter. Then just as the expressman was driving off with her trunk, +she remembered that she had packed her short skirt at the very bottom.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span>“Thank you +ever so much. If he’d got much further I should have had to go home either +in this gray bath robe that I have on, or in a white duck suit,” she said +to Katherine who had gone to rescue the skirt and came back with it over her +arm.</p> + +<p>She and Katherine started west together and Eleanor and Roberta went with +them to the nearest junction. The jostling, excited crowd at the station, the +“good-byes” and “Merry Christmases,” were great fun. +Betty, remembering a certain forlorn afternoon in early autumn, laughed happily +to herself.</p> + +<p>“What’s the joke?” asked Katherine.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking how much nicer things like this seem when you’re +in them,” she said, waving her hand to Alice Waite.</p> + +<p>At the Cleveland station, mother and Will and Nan and the smallest sister +were watching eagerly for the returning wanderer.</p> + +<p>“Why, Betty Wales, you haven’t changed one bit,” announced +the smallest sister in tones of deepest wonder. “Why, I’d have known +you anywhere, Betty, if I’d met you on the street.”</p> + +<p>“Three months isn’t quite as long as all <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span> that,” said Betty, hugging the +smallest sister, “but I was hoping I looked a little older. Nobody ever +mistakes me for a senior, as they do Rachel Morrison. And I ought to look years +and years wiser.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Will with a lordly air. “Now a college +girl―”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed. “You see we all know your theories about +intellectual women,” said mother. “So suppose you take up the suit +case and escort us home.”</p> + +<p>The next morning a note arrived from Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“<span class='sc'>Dearest Betty</span>,” it ran:</p> + +<p>“As you always seem to be just around the corner when I get into a box, +I want to tell you that I rode down to New York with Miss Hale. She asked me to +sit with her and I couldn’t well refuse, though I wanted to badly enough. +She knew, Betty, but she will never tell. She said she was glad to know me on +your account. She asked me how the term had gone with me, and I blushed and +stammered and said that I was coming back in a different spirit. She said that +college was the finest place in the world for a girl to get acquainted with +herself–that cowardice and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_144'></a>144</span> weakness of purpose and meanness and pettiness +stood out so clearly against the background of fineness and squareness; and that +four years was long enough to see all sorts of faults in oneself, and change +them according to one’s new theories. As she said it, it didn’t +sound a bit like preaching.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t tell her that I was only in college for one year. I +sent her a big bunch of violets to-day–she surely couldn’t regard it +as a bribe now–and after Christmas I’ll try to show her that +I’m worth while.</p> + +<p class='tar mr20'>“Merry Christmas, Betty.</p> +<p class='sc tar'>“Eleanor.”</p> + +<p>Nan frowned when Betty told her about Eleanor. “But she isn’t a +nice girl, Betty. Did I meet her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she’s the one you thought so pretty–the one with the +lovely eyes and hair.”</p> + +<p>“Betty,” said Nan soberly, “you don’t do things like +this?”</p> + +<p>“I!” Betty flushed indignantly. “Weren’t there all +kinds of girls when you were in college, Nan? Didn’t you ever know people +who did ‘things like this’?”</p> + +<p>Nan laughed. “There certainly were,” she said. “I’ll +trust you, Betty. Only don’t see <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_145'></a>145</span> too much of Miss Watson, or she’ll drag you +down, in spite of yourself.”</p> + +<p>“But Ethel’s dragging her up,” objected Betty. “And I +gave her the first boost, by knowing Ethel. Not that I meant to. I never seem to +accomplish things when I mean to. You remember Helen Chase Adams?”</p> + +<p>“With great pleasure. She noticed my youthful appearance.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve been all this term trying to reform her clothes, but +I can’t improve her one bit, except when I set to work and do it all +myself. I should think you’d be afraid she’d drag me into dowdiness, +I have to see so much of her.”</p> + +<p>Nan smiled at the dainty little figure in the big chair. “I don’t +notice any indications yet,” she said. “It took you an hour to dress +this morning, exactly as it always does. But you’d better take care. What +are you going to do to-day?”</p> + +<p>“Make your friend Helen Chase Adams a stock for Christmas,” +announced Betty, jumping up and pulling Nan after her. “And you’ve +got to help, seeing you admire her so much.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span><a id='link_10'></a>CHAPTER X<br /><span class='h2fs'>A RUMOR</span></h2> + +<p>After Christmas there were goodies from home to eat and Christmas-gifts to +arrange in their new quarters. Betty’s piêce de resistance was a gorgeous +leather sofa pillow stamped with the head of a ferocious Indian chief. Eleanor +had a great brass bowl, which in some mysterious fashion was kept constantly +full of fresh roses, a shelf full of new books, and more dresses than her closet +would hold. Katherine had a chafing-dish, Rachel a Persian rug, and Roberta an +illustrated “Alice in Wonderland” of her own. To Betty’s great +relief Helen had brought back two small pillows for her couch, all her skirts +were lengthened, and the Christmas stock of black silk with its white linen +turnovers replaced the clumsy woolen collars that she had worn with her winter +shirt-waists. And–she was certainly learning to do her hair more +becomingly. There wasn’t a very <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_147'></a>147</span> marked improvement to be sure, but if Betty could +have watched Helen’s patient efforts to turn her vacation to account in +the matter of hair-dressing, she would have realized how much the little changes +meant, and would have been more hopeful about her pupil’s progress. Not +until the end of her junior year did Helen Adams reach the point where she could +be sure that one’s personal appearance is quite as important a matter as +one’s knowledge of calculus or Kantian philosophies; but, thanks largely +to Betty, she was beginning to want to look her best, and that was the first +step toward the things that she coveted. The next, and one for which Betty, with +her open-hearted, free-and-easy fashion of facing life, was not likely to see +the need, must be to break down the barriers that Helen’s sensitive +shyness had erected between herself and the world around her. The +self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had cruelly, if unintentionally wounded, +must be restored before Helen could find the place she longed for in the little +college world.</p> + +<p>No one had had any very exciting vacation adventures except Rachel, who was +delayed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span> on her way +home by a freight wreck and obliged to spend Christmas eve on a windswept siding +with only a ham sandwich between her and starvation, and Eleanor, whose vacation +had been one mad whirl of metropolitan gaiety. Her young aunt, who sympathized +with her niece’s distaste for college life, and couldn’t imagine why +on earth Judge Watson had insisted upon his only daughter’s trying it for +a year at least, did her utmost to make Eleanor enjoy her visit. So she had +dined at the Waldorf, sat in a box at the theatre and the opera, danced and +shopped to her heart’s content, and had seen all the sights of New York. +And at all the festivities Paul West, a friend of the family and also of +Eleanor’s, was present as Eleanor’s special escort and avowed +admirer. Naturally she had come back in an ill humor. Between late hours and +excitement she was completely worn out. She wanted to be in New York, and +failing that she wanted Paul West to come and talk New York to her, and bring +her roses for the big brass bowl that she had found in a dingy little shop in +the Russian quarter. She threw her good resolutions to <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span> the winds, received Miss Hale’s +thanks for the violets very coldly, and begged Betty to forget the sentimental +letter that she had written before Christmas.</p> + +<p>“But I thought it was a nice letter,” said Betty. “Eleanor, +why won’t you give yourself a chance? Go and see Ethel this afternoon, +and–and then set to work to show her what you said you would,” she +ended lamely.</p> + +<p>Eleanor only laughed. “Sorry, Betty, but I’m going to Winsted +this afternoon. Paul has taken pity on me; there’s a sleighing party. I +thought perhaps you were invited too.”</p> + +<p>“No, but I’m going skating with Mary and Katherine,” said +Betty cheerfully, “and then at four Rachel and I are going to do +Latin.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Latin,” said Eleanor significantly. “Let me think. Is +it two or three weeks to mid-years?”</p> + +<p>“Two, just.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose I shall have to do a little something then +myself,” said Eleanor, “but I shan’t bother yet awhile. Here +comes the sleigh,” she added, looking out of the window. +“Paul’s driving, and your Mr. Parsons <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span> has asked Georgie Arnold. What do you +think of that?”</p> + +<p>“I should certainly hope he wouldn’t ask the same girl to +everything, if that’s what you mean,” said Betty calmly, helping +Eleanor into her new coat.</p> + +<p>Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. “Good-bye,” she said. “For +my part, I prefer to be the one and only–while I last,” and +snatching up her furs she was off.</p> + +<p>Betty found Mary and Katherine in possession of her room and engaged in an +animated discussion about the rules of hockey.</p> + +<p>“I tell you that when the thing-um-bob is in play,” began +Katherine.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it,” cut in Mary.</p> + +<p>“Come along, girls,” interrupted Betty, fishing her skates from +under her couch, and pulling on her “pussy” mittens. “Never +mind those rules. You can’t play hockey to-day. You promised to skate with +me.”</p> + +<p>It was an ideal winter’s afternoon, clear, cold and still. The ice on +Paradise was smooth and hard, and the little pond was fairly alive with skaters, +most of them Harding girls. Betty was a novice, with one weak <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span> ankle that had an +annoying habit of turning over suddenly and tripping her up; so she was timid +about skating alone. But between Mary and Katherine she got on famously, and +thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. At four Mary had a committee meeting, +Katherine an engagement to play basket-ball, and Betty had agreed to meet +Rachel. So with great reluctance they took off their skates and started up the +steep path that led past the boat-house to the back gate of the campus.</p> + +<p>“Goodness, but I’m stiff,” groaned Mary, stopping to rest a +minute half way up. “I’d have skated until dinner time though, if it +hadn’t been for this bothering committee. Never be on committees, +children.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you apply your own rules?” inquired Katherine +saucily.</p> + +<p>“Oh, because I’m a vain peacock like the rest of the world. The +class president comes to me and says, ‘Now Mary, nobody but you knows every girl +in the class. You can find out the sentiments of all sorts and conditions on +this matter. And then you have such fine executive ability. I know you hate +committees, but―’ Of course I feel pleased by <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span> her base flattery, and I don’t +come to my senses until it’s too late to escape. Is to-day the +sixteenth?”</p> + +<p>“No, it’s Saturday, the twentieth,” said Katherine. +“Two weeks next Monday to mid-years.”</p> + +<p>“The twentieth!” repeated Mary in tones of alarm. “Then, my +psychology paper is due a week from Tuesday. I haven’t done a thing to it, +and I shall be so busy next week that I can’t touch it till Friday or +Saturday. How time does fly!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you even know what you’re going to write on or +anything that you’re going to say?” asked Betty, who always wrote +her papers as soon as they were assigned, to get them off her mind, and who +longed to know the secret of waiting serenely until the eleventh hour.</p> + +<p>“Why, I had a plan,” answered Mary absently, “but +I’ve waited so long that I hardly know if I can use it.”</p> + +<p>Just then Alice Waite and her roommate came panting up the hill, and Mary, +who seldom took much exercise and was very tired, fell back to the rear of the +procession. But <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span> +when the freshmen stopped in front of the Hilton House she trilled and waved her +hand to attract their attention.</p> + +<p>“Oh. Betty, please take my skates home,” she said as she limped +up to the group. Then she smiled what Roberta had named her +“beamish” smile. “I know what you girls are talking +about,” she said. “Will you give me a supper at Holmes’s if +I’m right?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Katherine recklessly, “for you couldn’t +possibly guess. What was it?”</p> + +<p>“You’re wondering about those fifty freshmen,” answered +Mary promptly.</p> + +<p>“What freshmen?” demanded the four girls in a chorus, utterly +ignoring the lost wager.</p> + +<p>“Why, those fifty who, according to a perfectly baseless rumor, are +going to be sent home after mid-years.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” gasped Betty.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t you heard?” asked Mary soothingly. “Well, +I’m sure it will be all over the college by this afternoon. Now +understand, I don’t believe it’s true. If it were ten or even twenty +it might be, but fifty–why, girls, it’s preposterous!”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t understand you,” said Miss <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span> Madison excitedly. She +had grown very pale and was hanging on to Katherine’s arm. “Do you +mean that there is such a story–that fifty freshmen are to be sent home +after mid-years?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mary sadly, “there is, and that’s what I +meant. I’m sorry that I should have been the one to tell you, but +you’d have heard it from some one else, I’m sure. A thing like that +is always repeated so. Remember, I assure you I don’t believe a word of +it. Somebody probably started it on purpose to frighten you little freshmen. If +you would take my skates, Betty. I hate to lug them around till dinner time. Now +good-bye, and do cheer up.”</p> + +<p>Left to themselves the four freshmen stared blankly at one another. Finally +Katherine broke the mournful silence.</p> + +<p>“Girls,” she said solemnly, “it’s utter foolishness +to worry about this report. Mary didn’t believe it herself, and why should +we?”</p> + +<p>“She’s not a freshman,” suggested Alice gloomily.</p> + +<p>“There are almost four hundred freshmen. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span> Perhaps the fifty wouldn’t be any +of us,” put in Betty.</p> + +<p>Miss Madison maintained a despairing silence.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Katherine at last, “if it is true +there’s nothing to be done about it now, I suppose; and if it isn’t +true, why it isn’t; so I think I’ll go to basket-ball,” and +she detached Miss Madison and started off.</p> + +<p>Betty gave a prolonged sigh. “I must go too,” she said. +“I’ve promised to study Latin. I presume it isn’t any use, but +I can’t disappoint Rachel. I wish I was a fine student like Rachel. She +won’t be one of the fifty.”</p> + +<p>Alice, who had been in a brown study, emerged, just as Betty turned away.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” she commanded. “Of course it’s +awfully queer up here, but still, if they have exams. I don’t see the use +of cooking it all up beforehand. I mean I don’t see the use of exams. if +it is all decided.”</p> + +<p>Her two friends brightened perceptibly.</p> + +<p>“That’s a good idea,” declared Betty. “Every one says +the mid-years are so important. Let’s do our best from now on, and perhaps +the faculty will change their minds.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span>As she walked +home, Betty thought of Eleanor. “She’ll be dreadfully worried. I +shan’t tell her a word about it,” she resolved. Then she remembered +Mary Brooks’s remark. Yes, no doubt some one else would enlighten Eleanor. +It was just too bad. But perhaps Mary was right and the story was only a +story.</p> + +<p>It is hard for freshmen on the eve of their mid-year examinations to be +perfectly calm and philosophical. The story of the fifty unfortunates ran like +wild-fire through the college, and while upper-class girls sniffed at it as +absurd and even freshmen, particularly the clever ones, pooh-poohed it in +public, it was the cause of many anxious, and some tearful moments. Betty, after +her first fright, had accepted the situation with her usual cheerfulness, and so +had Alice and Rachel, who could not help knowing that her work was of +exceptionally high grade, while Helen irritated her house-mates by affecting an +anxiety which, as Katherine put it, “No dig, who gets ‘good’ on all +her written work, can possibly feel.” Katherine was worried about her +mathematics, in which she had been warned before Thanksgiving, <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span> but she confided to +Betty that she had counted them up, and without being a bit conceited she really +thought there were fifty stupider girls in the class of 19–. Roberta and +the Riches, however, were utterly miserable, and Eleanor wrote to Paul West that +she was busy–she had written “ill” first, and then torn up the +note–and indulged in another frantic fit of industry, even more violent +than its predecessors had been.</p> + +<p>“But I thought you wanted to go home,” said Betty curiously one +afternoon when Eleanor had come in to borrow a lexicon. “You say you hate +it here, and you hate to study. So why do you take so much trouble about +staying?”</p> + +<p>Eleanor straightened proudly. “Haven’t you observed yet that I +have a bad case of the Watson pride?” she asked. “Do you think +I’d ever show my face again if I failed?”</p> + +<p>“Then why―” began Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s the unutterable laziness that I get from +my–from the other side of the house,” interrupted Eleanor. +“It’s an uncomfortable combination, I assure you,” and taking +the book she had come for, she abruptly departed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span>Betty realized +suddenly that in all the year Eleanor had never once spoken of her mother.</p> + +<p>After that she couldn’t help being sorry for Eleanor, but she pitied +Miss Madison more. Miss Madison was dull at books and she knew it, and had +actually made herself ill with work and worry. Going to see her Hilton House +friends on the Friday afternoon after the skating party, Betty found Miss +Madison alone and undisguisedly crying.</p> + +<p>“I know I’m foolish,” she apologized. “Most people +just laugh at that story, but I notice they study harder since they heard it. +And I’m such a stupid.”</p> + +<p>Betty, who hated tears, had a sudden inspiration. “Why don’t you +ask about it at the registrar’s office?” she suggested.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I couldn’t,” wailed Miss Madison.</p> + +<p>“Then I shall,” returned Betty. “That is, I shall ask one +of the faculty.”</p> + +<p>“Would you dare?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. They’re human, like other people,” said +Betty, quoting Nan. “I don’t see why some one didn’t think of +it sooner.”</p> + +<p>That night at dinner Betty announced her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_159'></a>159</span> plan. The freshmen looked relieved and Mary Brooks +showed uncalled-for enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“Do go,” she urged. “It’s high time such an absurd +story was shown up at its real value. It’s absurd. The way we talk and +talk about a report like that, and never dare to ask the faculty if it’s +true.”</p> + +<p>“Do you take any freshman courses?” inquired Eleanor +sarcastically.</p> + +<p>Mary smiled her “beamish” smile. “No,” she said, +“but I’m an interested party nevertheless–quite as much so as +any of the famous fifty.”</p> + +<p>“Whom shall you ask, Betty?” pursued Katherine, ignoring the +digression.</p> + +<p>“Miss Mansfield. I have her the first hour, and besides, since +she’s been engaged she’s so nice and sympathetic.”</p> + +<p>Next day the geometry class dragged unmercifully for three persons. Eleanor +beat a nervous tattoo on the seat-arm, Miss Madison stared fixedly at the clock, +and Betty blushed and twisted and wished she could have seen Miss Mansfield +before class. The delayed interview was beginning to seem very formidable. But +it wasn’t, after the first plunge.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span>“What an +absurd story!” laughed Miss Mansfield. “Not a word of truth in it, +of course. Why I don’t believe the girl who started it thought it was +true. How long has it been in circulation?”</p> + +<p>Betty counted the days. “I didn’t really believe it,” she +added shyly.</p> + +<p>“But you worried,” said Miss Mansfield, smiling down at her. +“Next time don’t be taken in one little bit,–or else come to +headquarters sooner.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor and Miss Madison were waiting outside the door when Betty dashed at +them with a little squeal of ecstasy. There was a moment of rapturous +congratulation; then Miss Madison picked up the note-book she had dropped and +held out her hand solemnly to Betty.</p> + +<p>“You’ve–why I think you’ve saved my life,” she +said, “and now I must go to my next class.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a little hero,” added Eleanor, catching +Betty’s arm and rushing her off to a recitation in Science Hall.</p> + +<p>Roberta received the joyful news more calmly. “We may any of us flunk +our mid-years yet,” she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span>“But we +can study for them in peace and comfort,” said Adelaide Rich.</p> + +<p>Mary Brooks asked endless questions at luncheon. Did the girls all accept +Miss Mansfield’s denial as authoritative? Did it travel as fast as the +original story had done? How did people think the rumor had started?</p> + +<p>“Why, nobody mentioned that,” said Rachel in surprise. “How +odd that we shouldn’t have wondered!”</p> + +<p>“Shows your sheep-like natures,” said Mary, rising abruptly. +“Well, now I can finish my psychology paper.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you worked on it any?” inquired Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I made an outline and developed some topics last night. But I +couldn’t finish until to-day. I was so worried about you +children.”</p> + +<p>Toward the end of the next week Rachel came in to dinner late and in high +spirits. “I’ve had such a fine walk!” she exclaimed. +“Hester Gulick and I went to the bridge, and on the way back we overtook a +senior named Janet Andrews. She is such fun. She’d walked down-town with +Professor Hinsdale. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_162'></a>162</span> He teaches psychology, doesn’t he? They seem +to be very good friends, and he told her such a funny thing about the +fifty-freshmen story. How do you suppose it started?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, please tell us,” cried everybody at once.</p> + +<p>“Why, an awfully clever girl in his sophomore class started it as an +experiment, to see how it would take. She told it to some freshmen, saying +explicitly that it wasn’t true, and they told their friends, and so it +went all over the college until last Saturday Betty got Miss Mansfield to deny +it. But no one knew how it started until yesterday when Professor Hinsdale +looked over a paper in which the girl had written it all up, as a study in the +way rumors spread and grow. This one was so big to begin with that it +couldn’t grow much, though it seems, according to the paper, that some +people had added to it that half the freshmen would be conditioned in +math.”</p> + +<p>“How awfully funny!” gurgled Betty. Then she jumped almost out of +her chair. “Why, Mary Brooks!” she said.</p> + +<p>Everybody looked at Mary, who blushed guiltily and remarked with great +dignity that <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span> +Professor Hinsdale was an old telltale. But when she had assured herself that +the freshmen, with the possible exception of Eleanor, were disposed to regard +the psychological experiment which had victimized them with perfect good-nature, +and herself with considerable admiration, she condescended to accept +congratulations and answer questions.</p> + +<p>“Seriously, girls,” she said at last, “I hope no one got +really scared. I wanted to explain when I heard Betty tell how unhappy Miss +Madison was, but I really thought Miss Mansfield’s denial would cheer her +up more and reach her almost as quickly, and at the same time it would help me +out so beautifully. It made such a grand conclusion!</p> + +<p>“You see,” she went on, “Professor Hinsdale put the idea +into my head when he assigned the subjects away back last month. He said he was +giving them out early so we would have time to make original observations. When +he mentioned ‘Rumor,’ he spoke of village gossip, and the faked stories +that are circulated on Wall Street to make stocks go up or down, and then of the +wild way we girls take up absurd reports. The last <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span> suggestion appealed to me, but I +couldn’t remember anything definite enough, so I decided to invent a +rumor. Then I forgot all about it till that Saturday that I went skating, and +‘you know the rest,’ as our friend Mr. Longfellow aptly remarks. When I +get my chef-d’œuvre back you may have a private view, in return for +which I hope you’ll encourage your friends not to hate me.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t she fun?” said Betty a little later, when she and +Helen were alone together. “Do you know, I think this rumor business has +been a good thing. It’s made a lot of us work hard, and only seriously +frightened three or four.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Helen primly. “I think so too. The girls here +are inclined to be very frivolous.”</p> + +<p>“Who?” demanded Betty.</p> + +<p>Helen hesitated. “Oh, the girls as a whole.”</p> + +<p>“That doesn’t count,” objected Betty. “Give me a +name.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Barbara Gordon.”</p> + +<p>“Takes sixteen hours, has her themes read in Mary’s class, and in +her spare moments <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span> +paints water colors that are exhibited in Boston,” said Betty +promptly.</p> + +<p>“Really?” gasped Helen.</p> + +<p>“Really,” repeated Betty. “Of course she was very well +prepared, and so her work here seems easy to her. Next year I hope that you and +I won’t have to plod along so.”</p> + +<p>Helen said nothing, but she was deeply grateful to Betty for that last +sentence. “You and I”–as if there was something in common +between them. The other girls set her apart in a class by herself and labeled +her “dig.” If one was born slow and conscientious and plodding, was +there any hope for one,–any place among these pretty girls who worked so +easily and idled so gracefully? Helen shut her lips firmly and resolved to keep +on hunting.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span><a id='link_11'></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><span class='h2fs'>MID-YEARS AND A DUST-PAN</span></h2> + +<p>Viewed in retrospect the tragic experiences of one’s freshman year seem +often the most insignificant of trifles; but that does not prevent their being +at the time momentous as the fate of empires. There are mid-year examinations, +for instance; after one has survived them a few times she knows that being +“flunked out” is not so common an experience as report represents it +to be, and as for “low grades” and “conditions,” if one +has “cut” or been too often unprepared she deserves and expects +them, and if she has done her best and still finds an unwelcome note or two on +the official bulletin board, why, she must remember that accidents will happen, +and are generally quite endurable when viewed philosophically. But in freshman +year one is inexperienced and easily the dupe of mischievous sophomores. Then +how is one to prepare for the dreadful ordeal? The distinction is <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span> not at all clear between +the intelligent review that the faculty recommend and the cramming that they +abhor. There is a disconcerting little rhyme on this subject that has been +handed down from generation to generation for so long that it has lost most of +its form and comeliness; but the point is still sharp. It is about a girl who +followed the faculty’s advice on the subject of cramming, took her +exercise as usual, and went to bed each night at ten o’clock, as all good +children should. The last stanza still rhymes, thus:</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“And so she did not hurry,<br /> Nor sit up late to +cram,<br /> Nor have the blues and worry,<br /> But–she +failed in her exam.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>Mary Brooks took pains that all her “young friends,” as she +called them, should hear of this instructive little poem.</p> + +<p>“I really thought,” said Betty on the first evening of the +examination week, “when that hateful rumor was contradicted, that I should +never be scared again, but I am.”</p> + +<p>“There’s unfortunately nothing rumorous about these +exams.,” muttered Katherine <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_168'></a>168</span> wrathfully. “The one I had to-day was the +real article, all right.”</p> + +<p>“And I have my three worst to-morrow and next day,” mourned +Betty, “so I’ve got permission to sit up after ten to-night. +Don’t all the rest of you want to come in here and work? Then some one +else can ask Mrs. Chapin for the other nights.”</p> + +<p>“But we must all attend strictly to business,” said Mary Rich, +whereat Helen Adams looked relieved.</p> + +<p>And business was the order of the week. An unwonted stillness reigned over +the Chapin house, broken occasionally by wild outbursts of hilarity, which meant +that some examination or other was over and had not been so bad after all. Every +evening at ten the girls who felt it necessary to sit up later assembled in one +room, comfortably attired in kimonos–all except Roberta, who had never +been seen without her collar–and armed with formidable piles of books; and +presently work began in earnest. There was really no reason, as Rachel observed, +why they should not stay in their own rooms, if they were going to sit up at +all. This wasn’t <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_169'></a>169</span> the campus, where there was a night-watchman to +report lights, and Mrs. Chapin was very accommodating about giving +permission.</p> + +<p>“This method benefits her gas bill though,” said Katherine, +“and therefore keeps her accommodating. Besides, it’s much easier to +stick to it in a crowd.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor never went through the formality of asking Mrs. Chapin’s +permission to do anything, and she did not care for the moral support of +numbers. She was never sleepy, she said, pointing significantly to her brass +samovar, and she could work best alone in her own room. She held aloof, too, +from the discussions about the examinations which were the burden of the +week’s table-talk, only once in a while volunteering a suggestion about +the possible answer to an obscure or ambiguous question. Her ideas invariably +astonished the other freshmen by their depth and originality, but when any one +exclaimed, Eleanor would say, sharply, “Why, it’s all in the +text-book!” and then relapse into gloomy silence.</p> + +<p>“I suppose she talks more to her friends outside,” suggested +Rachel, after an encounter of this sort.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span>“Not on +your life,” retorted Katherine. “She’s one of the kind that +keeps herself to herself. She hates us because we have to know as much about her +as we do, living here in the house with her. I hope she gets through all +right.”</p> + +<p>“She’s awfully clever,” said Mary Rich admiringly. +“She’d never have said that a leviathan was some kind of a church +creed, as I did in English.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she’s a clever–blunderer, but she’s also a +sadly mistaken young person,” amended Katherine.</p> + +<p>It was convenient to have one’s examinations scattered evenly through +the week with time for study between them, but pleasanter on the whole to be +through by Thursday or Friday, with several days of delicious idleness before +the new semester began. And as a certain faction of the college always manages +to suit its own convenience in such matters, the campus, which is the unfailing +index of college sentiment, began to wear a leisurely, holiday air some time +before the dreaded week was over.</p> + +<p>The ground was covered deeply with snow <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_171'></a>171</span> which a sudden thaw and as sudden a freeze had +coated with a thick, hard crust. This put a stop to snow-shoeing and delayed the +work of clearing the ice off Paradise pond, where there was to be a moonlight +carnival on the evening of the holiday that follows mid-year week. But it made +splendid coasting. Toboggans, “bobs” and hand sleds appeared +mysteriously in various quarters, and the pasture hills north of the town +swarmed with Harding girls out for fresh air, exercise and fun.</p> + +<p>On Friday afternoon an ingenious damsel who had no sled conceived the idea of +substituting a dust-pan. So she borrowed one of an obliging chambermaid and went +out to the little slope which divides the front from the back campus to try her +experiment. In twenty minutes the hill was alive with girls, all the available +dust-pans had been pressed into service, and large tin pans were found to do +nearly as well. Envious groups of girls who could get neither the one nor the +other watched the absurd spectacle from the windows of the nearest campus houses +or hurried down-town to buy tinware. Sleds were neglected, <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span> toboggans despised; the dust-pan fad +had taken possession of the college.</p> + +<p>Betty, who had the happy faculty of being on hand at interesting moments, was +crossing the campus on her way home from the Hilton House. She had taken her +last examination, had helped Alice Waite finish up a box of candy, and now had +nothing to do until dinner time, so she stopped to watch the novel coasting, and +even had one delicious ride herself on Dorothy King’s dust-pan.</p> + +<p>Near the gate she met Mary Brooks and Roberta and asked them if they had been +through the campus.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mary, “we’ve been having chocolate at +Cuyler’s.” And she dragged her companions back to within sight of +the hill. Then she abruptly turned them about and hurried them off in the other +direction.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go straight down and buy some dust-pans,” she began +enthusiastically. “We have just time before dinner, and we can slide all +to-morrow afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” demurred Roberta. “I couldn’t.”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed at her expression of alarm, and Mary demanded, “Why +not?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span>“Oh, I +couldn’t,” repeated Roberta. “It looks dangerous, and, +besides, I have to dress for dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Dangerous nothing!” jeered Mary. “Don’t be so +everlastingly neat and lady-like, child. What’s the use? Well,” as +Roberta still hung back, “carry my fountain pen home, then, and +don’t spill it. Come on, Betty,” and the two raced off down the +hill.</p> + +<p>Roberta looked after them admiringly, wishing she were not such a +“muff” at outdoor sports.</p> + +<p>The next afternoon Betty and Mary hurried over to the campus directly after +luncheon to try their new toys. The crust was still firm and the new sport +popular as ever.</p> + +<p>“You see it’s much more exciting than a ‘bob,’” a +tall senior was explaining to a group of on-lookers. “You can’t +steer, so you’re just as likely to go down backward as frontward; and +being so near the ground gives you a lovely creepy sensation.”</p> + +<p>“The point is, it’s such a splendid antidote for overstudying. It +just satisfies that absolutely idiotic feeling that every one has after +mid-years,” added an athletic young woman in <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span> a gray sweater, as she joined the group +with her dust-pan tucked scientifically under her arm.</p> + +<p>She was Marion Lawrence, sophomore vice-president, and Mary Brooks’s +best friend. Betty, fearing to be in the way, joined another lone freshman from +the Belden House.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose you could sit up to study to-night if you had +to?” inquired the freshman as they stood waiting their turns to go +down.</p> + +<p>“No, only it seems as if you always could do what you have to,” +answered Betty, starting off.</p> + +<p>She decided presently that dust-pan coasting was not so much fun as it +looked. Mary Brooks, coming to find her and ask her to join a racing tournament +captained by herself and Marion Lawrence, declared noisily that she was having +“the time of her gay young life,” but Betty after the first coast or +two began to think of going home. Perhaps it was because she was so tired. It +seemed so much trouble to walk up on the slippery crust and such a long way +round by the path. So she refused to enter the tournament. “I’m not +going to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span> stay long +enough,” she explained. “I shall just have two more slides. Then +I’m going home to take a nap. That’s my best antidote for +overstudy.”</p> + +<p>The next coast was nicer. Perhaps the dust-pan had been too new. The Belden +House freshman said that hers went better since her roommate had used it and +scraped off all the paint in a collision.</p> + +<p>“I wonder there aren’t more collisions,” said Betty, +preparing for her last slide.</p> + +<p>Half-way down she discovered that the other freshman and the rest +hadn’t started–that the hill was almost clear. Then somebody called +shrilly, “Look out, Miss Wales.” She turned her head back toward the +voice, the dust-pan swirled, and she turned back again to find herself slipping +rapidly sidewise straight toward a little lady who was walking serenely along +the path that cut the coast at right angles. She was a faculty–Betty +hadn’t the least idea what her name was, but she had noticed her on the +“faculty row” at chapel. In an instant more she was certainly going +to run into her. Betty dug her heels frantically into the crust. It would not +break.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span>“Oh, I beg +your pardon, but I can’t stop!” she called.</p> + +<p>At that the little lady, who was walking rapidly with her head bent against +the wind, looked up and apparently for the first time noticed the dust-pan +coasters. Mirth and confusion overcame her. She stopped an instant to laugh, +then started back, then changed her mind and dashed wildly forward, with the +inevitable result that she fell in an undignified heap on top of Betty and the +dust-pan. The accident took place on the edge of the path where the crust was +jagged and icy. Betty, who had gone head-first through it, emerged with a +bleeding scratch on one cheek and a stinging, throbbing wrist. Fortunately her +companion was not hurt.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so sorry!” sighed Betty, trying to brush the snow +off her victim with one hand. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for being +so careless.” Then she sat down suddenly on the broken crust. +“It’s only that my wrist hurts a little,” she finished +abruptly.</p> + +<p>The girls had gathered around them by this time, sympathizing and lamenting +that they had not warned Betty in time. “But we <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span> thought of course you saw Miss +Ferris,” said the tall senior, “and we supposed she was looking out +for you.”</p> + +<p>So this was Miss Ferris–the great Miss Ferris. Rachel had sophomore +zoology with her and Mary Brooks had said that she was considered the most +brilliant woman on the faculty. She was “house-teacher” at the +Hilton, and Alice Waite and Miss Madison were always singing her praises.</p> + +<p>She cut Betty’s apologies and the girls’ inquiries short. +“My dear child, it was all my fault, and you’re the one who’s +hurt. Why didn’t you girls stop me sooner–call to me to go round the +other way? I was in a hurry and didn’t see or hear you up there.” +Then she sat down on the crust beside Betty. “Forgive me for +laughing,” she said, “but you did look so exactly like a giant crab +sidling along on that ridiculous dust-pan. Have you sprained your wrist? Then +you must come straight over to my room and wait for a carriage.”</p> + +<p>Betty’s feeble protests were promptly overruled, and supported by Mary +Brooks on one side and Miss Ferris on the other she was hurried <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span> over to the Hilton House +and tucked up in Miss Ferris’s Morris chair by her open fire, to await the +arrival of the college doctor and a carriage. In spite of her embarrassment at +having upset so important a personage, and the sharp pains that went shooting up +and down her arm, she was almost sorry when doctor and carriage arrived +together. Miss Ferris was even nicer than the girls had said. Somehow she made +one feel at home immediately as she bustled about bringing a towel and a lotion +for Betty’s face, hot water for her wrist, and “butter-thins” +spread with delicious strawberry jam to keep her courage up. Before she knew it, +Betty was telling her all about her direful experiences during examination week, +how frightened she had been, and how sleepy she was now,–“not just +now of course”–and how she had been all ready to go home when the +spill came. And Miss Ferris nodded knowingly at Mary and laughed her little +rippling laugh.</p> + +<p>“Just like these foolish little freshmen; isn’t it?” she +said, exactly as if she had been one last year too. And yet there was a +suspicion of gray in her hair, and she was a doctor of <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span> philosophy and had written the leading +article in the learned German magazine that lay on her table.</p> + +<p>“You must come again, both of you, when I can make tea for you +properly,” she said as she closed the carriage door.</p> + +<p>Betty, leaning whitely back on Mary’s shoulder, with her arm on Miss +Ferris’s softest down pillow, smiled happily between the throbs. If she +was fated to have sprained her wrist, she was glad that she had met Miss +Ferris.</p> + +<p>Saturday night and Sunday were long and dismal beyond belief. The wrist +ached, the cheek smarted, and a bad cold added its quota to Betty’s +miseries. But she slept late Monday morning, and when she woke felt able to sit +up in bed and enjoy her flowers and her notoriety. Just after luncheon the +entire Chapin house came in to congratulate and condole with her.</p> + +<p>“It’s too windy to have any fun outdoors,” began Rachel +consolingly.</p> + +<p>“Who sent you those violets?” demanded Katherine.</p> + +<p>“Miss Ferris. Wasn’t it dear of her? There was a note with them, +too, that said she considered <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_180'></a>180</span> herself still ‘deeply in my debt,’ because of +her carelessness–think of her saying that to me!–and that she hopes +I won’t hesitate to call on her if she ‘can ever be of the slightest +assistance.’ And Mary, she said for us not to forget that Friday is her +day at home.”</p> + +<p>“You are the luckiest thing, Betty Wales,” sighed Rachel, who +worshiped Miss Ferris from afar.</p> + +<p>“Now if I’d knocked the august Miss Ferris down,” declared +Katherine, “I should probably have been expelled forthwith. Whereas +you―” She finished the sentence with an expressive little +gesture.</p> + +<p>“Who gave you the rest of this conservatory, Betty?” asked Mary +Brooks.</p> + +<p>“Clara Madison brought the carnations, and Nita Reese, a girl in my +geometry division, sent the white roses, and Eleanor the pink ones, and the +freshman I was sliding with these lilies-of-the-valley. It’s almost worth +a sprained wrist to find out how kind people are to you,” said Betty +gratefully.</p> + +<p>“Too bad you’ll miss to-night,” said Mary, “but maybe +it will snow.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span>“I +don’t mind that. The worst thing is my not being able to get my conditions +off the bulletin,” said Betty, making a wry face.</p> + +<p>“Goodness! That is a calamity!” said Katherine with mock +seriousness.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! You’ve studied,” from Rachel.</p> + +<p>“If you should have any conditions, I’ll bring them to +you,” volunteered Eleanor quietly. Then she looked straight at Rachel and +Katherine and smiled pleasantly. “I’m sorry to say that I +haven’t studied,” she said.</p> + +<p>Betty thanked her, feeling more pleased at the apparent harmony of the +household than she had been with all her flowers. It was so difficult to like +Eleanor and Rachel and Katherine and Helen, all four, so well, when Rachel and +Katherine had good reason for disliking Eleanor, and Helen wouldn’t hitch +with any of the rest.</p> + +<p>“Do you know that Prexy had forbidden sliding on dust-pans?” +asked Mary Rich in the awkward pause that followed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” added Mary Brooks, “I forgot to tell you. So +it’s just as well that I lost mine in the shuffle.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span>“But +I’m sorry to have been the one to stop the fun,” said Betty +sadly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it wasn’t wholly that. Two other girls banged into each +other after we left.”</p> + +<p>“But you’re the famous one,” added Rachel, “because +you knocked over Miss Ferris. She looked so funny and knowing when Prexy +announced it in chapel.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I could do something for you too,” said Helen timidly, +after the rest had drifted out of the room.</p> + +<p>“Why you have,” Betty assured her. “You helped a lot both +times the doctor came, and you’ve stayed out of the room whenever I wanted +to sleep, and brought up all my meals, and written home for me.”</p> + +<p>Helen flushed. “That’s nothing. I meant something pretty like +those,” and she pointed to the tableful of flowers, and then going over to +it buried her face in the bowl of English violets.</p> + +<p>Betty watched her for a moment with a vague feeling of pity. “I +don’t suppose she has ten cents a month to spend on such things,” +she thought, “and as for having them sent to her―” Then she +said aloud, “We <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_183'></a>183</span> certainly don’t need any more of those at +present. Were you going to the basket-ball game?”</p> + +<p>“I thought I would, if you didn’t want me.”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit, and you’re to wear some violets–a nice big +bunch. Hand me the bowl, please, and I’ll tie them up.”</p> + +<p>Helen gave a little gasp of pleasure. Then her face clouded. “But I +couldn’t take your violets,” she added quickly.</p> + +<p>Betty laughed and went on tying up the bunch, only making it bigger than she +had at first intended. After Helen had gone she cried just a little. “I +don’t believe she ever had any violets before,” she said to the +green lizard. “Why, her eyes were like stars–she was positively +pretty.”</p> + +<p>More than one person noticed the happy little girl who sat quite alone in the +running track, dividing her eager attention between the game and the violets +which she wore pinned to her shabby, old-fashioned brown jacket.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Betty, propped up among her pillows, was trying to answer +Nan’s last letter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span>“You seem +to be interested in so many other people’s affairs,” Nan had +written, “that you haven’t any time for your own. Don’t make +the mistake of being a hanger-on.”</p> + +<p>“You see, Nan,” wrote Betty, “I am at last a heroine, an +interesting invalid, with scars, and five bouquets of flowers on my table. I am +sorry that I don’t amount to more usually. The trouble is that the other +people here are so clever or so something-or-other that I can’t help being +more interested in them. I’m afraid I am only an average girl, but I do +seem to have a lot of friends and Miss Ferris, whom you are always admiring, has +asked me to five o’clock tea. Perhaps, some day―”</p> + +<p>Writing with one’s left hand was too laborious, so Betty put the letter +in a pigeon-hole of her desk to be finished later. As she slipped the sheets in, +Miss Ferris’s note dropped out. “I wonder if I shall ever want to +ask her anything,” thought Betty, as she put it carefully away in the +small drawer of her desk that held her dearest treasures.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span><a id='link_12'></a>CHAPTER XII<br /><span class='h2fs'>A TRIUMPH FOR DEMOCRACY</span></h2> + +<p>By Wednesday Betty was well enough to go to classes, though she felt very +conspicuous with her scratched face and her wrist in a sling. And so when early +Wednesday afternoon Eleanor pounced on her and Katherine and demanded why they +were not starting to class-meeting, she replied that she at least was not +going.</p> + +<p>“Nor I,” said Katherine decidedly. “It’s sure to be +stupid.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry,” said Eleanor. “We may need you badly; +every one is so busy this week. Perhaps you’ll change your minds before +two-thirty, and if you do, please bring all the other girls that you can along. +You know the notice was marked important.”</p> + +<p>“Evidently all arranged beforehand,” sniffed Katherine, as +Eleanor departed, explaining that she had promised to be on hand early, ready to +drum up a quorum if necessary.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span>Betty looked out +at the clear winter sunshine. “I wanted a little walk,” she said. +“Let’s go. If it’s long and stupid we can leave; and we ought +to be loyal to our class.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” agreed Katherine. “I’ll go if you will. +I should rather like to see what they have on hand this time.”</p> + +<p>“They” meant the Hill-School contingent, who from the initial +meeting had continued to run the affairs of the class of 19–. Some of the +girls were indignant, and a few openly rebellious, but the majority were either +indifferent or satisfied that the Hill clique was as good as any other that +might get control in its stead. So the active opposition had been able to +accomplish nothing, and Hill’s machine, as a cynical sophomore had dubbed +it, had elected its candidates for three class officers and the freshman +representative on the Students’ Commission, while the various class +committees were largely made up of Jean Eastman’s intimate friends.</p> + +<p>“I hope that some of the crowd have nicer manners than our dear Eleanor +and are better students,” Mary Brooks had said to Betty. “Otherwise +I’m afraid your ship of state will <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_187'></a>187</span> run into a snag of faculty prejudices some fine +day.”</p> + +<p>Betty belonged to the indifferent faction of the class. She was greatly +interested in all its activities, and prepared to be proud of its achievements, +but she possessed none of the instincts of a wire-puller. So long as the class +offices were creditably filled she cared not who held them, and comparing her +ignorance of parliamentary procedure with the glib self-confidence of Jean, +Eleanor and their friends, she even felt grateful to them for rescuing the class +from the pitfalls that beset inexperience.</p> + +<p>Katherine, on the other hand, was a bitter opponent of what she called +“ring rule,” and Adelaide Rich, who was the only recruit that they +could succeed in adding to their party, had never forgotten the depths of +iniquity which her pessimistic acquaintance had revealed in the seemingly +innocent and well conducted first meeting, and was prepared to distrust +everything, down to the reading of the minutes.</p> + +<p>The three were vigorously applauded when they appeared in the door of No. 19, +the biggest recitation room in the main building and so <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span> the one invariably appropriated to +freshman assemblies. Katherine whispered to Mary that she had not known Betty +was quite so popular as all that; but a girl on the row behind the one in which +they found seats explained matters by whispering that three had been the exact +number needed to make up a quorum.</p> + +<p>The secretary’s report was hastily read and accepted, and then Miss +Eastman stated that the business of the meeting was to elect a class +representative for the Washington’s Birthday debate.</p> + +<p>“Some of you know,” she continued, “that the +Students’ Commission has decided to make a humorous debate the main +feature of the morning rally. We and the juniors are to take one side, and the +senior and sophomore representatives the other. Now I suppose the first thing to +decide is how our representative shall be chosen.”</p> + +<p>A buzz of talk spread over the room. “Why didn’t they let us know +beforehand–give us time to think who we’d have?” inquired the +talkative girl on the row behind.</p> + +<p>The president rapped for order as Kate <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_189'></a>189</span> Denise, her roommate, rose to make a motion.</p> + +<p>“Madame president, I move that the freshman representative aforesaid be +chosen by the chair. Of course,” she went on less formally, turning to the +girls, “that is by far the quickest way, and Jean knows the girls as a +whole so well–much better than any of us, I’m sure. I think that a +lot depends on choosing just the right person for our debater, and we ought not +to trust to a haphazard election.”</p> + +<p>“Haphazard is good,” muttered the loquacious freshman, in tones +plainly audible at the front of the room.</p> + +<p>“Of course that means a great responsibility for me,” murmured +the president modestly.</p> + +<p>“Put it to vote,” commanded a voice from the front row, which was +always occupied by the ruling faction. “And remember, all of you, that if +we ballot for representative we don’t get out of here till four +o’clock.”</p> + +<p>The motion was summarily put to vote, and the ayes had it at once, as the +ayes are likely to do unless a matter has been thoroughly discussed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span>“I name +Eleanor Watson, then,” said Miss Eastman with suspicious promptness. +“Will somebody move to adjourn?”</p> + +<p>“Well, of all ridiculous appointments!” exclaimed the loquacious +girl under cover of the applause and the noise of moving chairs.</p> + +<p>“Right you are!” responded Katherine, laughing at Adelaide +Rich’s disgusted expression.</p> + +<p>But Betty was smiling happily with her eyes on the merry group around +Eleanor. “Aren’t you glad, girls?” she said. +“Won’t she do well, and won’t the house be proud of +her?”</p> + +<p>“I for one never noticed that she was a single bit humorous,” +began Mary indignantly.</p> + +<p>Katherine pinched her arm vigorously. “Don’t! What’s the +use?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Nor I, but I suppose Miss Eastman knows that she can be funny,” +answered Betty confidently, as she hurried off to congratulate Eleanor.</p> + +<p>She was invited to the supper to be given at Cuyler’s that night in +Eleanor’s honor, and went home blissfully unconscious that half <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span> the class was talking +itself hoarse over Jean Eastman’s bad taste in appointing a notorious +“cutter” and “flunker” to represent them on so important +an occasion, just because she happened to be the best dressed and prettiest girl +in the Hill crowd.</p> + +<p>The next afternoon most of the girls were at gym or the library, and Betty, +who was still necessarily excused from her daily exercise, was working away on +her Latin, when some one knocked imperatively on her door. It was Jean +Eastman.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon, Miss Wales,” she said hurriedly. “Will you +lend me a pencil and paper? Eleanor has such a habit of keeping her desk locked, +and I want to leave her a note.”</p> + +<p>She scribbled rapidly for a moment, frowned as she read through what she had +written, and looked doubtfully from it to Betty. Then she rose to go. +“Will you call her attention to this, please?” she said. +“It’s very important. And, Miss Wales,–if she should consult +you, do advise her to resign quietly and leave it to me to smooth things +over.”</p> + +<p>“Resign?” repeated Betty vaguely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_192'></a>192</span>“Yes,” said Jean. “You +see–well, I might as well tell you now, that I’ve said so much. The +faculty object to her taking the debate. Perhaps you know that she’s very +much in their black books but I didn’t. And I never dreamed that they +would think it any of their business who was our debater, but I assure you they +do. At least half a dozen of them have spoken to me about her poor work and her +cutting. They say that she is just as much ineligible for this as she would be +for the musical clubs or the basket-ball team. Now what I want is for Eleanor to +write a sweet little note of resignation to-night, so that I can appoint some +one else bright and early in the morning.”</p> + +<p>Betty’s eyes grew big with anxiety. “But won’t the girls +guess the reason?” she cried. “Think how proud Eleanor is, Miss +Eastman. It would hurt her terribly if any one found out that she had been +conditioned. You shouldn’t have told me–indeed you +shouldn’t!”</p> + +<p>Jean laughed carelessly. “Well, you know now, and there’s no use +crying over spilt milk. I used that argument about the publicity of the affair +to the faculty, but it <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_193'></a>193</span> was no go. So the only thing for you to do is to +help Eleanor write a nice, convincing note of resignation that I can read at the +next meeting, when I announce my second appointment.”</p> + +<p>“But Eleanor won’t ask my help,” said Betty decidedly, +“and, besides, what can she say, after accepting all the congratulations, +and having the supper?”</p> + +<p>Jean laughed again. “I’m afraid you’re not a bit ingenious, +Miss Wales,” she said rising to go, “but fortunately Eleanor is. +Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>When Betty handed Eleanor the note she read it through unconcernedly, +unconcernedly tore it into bits as she talked, and spent the entire evening, +apparently, in perfect contentment and utter idleness, strumming softly on her +guitar.</p> + +<p>The next morning Betty met Jean on the campus. “Did she tell +you?” asked Jean.</p> + +<p>Betty shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I thought likely she hadn’t. Well, what do you suppose? She +won’t resign. She says that there’s no real reason she can give, and +that she’s now making it a rule to tell the <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span> truth; that I’m in a box, not +she, and I may climb out of it as best as I can.”</p> + +<p>“Did she really say that?” demanded Betty, a note of pleasure in +her voice.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” snapped Jean, “and since you’re so extremely +cheerful over it, perhaps you can tell me what to do next.”</p> + +<p>Betty stared at her blankly. “I forgot,” she said. “The +girls mustn’t know. We must cover it up somehow.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” agreed Jean crossly, “but what I want to know +is–how.”</p> + +<p>“Why not ask the class to choose its speaker? All the other classes +did.”</p> + +<p>Jean looked doubtful. “I know they did. That would make it very awkward +for me, but I suppose I might say there had been +dissatisfaction–that’s true enough,–and we could have it all +arranged―Well, when I call a meeting, be sure to come and help us +out.”</p> + +<p>The meeting was posted for Saturday, and all the Chapin house girls, except +Helen, who never had time for such things, and Eleanor, attended it. Eleanor was +expecting a caller, she said. Besides, as she hadn’t been to classes <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span> in the morning there was +no sense in emphasizing the fact by parading through the campus in the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>At the last minute she called Betty back. “Paul may not get over +to-day,” she said. “Won’t you come home right off to tell me +about it? I–well, you’ll see later why I want to know–if you +haven’t guessed already.”</p> + +<p>The class of 19– had an inkling that something unusual was in the wind +and had turned out in full force. There was no need of waiting for a quorum this +time. After the usual preliminaries Jean Eastman rose and began a halting, +nervous little speech.</p> + +<p>“I have heard,” she began, “that is–a great many +people in and out of the class have spoken to me about the matter of the +Washington’s Birthday debate. I mean, about the way in which our debater +was appointed. I understand there is a great deal of dissatisfaction–that +some of the class say they did not understand which way they were voting, and so +on. So I thought you might like to reconsider your vote. I certainly, +considering position in the matter, want you to have <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span> the chance to do so. Now, can we have +this point thoroughly discussed?” Then, as no one rose, “Miss Wales, +won’t you tell us what you think?”</p> + +<p>Betty stared helplessly at Jean for a moment and then, assisted by vigorous +pushes from Katherine and Rachel, who sat on either side of her, rose +hesitatingly to her feet. “Miss Eastman,–I mean, madame +president,” she began. She stopped for an instant to look at her audience. +Apparently the class of 19– was merely astonished and puzzled by +Jean’s suggestion; there was no indication that any one–except +possibly a few of the Hill girls–had any idea of her motive. “Madame +president,” repeated Betty, forcing back the lump that had risen in her +throat when she realized that the keeping of Eleanor’s secret lay largely +with her, “Miss Watson is my friend, and I was very much pleased to have +her for our representative. But I do feel, and I believe the other girls do, as +they come to think it over, that it would have been better to elect our +representative. Then we should every one of us have had a direct interest in the +result of the debate. Besides, all the other classes <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span> elected theirs, and so I think, if Miss +Watson is willing―”</p> + +<p>“Miss Watson is perfectly willing,” broke in Jean. “A +positive engagement unfortunately prevents her being here to say so, but she +authorized me to state that she preferred the elective choice herself, and to +tell you to do just as you think best in the matter. She―Go on, Miss +Wales.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that was all,” said Betty hastily slipping back into her +seat.</p> + +<p>A group of girls in the farthest corner of the room clapped vigorously.</p> + +<p>“Nothing cut-and-dried about that,” whispered Katherine to +Adelaide Rich.</p> + +<p>“Are there any more remarks?” inquired the president. No one +seemed anxious to speak, and she went on rather aimlessly. “Miss Wales has +really covered the ground, I think. The other classes all elected their +debaters, and I fancy they want us to do the same. As for the +faculty–well, I may as well say that they almost insist upon a +change.”</p> + +<p>“Good crawl,” whispered Katherine, who was quick to put two and +two together, to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span> +Adelaide Rich, who never got the point of any but the most obvious remarks, and +who now looked much perplexed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Betty had been holding whispered consultations with some of the +girls around her, and now she rose again. Her “madame president” was +so obviously prior to Kate Denise’s that when Kate was recognized there +was an ominous murmur of discontent and Jean apologized and promptly reversed +her decision.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I oughtn’t to speak twice,” said Betty blushing at +the commotion she had caused, “but if we are to change our vote, some of +us think it would be fun to hold a preliminary debate now, and choose our +speaker on her merits. We did that once at school―”</p> + +<p>“Good stunt,” called some one.</p> + +<p>“I move that Miss Wales as chairman select a committee of arrangements, +and that we have a five minute recess while the committee meets.”</p> + +<p>“I move that there be two committees, one for nominating speakers and +the other for choosing a subject.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span>“I move +that we reconsider our other vote first.”</p> + +<p>The motions were coming in helter-skelter from all quarters, instead of +decorously from the front row as usual. The president was trying vainly to +restore order and to remember whose motion should have precedence, and to make +way somehow for the prearranged nomination, which so far had been entirely +crowded out, when three girls in one corner of the room began thumping on their +seat-arms and chanting in rhythmic, insistent chorus, +“We–want–Emily–Davis. +We–want–Emily–Davis. +We–want–Emily–Davis.”</p> + +<p>Hardly any one in the room had ever heard of Emily Davis, but the three girls +constituted an original and very popular little coterie known individually as +Babe, Babbie, and Bob, or collectively as “the three B’s.” +They roomed on the top floor of the Westcott House and were famous in the house +for being at the same time prime favorites of the matron and the ringleaders in +every plot against her peace of mind, and outside for their unique and diverting +methods of recreation. It was they <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_200'></a>200</span> who had successfully gulled Mary Brooks with a +rumor as absurd as her own; and accounts of the “spread” they had +handed out to the night-watchman in a tin pail, and dangled just out of his +reach, in the hope of extracting a promise from that incorruptible worthy not to +report their lights, until the string incontinently broke and the ice cream and +lobster salad descended as a flood, were reported to have made even the august +president of the college laugh. Ergo, if they “wanted” Emily Davis, +she must be worth “wanting.” So their friends took up the cry, and +it quickly spread and gathered volume, until nearly everybody in the room was +shouting the same thing. Finally the president stepped forward and made one +determined demand for order.</p> + +<p>“Is Miss Emily Davis present?” she called, when the tumult had +slightly subsided.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” shouted the Three and the few others who knew Miss Davis +by sight.</p> + +<p>“Then will she please–why, exactly what is it that you want of +her?” questioned the president, a trifle haughtily.</p> + +<p>“Speech!” chorused the Three.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span>“Will Miss +Davis please speak to us?” asked the president.</p> + +<p>At that a very tall girl who was ineffectually attempting to hide behind +little Alice Waite was pulled and pushed to her feet, and amid a sudden silence +began the funniest speech that most of the class of 19– had ever listened +to; but it was not so much what she said as her inimitable drawling delivery and +her lunging, awkward gestures that brought down the house. When she took her +seat again, resolutely ignoring persistent cries of “More!” the +class applauded her to the echo and elected her freshman debater by +acclamation.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful what a change those twenty riotous minutes had made in the +spirit of the class of 19–. For the first time in its history it was an +enthusiastic, single-hearted unit, and to the credit of the Hill girls be it +said that no one was more enthusiastic or joined in the applause with greater +vigor than they. They had not meant to be autocratic–except three of them; +they had simply acted according to their lights, or rather, their leaders’ +lights. Now they understood how affairs could be conducted at Harding, and +during the rest of the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_202'></a>202</span> course they never entirely forgot or ignored the +new method.</p> + +<p>To Betty’s utter astonishment and consternation the lion’s share +of credit for the sudden triumph of democracy was laid at her door. The group +around her after the meeting was almost as large and quite as noisy as the one +that was struggling to shake hands with Miss Davis.</p> + +<p>“Don’t! You mustn’t. Why, it was the B’s who got her, +not I,” protested Betty vigorously.</p> + +<p>“No, you began it,” said Babe.</p> + +<p>“You bet you did,” declared Bob.</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. We were too scared to speak of her until you proposed +something like it,” added Babbie in her sweet, lilting treble.</p> + +<p>“You can’t get out of it. You are the real founder of this +democracy,” ended Christy Mason decidedly. Betty was proud of +Christy’s approval. It was fun, too, to have the Hill girls crowding +around and saying pleasant things to her.</p> + +<p>“I almost think I’m somebody at last. Won’t Nan be +pleased!” she reflected as she hurried home to keep her promise to +Eleanor. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span> Then she +laughed merrily all to herself. “Those silly girls! I really didn’t +do a thing,” she thought. And then she sighed. “I never get a chance +to be a bit vain. I wish I could–one little wee bit. I wonder if Mr. West +came.”</p> + +<p>It did not occur to Betty as at all significant that Jean Eastman and Kate +Denise had not spoken to her after the meeting, until, when she knocked on +Eleanor’s door, Eleanor came formally to open it. “Jean and Kate are +here,” she said coldly, “so unless you care to +stop―”</p> + +<p>Jean and Kate nodded silently from the couch where they were eating +candy.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said Betty in quick astonishment. “I’ll +come some other time.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t bother,” answered Eleanor rudely. +“They’ve told me all about it,” and she shut the door, leaving +Betty standing alone in the hall.</p> + +<p>Betty winked hard to keep back the tears as she hurried to her own room. What +could it all mean? She had done her best for Eleanor, and nobody had +guessed–they had been too busy laughing at that ridiculous <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span> Emily Davis–and +now Eleanor treated her like this. And Jean Eastman, too, when she had done +exactly what Jean wanted of her. Jean’s curtness was even less explainable +than Eleanor’s, though it mattered less. It was all–queer. Betty +smiled faintly as she applied Alice Waite’s favorite adjective. Well, +there was nothing more to be done until she could see Eleanor after dinner. So +she wiped her eyes, smoothed her hair, and went resolutely off to find Roberta, +whose heavy shoes–another of Roberta’s countless fads–had just +clumped past her door.</p> + +<p>“I’m writing my definitions for to-morrow’s English,” +announced Roberta. “For the one we could choose ourselves I’m going +to invent a word and then make up a meaning for it. Isn’t that a nice +idea?”</p> + +<p>“Very,” said Betty listlessly.</p> + +<p>Roberta looked at her keenly. “I believe you’re homesick,” +she said. “How funny after such a jubilant afternoon.”</p> + +<p>Betty smiled wearily. “Perhaps I am. Anyway, I wish I were at +home.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile in Eleanor’s room an acrimonious discussion was in +progress.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span>“The more +I think of it,” Kate Denise was saying emphatically, “the surer I am +that she didn’t do a thing against us this afternoon. She isn’t to +blame for having started a landslide by accident, Jean. Did you see her face +when Eleanor turned her down just now? She looked absolutely +nonplussed.”</p> + +<p>“Most people do when the lady Eleanor turns and rends them,” +returned Jean, with a reminiscent smile.</p> + +<p>“Just the same,” continued Kate Denise, “I say you have a +lot to thank her for this afternoon, Jean Eastman. She got you out of a tight +hole in splendid shape. None of us could have done it without stamping the whole +thing a put-up job, and most of the outsiders who could have helped you out, +wouldn’t have cared to oblige you. It was irritating to see her rallying +the multitudes, I’ll admit; but I insist that it wasn’t her fault. +We ought to have managed better.”</p> + +<p>“Say I ought to have managed better and be done with it,” +muttered Jean crossly.</p> + +<p>“You certainly ought,” retorted Eleanor. “You’ve made +me the laughing-stock of the whole college.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span>“No, +Eleanor,” broke in Kate Denise pacifically. “Truly, your dignity is +intact, thanks to Miss Wales and those absurd B’s who followed her +lead.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind them. I’m talking about Betty Wales. She was a friend +of mine–she was at the supper the other night. Why couldn’t she +leave it to some one else to object to your appointing me?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if that’s all you care about,” said Jean irritably, +“don’t blame Miss Wales. The thing had to be done you know. I +didn’t see that it mattered who did it, and so I–well, I practically +asked her. What I’m talking about is her way of going at it–her +having pushed herself forward so, and really thrown us out of power by using +what I–” Jean caught herself suddenly, remembering that Eleanor did +not know about Betty’s having been let into the secret.</p> + +<p>“By using what you told her,” finished Kate innocently. +“Well, why did you tell her all about it, if you didn’t +expect–”</p> + +<p>Eleanor stood up suddenly, her face white with anger. “How dared +you,” she challenged. “As if it wasn’t insulting enough to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207'></a>207</span> get me into a +scrape like this, and give any one with two eyes a chance to see through your +flimsy little excuses, but you have to go round telling people―”</p> + +<p>“Eleanor, stop,” begged Jean. “She was the only one I told. +I let it out quite by accident the day I came up here to see you. Not another +soul knows it but Kate, and you told her yourself. You’d have told Betty +Wales, too,–you know you would–if we hadn’t seen you first +this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose I should,” Eleanor retorted hotly. “What I do is +my own affair. Please go home.”</p> + +<p>Jean stalked out in silence, but Kate, hesitating between Scylla and +Charybdis, lingered to say consolingly, “Cheer up, Eleanor. When you come +to think it over, it won’t seem so―”</p> + +<p>“Please go home,” repeated Eleanor, and Kate hurried after her +roommate.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208'></a>208</span><a id='link_13'></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>SAINT VALENTINE’S ASSISTANTS</span></h2> + +<p>If Eleanor had taken Kate’s advice and indulged in a little calm +reflection, she would have realized how absolutely reasonless was her anger +against Betty Wales. Betty had been told of the official objections which made +it necessary for Eleanor to be withdrawn from the debate. Her action, then, had +been wholly proper and perfectly friendly. But Eleanor was in no mood for +reflection. A wild burst of passion held her firmly in its grasp. She hated +everybody and everything in Harding–the faculty who had made such a +commotion about two little low grades–for Eleanor had come surprisingly +near to clearing her record at mid-years,–Jean, who had stupidly brought +all this extra annoyance upon her; the class, who were glad to get rid of her, +Betty, who–yes, Jean had been right about one thing–Betty, who had +taken advantage of a friend’s misfortune to curry favor for herself. They +were all leagued against <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_209'></a>209</span> her. But–here the Watson pride suddenly +asserted itself–they should never know that she cared, never guess that +they had hurt her.</p> + +<p>She deliberately selected the most becoming of her new evening gowns, and in +an incredibly short time swept down to dinner, radiantly beautiful in the creamy +lace dress, and–outwardly at least–in her sunniest, most charming +mood. She insisted that the table should admire her dress, and the pearl pendant +which her aunt had just sent her.</p> + +<p>“I’m wearing it, you see, to celebrate my return to the freedom +of private life,” she rattled on glibly. “I understand you’ve +found a genius to take my place. I’m delighted that we have one in the +class. It’s so convenient. Who of you are going to the Burton House dance +to-night?”</p> + +<p>So she led the talk from point to point and from hand to hand. She bantered +Mary, deferred to Helen and the Riches, appealed in comradely fashion to +Katherine and Rachel. Betty alone she utterly, though quite unostentatiously, +ignored; and Betty, too much hurt to make any effort, stood aside and tried to +solve <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span> the riddle +of Eleanor’s latest caprice. On the way up-stairs Eleanor spoke to her for +the first time. She went up just ahead of her and at the top of the flight she +turned and waited.</p> + +<p>“I understand that you quite ran the class to-day,” she said with +a flashing smile. “The girls tell me that you’re a born orator, as +good in your way as the genius in hers.”</p> + +<p>Betty rallied herself for one last effort. “Don’t make fun of me, +Eleanor. Please let me come in and tell you about it. You don’t +understand―”</p> + +<p>“Possibly not,” said Eleanor coldly. “But I’m going +out now.”</p> + +<p>“Just for a moment!”</p> + +<p>“But I have to start at once. I’m late already.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well,” said Betty, and turned away to join Mary and +Roberta.</p> + +<p>Eleanor’s mind always worked with lightning rapidity, and while she +dressed she had gone over the whole situation and decided exactly how she would +meet it; and in the weeks that followed she kept rigidly to the course she had +marked out for herself, changing only one detail. At first she had <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211'></a>211</span> intended to have nothing +more to do with Jean, but she saw that a sudden breaking off of their friendship +would be remarked upon and wondered at. So she compromised by treating Jean +exactly as usual, but seeing her as little as possible. This made it necessary +to refuse many of her invitations to college affairs, for wherever she went Jean +was likely to go. So she spent much of her leisure time away from Harding; she +went to Winsted a great deal, and often ran down to Boston or New York for +Sunday, declaring that the trips meant nothing to a Westerner used to the +“magnificent distances” of the plains. Naturally she grew more and +more out of touch with the college life, more and more scornful of the girls who +could be content with the narrow, humdrum routine at Harding. But she concealed +her scorn perfectly. And she no longer neglected her work; she attended her +classes regularly and managed with a modicum of preparation to recite far better +than the average student. Furthermore her work was now scrupulously honest, and +she was sensitively alert to the slightest imputation of untruthfulness. She +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212'></a>212</span> offered no +specious explanations for her withdrawal from the debate, and when Mary Brooks +innocently inquired “what little yarn” she told the registrar, that +she could get away so often, Eleanor fixed her with an unpleasantly penetrative +stare and answered with all her old-time hauteur that she did not tell +“yarns.”</p> + +<p>“I have a note from my father. So long as I do my work and go to all my +classes, they really can’t object to my spending my Sundays as he +wishes.”</p> + +<p>Betty observed all these changes without being in the least able to reconcile +them with Eleanor’s new attitude toward herself. Unlike the friendship +with Jean, Eleanor’s intercourse with her had been inconspicuous, confined +mostly to the Chapin house itself. Even the girls there, because Eleanor had +stood so aloof from them, had seen little of it, so Eleanor was free to break it +off without thinking of public opinion, and she did so ruthlessly. From the day +of the class meeting she spoke to Betty only when she must, or, if no one was +by, when some taunting remark occurred to her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213'></a>213</span>At first Betty +tried her best to think how she could have offended, but she could not discuss +the subject with any one else and endless consideration and rejection of +hypotheses was fruitless, so after Eleanor had twice refused her an interview +that would have settled the matter, she sensibly gave it up. Eleanor would +perhaps “come round” in time. Meanwhile it was best to let her +alone.</p> + +<p>But Betty felt that she was having more than her share of trouble; Helen was +quite as trying in her way as Eleanor in hers. She had entirely lost her +cheerful air and seemed to have grown utterly discouraged with life.</p> + +<p>“And no wonder, for she studies every minute,” Betty told Rachel +and Katherine. “I think she feels hurt because the girls don’t get +to like her better, but how can they when she doesn’t give them any +chance?”</p> + +<p>“She’s awfully touchy lately,” added Katherine.</p> + +<p>“Poor little thing!” said Rachel.</p> + +<p>Then the three plunged into an animated discussion of basket-ball, and Rachel +and Katherine, who were on a sort of provisional team that included most of the +best freshman <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214'></a>214</span> +players and arrogated to itself the name of “The Stars,” showed +Betty in strictest confidence the new cross-play that “T. Reed” had +invented. “T. Reed” seemed to be the basket-ball genius of the +freshman class. She was the only girl who was perfectly sure to be on the +regular team.</p> + +<p>It is one of the fine things about college that no matter who of your friends +are temporarily lost to you, there is always somebody else to fall back upon, +and some new interest to take the place of one that flags. Betty had noticed +this and been amused by it early in her course. Sometimes, as she said to Miss +Ferris in one of her many long talks with that lady, things change so fast that +you really begin to wonder if you can be the same person you were last week.</p> + +<p>Besides the inter-class basket-ball game, there was the Hilton House play to +talk about and look forward to, and the rally; and, nearer still, St. +Valentine’s day. It was a long time, to be sure, since Betty had been much +excited over the last named festival; in her experience only children exchanged +valentines. But at Harding it seemed to be <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_215'></a>215</span> different. While the day was still several weeks +off she had received three invitations to valentine parties. She consulted Mary +Brooks and found that this was not at all unusual.</p> + +<p>“All the campus houses give them,” Mary explained, “and the +big ones outside, just as they do for Hallowe’en. They have valentine boxes, you +know, and sometimes fancy dress balls.”</p> + +<p>And there the matter would have dropped if Mary had not spent all her monthly +allowance three full weeks before she was supposed to have any more. Poverty was +Mary’s chronic state. Not that Dr. Brooks’s checks were small, but +his daughter’s spending capacity was infinite.</p> + +<p>“You wait till you’re a prominent sophomore,” she said when +Katherine laughed at her, “and all your friends are making societies, and +you just have to provide violets and suppers, in hopes that they’ll do as +much for you later on. The whole trouble is that father wants me to be on an +allowance, instead of writing home for money when I’m out. And no matter +how much I say I need, it never lasts out the month.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216'></a>216</span>“Why +don’t you tutor?” suggested Rachel, who got along easily on a third +of what Mary spent. “I hope to next year.”</p> + +<p>“Tutor!” repeated Mary with a reminiscent chuckle. “I tried +to tutor my cousin this fall in algebra, and the poor thing flunked much worse +than before. But anyway the faculty wouldn’t give me regular tutoring. I +look too well-to-do. Ah! how deceitful are appearances!” sighed Mary, +opening her pocketbook, where five copper pennies rattled about forlornly.</p> + +<p>But the very next day she dashed into Betty’s room proclaiming loudly, +“I have an idea, and I want you to help me, Betty Wales. You can draw and +I’ll cut them out and drum up customers, and I guess I can write the +verses. We ought to make our ad. to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Our what?” inquired Betty in an absolutely mystified tone.</p> + +<p>Then Mary explained that she proposed to sell valentines. “Lots of the +girls who can’t draw buy theirs, not down-town, you know–we +don’t give that kind here,–but cunning little hand-made ones with +pen-and-ink drawings <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_217'></a>217</span> and original verses. Haven’t you noticed the +signs on the ‘For Sale’ bulletin?”</p> + +<p>Betty had not even seen that bulletin board since she and Helen had hunted +second-hand screens early in the fall, but the plan sounded very attractive; it +would fill up her spare hours, and keep her from worrying over Eleanor, and +getting cross at Helen, so she was very willing to help if Mary honestly thought +she could draw well enough.</p> + +<p>“Goodness, yes!” said Mary, rushing off to borrow Roberta’s +water-color paper and Katherine’s rhyming dictionary.</p> + +<p>So the partnership was formed, a huge red heart covered with hastily +decorated samples was stuck up on the “For Sale” bulletin in the +gymnasium basement, and, as Betty’s cupids were really very charming and +her Christy heads quite as good as the average copy, names began to appear in +profusion on the order-sheet.</p> + +<p>Mary had written two sample verses with comparative ease, and in the first +flush of confidence she had boldly printed on the sign: “Rhymed grinds for +special persons <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218'></a>218</span> +furnished at reasonable rates.” But later, when everybody seemed to want +that kind, even the valuable aid of the rhyming dictionary did not disprove the +adage that poets are born, not made.</p> + +<p>“I can’t–I just can’t do them,” wailed Mary +finally. “Jokes simply will not go into rhyme. What shall we +do?”</p> + +<p>“Get Roberta–she writes beautifully–and Katherine–she +told me that she’d like to help,” suggested Betty, without looking +up from the chubby cupid she was fashioning.</p> + +<p>So Katherine and Roberta were duly approached and Katherine was added to the +firm. Roberta at first said she couldn’t, but finally, after exacting +strict pledges of secrecy, she produced half a dozen dainty little lyrics, +bidding Mary use them if she wished–they were nothing. But no amount of +persuasion would induce her to do any more.</p> + +<p>However, Katherine’s genius was nothing if not profuse, and she +preferred to do “grinds,” so Mary could devote herself to +sentimental effusions,–which, so she declared, did not have to have any +special point and so were within her powers,–and to the business <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219'></a>219</span> end of the project. +This, in her view, consisted in perching on a centrally located window-seat in +the main building, in the intervals between classes, and soliciting orders from +all passers-by, to the consequent crowding of the narrow halls and the great +annoyance of the serious-minded, who wished to reach their recitations promptly. +But from her point of view she was strikingly successful.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, I never appreciated how easy it is to make money if you +only set about it in the right way,” she announced proudly one day at +luncheon. “By the way, Betty, would you run down after gym to get our old +order sheet and put up a new one? I have a special topic in psychology +to-morrow, and if Professor Hinsdale really thinks I’m clever I +don’t want to undeceive him too suddenly.”</p> + +<p>Betty promised, but after gym Rachel asked her to stay and play basket-ball +with “The Stars” in the place of an absent member. Naturally she +forgot everything else and it was nearly six o’clock when, sauntering home +from an impromptu tea-drinking at the Belden House, she remembered the order +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220'></a>220</span> sheet. It was very +dusky in the basement. Betty, plunging down the steps that led directly into the +small room where the bulletin board was, almost knocked down a girl who was +curled up on the bottom step of the flight.</p> + +<p>“Goodness! did I hurt you?” she said, a trifle exasperated that +any one should want to sit alone in the damp darkness of the basement.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and Betty, whose eyes were growing accustomed to the dim +light, observed with consternation that her companion was doing her best to stop +crying.</p> + +<p>As has already been remarked, Betty hated tears as a kitten hates rain. +Personally she never cried without first locking her door, and she could imagine +nothing so humiliating as to be caught, unmistakably weeping, by a stranger. So +she turned aside swiftly, peered about in the shadows for the big red heart, +changed the order sheet, and was wondering whether she would better hurry out +past the girl or wait for her to recover her composure and depart, when the girl +took the situation out of her hands by rising and saying <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_221'></a>221</span> in cheery tones, “Good-evening, +Miss Wales. Are you going my way?”</p> + +<p>“I–why it’s Emily–I mean Miss–Davis,” +cried Betty.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s Emily Davis, in the blues, the more shame to her, when +she ought to be at home getting supper this minute. Wait just a second, +please.” Miss Davis went over to the signs, jerked down one, and picking +up her books from the bottom step announced without the faintest trace of +embarrassment, “Now I’m ready.”</p> + +<p>“But are you sure you want me?” inquired Betty timidly.</p> + +<p>“Bless you, yes,” said Miss Davis. “I’ve wanted to +know you for ever so long. I’m sorry you caught me being a goose, +though.”</p> + +<p>“And I’m sorry you felt like crying,” said Betty shyly. +“Why, Miss Davis, I should want to laugh all the time if I’d done +what you did the other day. I should be so proud.”</p> + +<p>Miss Davis smiled happily down at her small companion. “I was +proud,” she said simply. “I only hope I can do as well week after +next. But Miss Wales, that was the jam <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_222'></a>222</span> of college life. There’s the bread and butter +too, you know, and sometimes that’s a lot harder to earn than the +jam.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean―” began Betty and stopped, not wanting to risk +hurting Miss Davis’s feelings.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I mean that I’m working my way through. I have a +scholarship, but there’s still my board and clothes and books.”</p> + +<p>“And you do it all?”</p> + +<p>Miss Davis nodded. “My cousin sends me some clothes.”</p> + +<p>“How do you do it, please?”</p> + +<p>“Tutor, sort papers and make typewritten copies of things for the +faculty, put on dress braids (that’s how I met the B’s), mend +stockings, and wait on table off and on when some one’s maid leaves +suddenly. We thought it would be cheaper and pleasanter to board ourselves and +earn our money in different ways than to take our board in exchange for regular +table-waiting; but I don’t know. The other way is surer.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you don’t find work enough?”</p> + +<p>Miss Davis nodded. “It takes a good deal,” she said +apologetically, “and there isn’t <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_223'></a>223</span> much tutoring that freshmen can do. After this year +it will be easier.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” gasped Betty. “Don’t you get any–any +help from home?”</p> + +<p>“Well, they haven’t been able to send any yet, but they hope to +later,” said Miss Davis brightly.</p> + +<p>“And does it pay when you have to work so hard for it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” answered Miss Davis promptly. “All three of us +are sure that it pays.”</p> + +<p>“Three of you live together?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Of course there are ever so many others in the college, and +I’m sure all of them would say the same thing.”</p> + +<p>“And–I hope I’m not being rude–but do girls–do +you advertise things down on that bulletin board? I don’t know much about +it. I never was there but once till I went to-day on–on an errand for a +friend,” Betty concluded awkwardly. Perhaps she had been an interloper. +Perhaps that bulletin board had not been meant for girls like her.</p> + +<p>Miss Davis evidently assumed that she had been to leave an order. “You +ought to buy more,” she said laughingly. “But you want <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224'></a>224</span> to know what I was there +for, don’t you? Why yes, we do make a good deal off that bulletin board. +One of the girls paints a little and she advertises picture frames–Yale +and Harvard and Pennsylvania ones, you know. I sell blue-prints. A senior lends +me her films. She has a lot of the faculty and the campus, and they go pretty +well. We use the money we make from those things for little extras–ribbons +and note-books and desserts for Sunday. We hoped to make quite a bit on +valentines―”</p> + +<p>“Valentines?” repeated Betty sharply.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but a good many others thought of it too, and we didn’t get +any orders–not one. Ours weren’t so extra pretty and it was foolish +of me to be so disappointed, but we’d worked hard getting ready and we did +want a little more money so much.”</p> + +<p>They had reached Betty’s door by this time, and Miss Davis hurried on, +saying it was her turn to get supper and begging Betty to come and see them. +“For we’re very cozy, I assure you. You mustn’t think we have +a horrid time just because–you know why.”</p> + +<p>Betty went straight to Mary’s room, which, <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_225'></a>225</span> since she had no roommate to object to +disorder, had been the chief seat of the valentine industry.</p> + +<p>“You’re a nice one,” cried Katherine, “staying off +like this when to-day is the eleventh.”</p> + +<p>“Many orders?” inquired Mary.</p> + +<p>Betty sat down on Mary’s couch, ruthlessly sweeping aside a mass of +half finished valentines to make room. “Girls, this has got to +stop,” she announced abruptly.</p> + +<p>Mary dropped her scissors and Katherine shut the rhyming dictionary with a +bang.</p> + +<p>“What is the trouble?” they asked in chorus.</p> + +<p>Then Betty told her story, suppressing only Emily’s name and mentioning +all the details that had made up the point and pathos of it. “And just +think!” she said at last. “She’s a girl you’d both be +proud to know, and she works like that. And we stepped in and took away a chance +of–of ribbons and note-books and dessert for Sunday.”</p> + +<p>“May be not; perhaps hers were so homely they wouldn’t have sold +anyway,” suggested Katherine with an attempt at jocoseness.</p> + +<p>“Don’t, please,” said Betty wearily.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226'></a>226</span>Mary came and +sat down beside her on the couch. “Well, what’s to be done about it +now?” she asked soberly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. We can’t give them orders because she took +her sign down. I thought perhaps–how much have we made?”</p> + +<p>“Fifteen dollars easily. All right; we’ll send it to +them.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” chimed in Katherine. “I was only joking. Shall +we finish these up?”</p> + +<p>“Yes indeed,” said Mary, “they’re all ordered, and +the more money the better, n’est ce pas, Betty? But aren’t we to know the +person’s name?”</p> + +<p>Betty hesitated. “Why–no–that is if you don’t mind +very much. You see she sort of told me about herself because she had to, so I +feel as if I oughtn’t to repeat it. Do you mind?”</p> + +<p>“Not one bit,” said Katherine quickly. “And we +needn’t say anything at all about it, except–don’t you think +the girls here in the house will have to know that we’re going to give +away the money?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” put in Mary, “and we’ll make them all give us +extra orders.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227'></a>227</span>“We will +save out a dollar for you to live on till March,” said Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, I shall borrow of you,” retorted Mary, and then they all +laughed and felt better.</p> + +<p>On St. Valentine’s morning Betty posted a registered valentine. The +verse read:–</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“There are three of us and three of you,<br /> Though +only one knows one,<br /> So pray accept this little gift<br /> + And go and have some fun.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>But if the rhyme went haltingly and was not quite true either, as Betty +pointed out, since Adelaide and Alice had contributed to the fund, and the whole +house had bought absurd quantities of valentines because it was such a +“worthy object” (“just as if I wasn’t a worthy +object!” sighed Mary), there was nothing the matter with the “little +gift,” which consisted of three crisp ten dollar bills.</p> + +<p>“Oh, if they should feel hurt!” thought Betty anxiously, and +dodged Emily Davis so successfully that until the day of the rally they did not +meet.</p> + +<p>That week was a tremendously exciting <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_228'></a>228</span> one. To begin with, on the twentieth the members of +both the freshman basket-ball teams were announced. Rachel was a +“home” on the regular team, and Katherine a guard on the +“sub,” so the Chapin house fairly bubbled over with pride and +pleasure in its double honors. Then on the morning of the twenty-second came the +rally with its tumultuous display of class and college loyalty, its songs +written especially for the occasion, its shrieks of triumph or derision (which +no intrusive reporter should make bold to interpret or describe as “class +yells,” since such masculine modes of expression are unknown at Harding), +and its mock-heroic debate on the vital issue, “Did or did not George +Washington cut down that cherry-tree?”</p> + +<p>Every speaker was clever and amusing, but Emily Davis easily scored the hit +of the morning. For whereas most freshmen are frightened and appear to +disadvantage on such an occasion, she was perfectly calm and self-possessed, and +made her points with exactly the same irresistible gaucherie and daring infusion +of local color that had distinguished her performance at the class meeting. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229'></a>229</span> Besides, she was a +“dark horse”; she did not belong to the leading set in her class, +nor to any other set, for that matter, and this fact, together with the novel +method of her election made her interesting to her essentially democratic +audience. So when the judges–five popular members of the +faculty–announced their decision in favor of the negative, otherwise the +junior-freshman side of the debate, 19–’s enthusiasm knew no bounds, +and led by the delighted B’s they carried their speaker twice round the +gym on their shoulders–which is an honor likely to be remembered by its +recipient for more reasons than one.</p> + +<p>As the clans were scattering, it suddenly occurred to Betty that, if Emily +did not guess anything, it would please her to be congratulated on the +excellence of her debate; and if, as was more likely, she had guessed, there was +little to be gained by postponing the dreaded interview. She chose a moment when +Emily was standing by herself in one corner of the gymnasium. Emily did not wait +for her to begin her speech of congratulation.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Miss Wales,” she cried, “I’ve been to see you +six times, and you are never there. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_230'></a>230</span> It was lovely of you–lovely–but ought +we to take it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. It belongs to you; honestly it does. Don’t ask me +how, for it’s too long a story. Just take my word for it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but―” began Emily doubtfully.</p> + +<p>At that moment some one called, “Hurrah for 19–!” Betty +caught up the cry and seizing Emily’s hand rushed her down the hall, +toward a group of freshmen.</p> + +<p>“Make a line and march,” cried somebody else, and presently a +long line of 19– girls was winding in noisy lock-step down the hall, +threading in and out between groups of upper-class girls and cheering and +gaining recruits as it went.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah for 19–!” cried Betty hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“Take it for 19–,” she whispered to Emily, as the line +stopped with a jerk that knocked their heads together.</p> + +<p>“If you are sure― Thank you for 19–,” Emily whispered +back.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“Here’s to 19–, drink her down!<br /> Here’s to +19–, drink her down!”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>As the chorus rose and swelled Betty felt, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_231'></a>231</span> as she never had before, what it meant to be a +college girl at Harding.</p> + +<p>As Betty was leaving the gymnasium she met Eleanor face to face in the +hallway.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it fun?” said Betty, shyly. Perhaps, now that the +debate was over, Eleanor would be ready to make friends again.</p> + +<p>“Patronizing the genius, do you mean?” asked Eleanor slowly. +“I hope she didn’t buy that hideous salmon-pink waist with your +money.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Eleanor, how did you ever find out?” cried Betty, deeply +distressed. Only a few of the Chapin house girls knew anything about the +disposition of the valentine money, and not even the rest of the firm had been +told who had received it. So Betty had thought the secret perfectly safe.</p> + +<p>“No one told me about your private affairs,” returned Eleanor +significantly. “I guessed and I congratulate you. The genius will be a +useful ally. She will get all the freaks’ votes for you, +when―”</p> + +<p>“Eleanor Watson, come on if you’re coming,” called a voice +from the foot of the stairs, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_232'></a>232</span> and Eleanor marched blithely off, without finishing +her sentence.</p> + +<p>Betty stared after her with unseeing eyes. So that was it! She was to blame +because Jean had told her of Eleanor’s predicament–told her against +her wish. And now she was supposed to be trying to get votes.</p> + +<p>“Votes for what, I wonder? How perfectly absurd!” said Betty to +the brick wall she was facing. But the appropriate smile would not come, for the +absurdity had cost her a friend whom she had loved dearly in spite of her +faults.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233'></a>233</span><a id='link_14'></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /><span class='h2fs'>A BEGINNING AND A SEQUEL</span></h2> + +<p>“I shan’t be here to dinner Sunday,” announced Helen Chase +Adams with an odd little thrill of importance in her voice.</p> + +<p>“Shan’t you?” responded her roommate absently. She was +trying to decide which dress to wear to the Hilton House play. Her pink organdie +was prettiest, but she really ought to save that for the Glee Club concert. And +should she ask her cousin Jack Burgess up from Harvard for the concert, or would +it be better to invite Mr. Parsons? These absorbing questions left her small +attention to bestow on so comparatively commonplace a matter as an invitation +out to Sunday dinner.</p> + +<p>“I thought you might like to have some one in my place,” +continued Helen, moving the pink organdie waist on to the same chair with the +batiste skirt.</p> + +<p>Betty came to herself with a start. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t +see that I had taken <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_234'></a>234</span> up all the chairs. I was trying to decide what to +wear to the dramatics.”</p> + +<p>“And I was thinking what I’d wear Sunday,” said Helen.</p> + +<p>It was so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one’s +notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry look, +and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the background played +around the corners of her mouth.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad she’s got over the blues,” thought Betty. +“Why, where are you going?” she asked aloud.</p> + +<p>“Oh, only to the Westcott House,” answered Helen with an +assumption of unconcern. “Would you wear the blue silk waist or the brown +dress?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the Westcott is the swellest house on the campus, you know. When +I go there I always put on my very best.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but which is my best?”</p> + +<p>Betty considered a moment. “Why, of course they’re both +pretty,” she began with kindly diplomacy, “but dresses are more the +thing than waists. Still, the blue is very <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_235'></a>235</span> becoming. But I think–yes, I’m sure +I’d wear the brown.”</p> + +<p>“All right. If you change your mind before Sunday you can let me +know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Betty briefly. She was examining the batiste skirt to +see if it would need pressing for the dramatics. After all, Jack was more fun, +and probably Mr. Parsons was invited by this time anyhow–he knew lots of +Harding girls. What was the name of Jack’s dormitory house? She would ask +the Riches; they had a brother in the same one. So she strolled off to find the +Riches, and incidentally to get the latest basket-ball news from Rachel and +Katherine. At nine o’clock they turned her out; they were in training and +supposed to be fast asleep by nine-thirty. When she opened her own door, Helen +was still sitting idly in the wicker rocker, looking as if she would be +perfectly content to stay there indefinitely with her pleasant thoughts for +company.</p> + +<p>Betty had quite lost interest in Helen lately; she had small patience with +people who moped, and besides, between Eleanor and the valentine enterprise, her +thoughts had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236'></a>236</span> been +fully engrossed. But this new mood made her curious. “She acts as if +she’d got a crush,” she decided. “She’s just the kind to +have one, and probably her divinity has asked her to dinner, and she can’t +put her mind on anything else. But who on earth could it be–in the +Westcott House?”</p> + +<p>She was on the point of inquiring, when Helen diverted her attention to +something else. “I made a wonderful discovery to-day,” she said. +“Theresa Reed and T. Reed are the same person.”</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “They might easily be,” she said. “I +don’t see that it was so wonderful.”</p> + +<p>“Why, I’ve known Theresa all this year–she was the one that +asked me to go off with her house for Mountain Day. She’s the best friend +I have here, but she never told me that she was specially interested in +basket-ball and I never thought–well, I guess I never imagined that a dear +friend of mine could be the celebrated T. Reed,” laughed Helen happily. +“But all sorts of nice things are happening to me lately.”</p> + +<p>“That’s good,” said Betty. “It seems to <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237'></a>237</span> be just the opposite +with me,” and she plunged into her note to Jack, which must be ready for +the next morning’s post.</p> + +<p>All that week Helen went about fairly wreathed in smiles. Her shyness seemed +to have vanished suddenly. She joined gaily in the basket-ball gossip at the +table, came out into the hall to frolic with the rest of the house at ten +o’clock, and in general acted as a happy, well-conducted freshman +should.</p> + +<p>The Chapin house brought its amazement over the “dig’s” +frivolity to Betty, but she had very little to tell them. “All I know is +that she’s awfully pleased about being a friend of T. Reed’s. And oh +yes–she’s invited out to dinner next Sunday. But of course there +must be something else.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps she’s going to have a man up for the concert,” +suggested Katherine flippantly.</p> + +<p>“Are you?” inquired Mary Rich, and with that the regeneration of +Helen was forgotten in the far more absorbing topic of the Glee Club +concert.</p> + +<p>Sunday came at last. “I’m not going to church, Betty,” said +Helen shyly. “I want to have plenty of time to get dressed for +dinner.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238'></a>238</span>“Yes, +indeed,” said Betty carelessly. She had just received an absurd letter +from Jack. He was coming “certain-sure”; he wanted to see her about +a very serious matter, he said. “Incidentally” he should be +delighted to go to the concert. There was a mysterious postscript +too:–“How long since you got so fond of Bob Winchester?”</p> + +<p>“I never heard of any such person. What do you suppose he means?” +Betty asked Mary Brooks as they walked home from church together. Mary had also +invited a Harvard man to the concert and Dorothy King had found them both seats, +so they were feeling unusually friendly and sympathetic.</p> + +<p>“I can’t imagine. Do let me see his letter,” begged Mary. +“He must be no end of fun.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a worse tease than you,” said Betty, knocking on her +door.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” called Helen Chase Adams eagerly. “Betty, would +you please hook my collar, and would one of you see what time it really is? I +don’t like to depend too much on my watch.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll be at least ten minutes too early,” <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239'></a>239</span> sighed Betty, when Helen +had finally departed in a flutter of haste. “And see this room! But I +oughtn’t to complain,” she added, beginning to clear up the dresser. +“I’m always leaving it like this myself; but someway I don’t +expect it of Helen.”</p> + +<p>“Who asked her to dinner to-day?” inquired Mary Brooks. She had +been sitting in a retired corner, vastly enjoying the unusual spectacle of Helen +Adams in a frenzy of excitement.</p> + +<p>“Why, I don’t know. I never thought to ask,” said Betty, +straightening the couch pillows. “I only hope she’ll have as good a +time as she expects.”</p> + +<p>“Poor youngster!” said Mary. “Wish I’d asked Laurie +to jolly her up a bit.”</p> + +<p>It is to be presumed that these fears were groundless, since the bell was +ringing for five o’clock vespers when Helen came back. Betty was sitting +at her desk pretending to write letters, but really trying to decide whether she +should say anything to Eleanor apropos of her remarks about Emily Davis, and if +so, whether she should do it now. Mary Brooks curled up on Betty’s couch, +dividing her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240'></a>240</span> +attention between Jack Burgess’s picture and a new magazine.</p> + +<p>“Had a good time, didn’t you?” she remarked sociably when +Helen appeared.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said Helen happily. “You see I don’t go +out very often. Were you ever at the Westcott House for dinner?”</p> + +<p>“Once,” chuckled Mary. “But I found they didn’t have +ice-cream, because the matron doesn’t approve of buying things on Sunday; +so I’ve turned them down ever since.”</p> + +<p>Helen laughed merrily. “How funny! I never missed it!” There was +a becoming flush on her cheeks, a pretty new confidence in her manner.</p> + +<p>“Helen, who did you say asked you to the Westcott?” inquired +Betty.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say, because you didn’t ask me,” returned +Helen truthfully, “but it was Miss Mills.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Mills!” repeated Mary. “Well, my child, I don’t +wonder that you were rattled this noon, being invited around by the faculty. +Gracious, what a compliment to a young freshman!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241'></a>241</span>“I should +think so!” chimed in Betty eagerly.</p> + +<p>In spite of her embarrassment Helen evidently enjoyed the sensation she was +producing. “I thought it was awfully nice,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” demanded Mary. “Why, +child, you must be a bright and shining shark in lit.”</p> + +<p>Helen’s happy face clouded suddenly. “I’m not, am I, +Betty?” she asked appealingly.</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “Why no, since you ask me. No, she isn’t, Mary. +She sits on the back row with me and we don’t either of us say an extra +word. It’s math, and Latin and Greek that Helen shines in.”</p> + +<p>“Well, are you awfully devoted to Miss Mills?” pursued Mary. +“Is that why she asked you?”</p> + +<p>Helen shook her head. “I like her. She reads beautifully and sometimes +she says very interesting things, doesn’t she, Betty?”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t noticed,” answered her roommate hastily.</p> + +<p>“Well, I think she does, but I never told her I thought so. It +couldn’t be that.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242'></a>242</span>“Then why +did she ask you?” demanded Mary.</p> + +<p>“I suppose because she wanted me,” said Helen happily. “I +can’t think of any other reason. Isn’t it lovely?”</p> + +<p>“Yes indeed,” agreed Mary. “It’s so grand that +I’m going off this minute to tell everybody in the house about it. +They’ll be dreadfully envious,” and she left the roommates +alone.</p> + +<p>Helen pulled off her best gloves carefully, and laid them neatly away, then +she put up her hat and coat and sat down in her favorite wicker chair. “I +guess I left the room in a dreadful muss this noon,” she said +apologetically. “I guess I acted silly and excited, but you see–I +said I hadn’t been out often–this is the very first time I’ve +been invited out to a meal since I came to Harding.”</p> + +<p>“Really?” said Betty, thinking guiltily of her own multitude of +invitations.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I hoped you hadn’t any of you noticed it. I hate to be +pitied. Now you can just like me.”</p> + +<p>“Just like you?” repeated Betty vaguely.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Don’t you see? I’m not left out <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_243'></a>243</span> any more.” She hesitated, then +went on rapidly. “You see I had a lovely time at first, at the sophomore +reception and the frolic and all, but it stopped and–this was a good while +coming, and I got discouraged. Wasn’t it silly? I–oh, it’s all +right now. I wouldn’t change places with anybody.” She began to rock +violently. Betty had noticed that Helen rocked when other girls sang or danced +jigs.</p> + +<p>“But I thought–we all thought,” began Betty, “that +you had decided you preferred to study–that you didn’t care for our +sort of fun. You haven’t seemed to lately.”</p> + +<p>“Not since it came over me why you girls here in the house were nice to +me when nobody else was except Theresa,” explained Helen with appalling +frankness. “You were sorry for me. I thought it out the day after you gave +me the violets. Before I came to Harding,” she went on, “I did think +that college was just to study. It’s funny how you change your mind after +you get here–how you begin to see that it’s a lot bigger than you +thought. And it’s queer how little you care about doing well in class when +you haven’t <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244'></a>244</span> +anything else to care about.” She gave a little sigh, then got up +suddenly. “I almost forgot; I have a message for Adelaide. And by the way, +Betty, I saw your Miss Hale; she and somebody else were just going in to see +Miss Mills when I left.”</p> + +<p>She had scarcely gone when Mary sauntered back as if by accident. +“Well, have you found out?” she asked. “As a student of +psychology I’m vastly interested in this situation.”</p> + +<p>“Found out what?” asked Betty unsmilingly.</p> + +<p>“Why Miss Mills asked her, and why she is so pleased.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose Miss Mills asked her because she was sorry for her,” +answered Betty slowly, “and Helen is pleased because she doesn’t +know it. Mary, she’s been awfully lonely.”</p> + +<p>“Too bad,” commented Mary. Unhappiness always made her feel +awkward.</p> + +<p>“But she says this makes up to her for everything,” added +Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve noticed that life is a pretty even thing in the +end,” returned Mary, relieved <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_245'></a>245</span> that there was no present call on her sympathies, +“but I must confess I don’t see how one dinner invitation, even if +it is from―”</p> + +<p>Just then Helen tapped on the door.</p> + +<p>Down in Miss Mills’s room they were discussing much the same point.</p> + +<p>“It’s a shame for you to waste your Sundays over these +children,” said Miss Hale.</p> + +<p>Miss Mills stopped her tea-making to dissent. “It isn’t wasted if +she cared. She was so still that I couldn’t be sure, but judging from the +length of time she stayed―”</p> + +<p>“She was smiling all over her face when we met her,” interrupted +Miss Meredith. “Who is she, anyway?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, just nobody in particular,” laughed Miss Mills, “just +a forlorn little freshman named Adams.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t quite see how―” began Miss Hale.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you wouldn’t,” said Miss Mills easily. “You were +president of your class when you were a freshman. I was nobody in particular, +and I know what it’s like.”</p> + +<p>“But why not leave it to her friends to hearten her up?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_246'></a>246</span>“Apparently she hasn’t any, or if she +has, they’re as out of things as she is.”</p> + +<p>“Well, to the other girls then.”</p> + +<p>“When girls are happy they are cruel,” said Miss Mills briefly, +“or perhaps they’re only careless.”</p> + +<p>Betty, after a week’s consideration, put the matter even more +specifically. “I tried to make her over because I wanted a different kind +of roommate,” she said, “and we all let her see that we were sorry +for her. Miss Mills made her feel as if―”</p> + +<p>“She had her dance card full and was splitting her waltzes,” +supplied Mary, who was just back from an afternoon at Winsted.</p> + +<p>“Exactly like that,” agreed Betty, laughing. “I wish +I’d done it,” she added wistfully.</p> + +<p>“You kept her going till her chance came,” said Mary. “She +owes a lot to you, and she knows it.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t,” protested Betty, flushing. “I tell you, I +was only thinking of myself when I tried to fix her up, and then after a while I +got tired of her and let her alone. I was horrid, but she’s forgiven me +and we’re real friends now.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247'></a>247</span>“Well, we +can’t do but so much apiece,” said Mary practically. “And +I’ve noticed that ‘jam,’ as your valentine girl called it, is a +mighty hard thing to give to people who really need it.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the gift had been managed in Helen’s case; she had gotten +her start at last. Miss Mills’s tactful little attention had furnished her +with the hope and courage that she lacked, had given her back the +self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had wounded. Whatever the girls might +think, she knew she was “somebody” now, and she would go ahead and +prove it. She could, too–she no longer doubted her possession of the +college girl’s one talent that Betty had laughed about. For there was +Theresa Reed, her friend down the street. She was homely and awkward, she wore +dowdy clothes and wore them badly, she was slow and plodding; but there was one +thing that she could do, and the girls admired her for it and had instantly made +a place for her. Helen was glad of a second proof that those things did not +matter vitally. She set herself happily to work to study T. Reed’s +methods, and she began to look forward <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_248'></a>248</span> to the freshman-sophomore game as eagerly as did +Betty or Katherine.</p> + +<p>But before the game there was the concert. Jack Burgess, having missed his +connections, arrived in Harding exactly twenty-seven minutes before it began. As +they drove to the theatre he inquired if Betty had received all three of his +telegrams.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” laughed Betty, “but I got the last one first. The +other two were evidently delayed. You’ve kept me guessing, I can tell +you.”</p> + +<p>“Glad of that,” said Jack cheerfully, as he helped her out of the +carriage. “That’s what you’ve kept me doing for just about a +month. But I’ve manfully suppressed my curiosity and concealed the wounds +in my bleeding heart until I could make inquiries in person.”</p> + +<p>“What in the world do you mean, Jack?” asked Betty carelessly. +Jack was such a tease.</p> + +<p>Just then they were caught in the crowd that filled the lobby of the theatre, +and conversation became impossible as they hurried through it and into the +theatre itself.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249'></a>249</span>“Checks, +please,” said a businesslike little usher in pink chiffon, and Jack and +Betty followed her down the aisle. The theatre was already nearly full, and it +looked like a great flower garden, for the girls all wore light evening gowns, +for which the black coats of the men made a most effective background; while the +odor of violets and roses from the great bunches that many of the girls carried +strengthened the illusion.</p> + +<p>“Jove, but this is a pretty thing!” murmured Jack, who had never +been in Harding before. “Is this all college?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Betty proudly, “except the men, of course. And +don’t they all look lovely?”</p> + +<p>“Who–the men?” asked Jack. Then he gave a sudden start. +“Bob Winchester, by all that’s wonderful!”</p> + +<p>“Who is he?” said Betty idly. “Another Harvard man? +Jack”–with sudden interest, as she recognized the +name–“what did you mean by that postscript?”</p> + +<p>“Good bluff!” said Jack in his most tantalizing drawl.</p> + +<p>“Jack Burgess, I expect you to talk sense <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_250'></a>250</span> the rest of the time you’re +here,” remonstrated Betty impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Well, I will on one condition. Tell me why you sent it to +him.”</p> + +<p>“Sent what to whom?” demanded Betty.</p> + +<p>“Oh come,” coaxed Jack. “You know what I mean. Why did you +send Bob that valentine? It almost crushed me, I can tell you, when I +hadn’t even heard from you for months.”</p> + +<p>Betty was staring at him blankly, “Why did I send ‘Bob’ that +valentine? Who please tell me is ‘Bob’?”</p> + +<p>“Robert M. Winchester, Harvard, 19–. Eats at my club. Is sitting +at the present moment on the other side of the aisle, two rows up and over by +the boxes. You’ll know him by his pretty blush. He’s +rattled–he didn’t think I’d see him.”</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Betty.</p> + +<p>“Well?” repeated Jack.</p> + +<p>“I never saw Mr. Robert M. Winchester before,” declared Betty +with dignity, “and of course I didn’t send him any valentine. What +are you driving at, Jack Burgess?”</p> + +<p>Jack smiled benignly down at her. “But <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_251'></a>251</span> I saw it,” he insisted. “Do you think I +don’t know your handwriting? The verses weren’t yours, unless they +turn out spring poets amazingly fast up here, but the writing was, except that +on the envelope, and the Cupids were. The design was the same as the one on the +picture frame you gave me last winter. Beginning to remember?” he inquired +with an exasperating chuckle.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Betty severely. Then a light broke over her face. +“Oh yes, of course, I made that. Oh Jack Burgess, how perfectly +rich!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t think so myself, but Bobbie will. You see I told him that +I could put up a good guess who sent him that valentine, and that I’d find +out for sure when I came up. But evidently he couldn’t wait, so he’s +made his sister ask him up too, in the hope of happening on the valentine lady, +I suppose. Know his sister?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Betty, who was almost speechless with laughter. +“Oh, Jack, listen!” and she told the story of the valentine firm. +“Probably his sister bought it and sent it to him,” she finished. +“Or anyway some girl <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_252'></a>252</span> did. Jack, he’s looking this way again. Did +you tell him I sent it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jack hastily, “that is–I–well, I +only said that the girl I knew up here sent it. He evidently suspects you. See +him stare.”</p> + +<p>“Jack, how could you?”</p> + +<p>“How couldn’t I you’d better say,” chuckled Jack. +“I never heard of this valentine graft. What should I think, please? Never +mind; I’ll undeceive the poor boy at the intermission. He’ll be +badly disappointed. You see, he said it was his sister all along, +and―”</p> + +<p>The curtain rolled slowly up, disclosing the Glee Club grouped in a +rainbow-tinted semicircle about the leader, and the concert began.</p> + +<p>At the intermission Jack brought Mr. Winchester and his sister to meet Betty, +and there were more explanations and much laughter. Then Jack insisted upon +meeting the rest of the firm, so Betty hunted up Mary. Her Harvard man knew the +other two slightly, and the story had to be detailed again for his benefit.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253'></a>253</span>“I +say,” he said when he had heard it, “that’s what I call +enterprise, but you made just one mistake. Next year you must sell your stock to +us. Then all of it will be sure to land with the ladies, and your cousin’s +feelings won’t be hurt.”</p> + +<p>“Good idea,” agreed Jack, “but let’s keep to the +living present, as the poets call it. Are you all good for a sleigh ride +to-morrow afternoon?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, do say yes,” begged Mr. Winchester, looking straight at +Betty.</p> + +<p>“But your sister said you were going―”</p> + +<p>“On the sleeper to-morrow night,” finished Mr. Winchester +promptly. “And may I have the heart-shaped sign?”</p> + +<p>Betty stopped in Mary’s room that night to talk over the exciting +events of the evening. “Betty Wales, your cousin is the nicest man I ever +met,” declared Mary with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. “I shan’t tell you what he said about you. It +would make you entirely too vain. I’m so sorry that Katherine wasn’t +there, so she could go to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“It was too bad,” said Mary complacently. “But then you +know virtue is said to be <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_254'></a>254</span> its own reward. She’ll have to get along with +that, but I’m glad we’re going to have another one. Those valentines +were a lot of work to do for a girl whose very name I don’t +know.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255'></a>255</span><a id='link_15'></a>CHAPTER XV<br /><span class='h2fs'>AT THE GREAT GAME</span></h2> + +<p>“Well, I thought I’d seen some excitement before,” declared +Betty Wales, struggling to settle herself more comfortably on the scant ten +square inches of space allotted her by the surging, swaying mass of girls +behind. “But I was mistaken. Even the rally was nothing to this. Helen, do +you feel as if they’d push you under the railing?”</p> + +<p>“A little,” laughed Helen, “but I don’t suppose they +could, do you?”</p> + +<p>“I guess not,” said Betty hopefully, “but they might break +my spine. They’re actually sitting on me, and I haven’t room to turn +around and see who’s doing it. Oh, but isn’t it fun!”</p> + +<p>The day of the great basket-ball game had come at last. A bare two hours more +and the freshman team would either be celebrating its victory over the +sophomores, or bravely shouldering its defeat; and the college had <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256'></a>256</span> turned out <i>en +masse</i> to witness the struggle. The floor of the gymnasium was cleared, only +Miss Andrews, the gym teacher, her assistant line-keepers and the ushers in +white duck, with paper hats of green or purple, being allowed on the field of +battle. On the little stage at one end of the hall sat the faculty, most of them +manifesting their partisanship by the display of class-colors. The more popular +supporters of the purple had been furnished with violets by their admirers, +while the wearers of the green had American beauty roses–red being the +junior color–tied with great bows of green ribbon. The prize exhibit was +undoubtedly that of the enterprising young head of the chemistry department, who +carried an enormous bunch of vivid green carnations; but the centre of interest +was the president of the college, who of course displayed impartially the colors +of both sides.</p> + +<p>He divided interest with a sprightly little lady in a brilliant purple gown, +whose arms were so full of violets and daffodils and purple and yellow ribbons +that she looked like an animated flower bed. She smiled and nodded at the +sophomore gallery from behind <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_257'></a>257</span> their floral tributes; and the freshmen watched her +eagerly and wished she had worn the green. But of course she wouldn’t; she +had nothing but sophomore lit., and all her classes adored her.</p> + +<p>In the gallery were the students, seniors and sophomores on one side, juniors +and freshmen on the other, packed in like sardines. The front row of them sat on +the floor, dangling their feet over the edge of the balcony–they had been +warned at the gym classes of the day before to look to their soles and their +skirt braids. The next row kneeled and peered over the shoulders of the first. +The third row stood up and saw what it could. The others stood up and saw +nothing, unless they were very tall or had been lucky enough to secure a place +on a stray chair or a radiator. The balcony railings and posts were draped with +bunting, and in every hand waved banners and streamers, purple and yellow on one +side, red and green on the other.</p> + +<p>In the middle of each side were grouped the best singers of the classes, +ready to lead the chorus in the songs which had been written for the occasion to +the music of popular <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_258'></a>258</span> tunes. These were supposed to take the place of +“yells,” and cheers, both proscribed as verging upon the unwomanly. +By rule the opposing factions sang in turn, but occasionally, quite by accident, +both started at once, with deafening discords that rocked the gallery, and +caused the musical head of the German Department to stop her ears in agony.</p> + +<p>Most of the girls had been standing in line for an hour waiting for the +gymnasium doors to open, but a few, like Betty and Helen, had had reserved seat +tickets given them by some one on the teams. These admitted their fortunate +holders by a back door ahead of the crowd. All the faculty seats were reserved, +of course, and the occupants of them were still coming in. As each appeared, he +or she was met by a group of ushers and escorted ceremoniously across the floor, +amid vigorous hand-clapping from the side whose colors were in evidence, and the +singing of a verse of “Balm of Gilead” adapted to the occasion. Most +of these had been written beforehand and were now hastily “passed +along” from a paper in the hands of the leader. The rhymes were execrable, +but that did not matter <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_259'></a>259</span> since almost nobody could understand them; and the +main point was to come out strong on the chorus.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s Miss Ferris!” cried Betty, “and +she’s wearing my ro–goodness, she’s half covered with roses. +Helen, see that lovely green dragon pennant!”</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“Here’s to our Miss Ferris, drink her down!”</p> </div><!-- +poetry --> + +<p>sang the freshman chorus.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“Here’s to our Miss Ferris, drink her down!<br /> Here’s +to our Miss Ferris, may she never, never perish!<br /> Drink her down, drink +her down, drink her down, down, down!”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>Back by the door there was a sudden commotion, and the sophomore faction +broke out into tumultuous applause as a tall and stately gentleman appeared +carrying a “shower bouquet” of daffodils with a border and streamers +of violets.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“Here’s to Dr. Hinsdale, he’s the finest man within +hail!<br /> Drink him down, drink him down, drink him down, down, +down!”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>sang the sophomores.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“There is a team of great renown,”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>began the freshmen lustily. What did the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_260'></a>260</span> sophomores mean by clapping so? Ah! Miss Andrews +was opening a door.</p> + +<p>“They’re coming!” cried Betty eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Only the sophomore subs,” amended the junior next to her. +“So please don’t stick your elbow into me.”</p> + +<p>“Excuse me,” said Betty hastily. “Oh Helen, there’s +Katherine!”</p> + +<p>Through the door at one side of the stage the freshman subs were coming, +through the other the sophomores. Out on the floor of the gym they ran, all in +their dark blue gym suits with green or purple stripes on the right sleeves, +tossing their balls from hand to hand, throwing them into the baskets, bouncing +them adroitly out of one another’s reach, trying to appear as unconcerned +as if a thousand people were not applauding them madly and singing songs about +them and wondering which of them would get a chance to play in the great game. +In a moment a little whistle blew and the subs found their places on the edge of +the stage, where they sat in a restive, eager row, each girl in readiness to +take the field the moment she should be needed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261'></a>261</span>The door of the +sophomore room opened again and the “real team” ran out. Then the +gallery shook indeed! Even the freshmen cheered when the mascot appeared hand in +hand with the captain. He was a dashing little Indian brave in full panoply of +war-paint, beads, and feathers, with fringed leggins and a real Navajo blanket. +When he had finished his grand entry, which consisted of a war-dance, +accompanied by ear-splitting war-whoops, he came to himself suddenly to find a +thousand people staring at him, and he was somewhat appalled. He could not +blush, for Mary Brooks had stained his face and neck a beautiful brick-red, and +he lacked the courage to run away. So he waited, forlorn and uncomfortable, +while the freshman team rushed in, circling gaily about a diminutive knight in +shining silver armor, with a green plume. He marched proudly, but with some +difficulty, for his helmet was down and his sword, which was much too long for +him, had an unbecoming tendency to trip him up. When his hesitating steps had +brought him to the middle of the gymnasium, the knight, apparently perceiving +the Indian for the first <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_262'></a>262</span> time, dropped his encumbering sword and rushed at +his rival with sudden vehemence and blood-curdling cries. The little Indian +stared for a moment in blank amazement, then slipping off his blanket turned +tail and ran, reaching the door long before his sophomore supporters could stop +him. The knight meanwhile, left in full possession of the field, waited for a +moment until the laughter and applause had died away into curiosity. Then, +deliberately reaching up one gauntleted hand, he pulled off his helmet, and +disclosed the saucy, freckled face of the popular son of a favorite +professor.</p> + +<p>He grinned cheerfully at the stage and the gallery, gallantly faced the +junior-freshman side, and waving his green plume aloft yelled, “Hip, hip, +hurrah for the freshmen!” at the top of a pair of very strong lungs. Then +he raced off to find the seat which had been the price of his performance +between two of his devoted admirers on the sub team, while the gallery, +regardless of meaningless prohibitions and forgetful of class distinctions, +cheered him to the echo.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden a businesslike air began to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_263'></a>263</span> pervade the floor of the gymnasium. Somebody picked +up the knight’s sword and the Indian’s blanket, and Miss Andrews +took her position under the gallery. The ushers crowded onto the steps of the +stage, and the members of the teams, who had gathered around their captains for +a last hurried conference, began to find their places.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I almost wished they’d sing for a while more,” sighed +Betty.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” answered Helen absently. She was leaning out over the +iron bar of the railing with her eyes glued to the smallest freshman centre. +“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it makes me feel so thrilled and the songs are so clever and +amusing, and the mascots so funny.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” agreed Helen. “The things here are all like +that, but I want to see them play.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you want to see her play,” corrected Betty merrily. +“I don’t believe you care for a single other thing but T. Reed. +Where is she?”</p> + +<p>Helen pointed her out proudly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what an awfully funny, thin little <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_264'></a>264</span> braid! Isn’t she comical in her +gym suit, anyway? You wouldn’t think she could play at all, would you, +she’s so small.”</p> + +<p>“But she can,” said Helen stoutly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t I know it? I guarded her once–that is, I tried to. +She’s a perfect wonder. See, there’s Rachel up by our basket. +Katherine says she’s fine too. Helen, they’re going to +begin.”</p> + +<p>The assistant gym teacher had the whistle now. She blew it shrilly. +“Play!” called Miss Andrews, and tossed the ball out over the heads +of the waiting centres. A tall sophomore reached up confidently to grab it, but +she found her hands empty. T. Reed had jumped at it and batted it off sidewise. +Then she had slipped under Cornelia Thompson’s famous “perpetual +motion” elbow, and was on hand to capture the ball again when it bounced +out from under a confused mass of homes and centres who were struggling over it +on the freshman line. The freshmen clapped riotously. The sophomores looked at +each other. Freshman teams were always rattled, and “muffed” their +plays just at first. What did this mean? Oh, well, the homes <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265'></a>265</span> would miss it. They did, +and the sophomores breathed again, but only for a moment. Then T. Reed jumped +and the ball went pounding back toward the freshman basket. This time a home got +it, passed it successfully to Rachel, and Rachel poised it for an instant and +sent it cleanly into the basket.</p> + +<p>The freshmen were shouting and thumping as if they had never heard that it +was unlady-like (and incidentally too great a strain on the crowded gallery) to +do so. Miss Andrews blew her whistle. “Either the game will stop or you +must be less noisy,” she commanded, and amid the ominous silence that +followed she threw the ball.</p> + +<p>This time T. Reed missed her jump, and the tall sophomore got the ball and +tossed it unerringly at Captain Marion Lawrence, who was playing home on her +team. She bounded it off in an unexpected direction and then passed it to a home +nearer the basket, who on the second trial put it in. The sophomores clapped, +but the freshmen smiled serenely. Their home had done better, and they had T. +Reed!</p> + +<p>The next ball went off to one side. In the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_266'></a>266</span> scramble after it two opposing centres grabbed it +at once, and each claimed precedence. The game stopped while Miss Andrews and +the line-men came up to hear the evidence. There was a breathless moment of +indecision. Then Miss Andrews took the ball and tossed up between the two +contestants. But neither of them got it. Instead, T. Reed, slipping in between +them, jumped for it again, and quick as a flash sent it flying toward the +freshman goal. There was another breathless moment. Could Rachel Morrison put it +in from that distance? No, it had fallen just short and the sophomore guards +were playing it along to the opposite end of the home space, possibly intending +to― Ah! a stalwart sophomore guard, bracing herself for the effort, had +tossed it over the heads of the centres straight across the gymnasium, and +Marion Lawrence had it and was working toward the basket, meanwhile playing the +ball back to a red haired competent-looking girl whose gray eyes twinkled +merrily as her thin, nervous hands closed unerringly and vice-like around the +big sphere. It was in the basket, and the freshmen’s faces fell.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267'></a>267</span>“But maybe +they’ve lost something on fouls,” suggested Betty hopefully.</p> + +<p>“And T. Reed is just splendid,” added Helen.</p> + +<p>Everybody was watching the gallant little centre now, but she watched only +the ball. Back and forth, up and down the central field she followed it, +slipping and sliding between the other players, now bringing the ball down with +a phenomenal quick spring, now picking it up from the floor, now catching it on +the fly. The sophomore centres were beginning to understand her methods, but it +was all they could do to frustrate her; they had no effort left for offensive +tactics. Generally because of their superior practice and team play, the +sophomores win the inter-class game, and they do it in the first half, when the +frightened freshmen, overwhelmed by the terrors of their unaccustomed situation, +let the goals mount up so fast that all they can hope to do in the second half +is to lighten their defeat. What business had T. Reed to be so cool and +collected? If she kept on, there was strong likelihood of a freshman victory. +But she was so small, and Cornelia <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_268'></a>268</span> Thompson was guarding her–Cornelia stuck like +a burr, and the “perpetual motion” elbow had already circumvented T. +Reed more than once.</p> + +<p>After a long and stubborn battle, the freshmen scored another point. But in +the next round the big sophomore guard repeated her splendid ’crossboard play, +and again Marion Lawrence caught the ball.</p> + +<p>Ah! Captain Lawrence is down, sliding heavily along the smooth floor; but in +an instant she is up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes with one hand and +making a goal with the other.</p> + +<p>“Time!” calls Miss Andrews. “The goals are three to two, +fouls not counted.”</p> + +<p>The line-men gather to compare notes on those. The teams hurry off to their +rooms, Captain Lawrence limping badly. The first half is finished.</p> + +<p>A little shivering sigh of relief swept over the audience. The front row in +the gallery struggled to its feet to rest, the back rows sat down suddenly for +the same purpose.</p> + +<p>“Oh, doesn’t it feel good to stretch out,” said Betty, +pulling herself up by the railing <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_269'></a>269</span> and drawing Helen after her. “Aren’t +you tired to death sitting still?”</p> + +<p>“Why no, I don’t think so,” answered Helen vaguely. +“It was so splendid that I forgot.”</p> + +<p>“So did I mostly, but I’m remembering good and hard now. I ache +all over.” She waved her hand gaily to Dorothy King, then caught Mary +Brooks’s eye across the hall and waved again. “T. Reed is a +dandy,” she said. “And Rachel was great. They were all +great.”</p> + +<p>“How do you suppose they feel now?” asked Helen, a note of awe in +her voice.</p> + +<p>“Tired,” returned Betty promptly, “and thirsty, probably, +and proud–awfully proud.” She turned upon Helen suddenly. +“Helen Chase Adams, do you know I might have been down there with the +subs. Katherine told me this morning that it was nip and tuck between Marie +Austin and me. If I’d tried harder–played an inch better–think +of it, Helen, I might have been down there too!”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t do anything like that,” said Helen simply, +“but next year I mean to write a song.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270'></a>270</span>Betty looked at +her solemnly. “You probably will. You’re a good hard worker, Helen. +Isn’t it queer,” she went on, “we’re not a bit alike, +but this game is making us feel the same way. I wonder if the others feel so +too. Perhaps it’s one reason why they have this game–to wake us all +up and make us want to do something worth while.”</p> + +<p>“Betty Wales,” called Christy Mason from the floor below. Betty +leaned over the railing. “Don’t forget that you’re coming to +dinner to-night. We’re going to serenade the team. They’ll be dining +at the Belden with Miss Andrews.”</p> + +<p>Kate Denise joined her. She had never mentioned the afternoon in +Eleanor’s room, but she took especial pains to be pleasant to Betty.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Betty Wales,” she called up. “Isn’t it fine? +Don’t you think we’ll win? Anyway Miss Andrews says it’s the +best game she ever saw.”</p> + +<p>“Betty Wales,” called Dorothy King from her leader’s box, +“come to vespers with me to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Betty met them all with friendly little <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_271'></a>271</span> nods and enthusiastic answers. Then she turned back +to Helen. “It’s funny, but I’m always interrupted when +I’m trying to think,” she said. “If there were six of me I +think I might be six successful persons. But as it is, I suppose I shall always +be just ‘that little Betty Wales’ and have a splendid time.”</p> + +<p>“That would be enough for most people,” said Helen.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I hope not,” said Betty soberly. “I don’t amount +to anything.” She slipped down into her place again. The teams were coming +back.</p> + +<p>“See Laurie limp!”</p> + +<p>“Their other home–the one with the red hair–looks as fresh +as a May morning.”</p> + +<p>“Well, so does T. Reed.”</p> + +<p>“We have a fighting chance yet.”</p> + +<p>Thus the freshman gallery.</p> + +<p>But the second half opened with the rapid winning of three goals by the +sophomores. Cornelia Thompson had evidently made up her mind that nobody so +small as T. Reed should get away from her and mar the reputation of her famous +“ever moving and ever present” elbow. The other freshman centres +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272'></a>272</span> were over-matched, +and once Marion Lawrence and the red-haired home got the ball between them, a +goal was practically a certainty.</p> + +<p>“Play!” called Miss Andrews for the fourth time.</p> + +<p>T. Reed’s eyes flashed and her lips shut into a narrow determined line. +Another freshman centre got the ball and passed it successfully to T. Reed, who +gave it a pounding blow toward the freshman basket. A sophomore guard knocked it +out of Rachel Morrison’s hands, and it rolled on to the stage. There was a +wild scuffle and the freshman balcony broke into tumultuous cheering, for a home +who had missed all her previous chances had clutched it from under the +president’s chair and had scored at last.</p> + +<p>A moment later she did it again. There was a pause while a freshman guard was +carried off with a twisted ankle and Katherine Kittredge ran to her place. Then +the sophomores scored twice. Then the freshmen did likewise. “Time!” +called Miss Andrews sharply. The game was over.</p> + +<p>“Score!” shrieked the galleries.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273'></a>273</span>Then the +freshmen bravely began to sing their team song,</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“There is a team of great renown.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>They were beaten, of course, but they were proud of that team.</p> + +<p>“The freshmen score one goal on fouls. Score, six to eight in favor of +the purple,” announced Miss Andrews after a moment. “And I want to +say―”</p> + +<p>It was unpardonably rude, but they could not help interrupting to cheer.</p> + +<p>“That I am proud of all the players. It was a splendid game,” she +finished, when the thoughtful ones had hushed the rest.</p> + +<p>Then they cheered again. The sophomore team were carrying their captain +around the gym on their shoulders; the freshmen, gathered in a brave little +group, were winking hard and cheering with the rest. The gallery was emptying +itself with incredible rapidity on to the floor. The stage was watching, and +wishing–some of it–that it could go down on the floor and shriek and +sing and be young and foolish generally.</p> + +<p>Betty and Helen ran down with the rest. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_274'></a>274</span> “Helen,” whispered Betty on the way, +“I don’t care what happens, I will, I will, I will make them sing to +me some day. Oh Helen, don’t you love 19–, and aren’t you +proud of it and of T. Reed?”</p> + +<p>At the foot of the stairs they met the three B’s. “Come on, come +on,” cried the three. “We’re going to sing to the +sophomores,” and they seized upon Betty and bore her off to the corner +where the freshmen were assembling. Left to herself Helen got into a nook by the +door and watched. It was queer how much fun it was to watch, lately.</p> + +<p>“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness +thrust upon them:”–she had read it in the library that morning and +it kept running in her head. Was it selfish and conceited to want to be worth +something to her college–to long to do something that would give her a +place among the girls? A month ago Theresa had stood with her high up on the +bank and watched the current sweep by. Now she was in the stream; even Betty +Wales envied her; she had “achieved greatness.” Betty wanted to be +sung to. Well, no doubt she would be, in <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_275'></a>275</span> spite of the “interruptions”; she was +“born great.” Helen aspired only to write a song to be sung. That +wasn’t very much, and she would try hard–Theresa said it was all +trying and caring–for she must somehow prove herself worthy of the +greatness that had been “thrust upon” her.</p> + +<p>Betty was in the centre of an excited group of freshmen. Christy Mason was +there too; probably they were planning for the serenade. “She won’t +mind if I go,” thought Helen. She would have liked to speak to Theresa, +but she had delayed too long; the teams had disappeared. So she slipped out +alone. There would be a long, quiet evening for theme work–for Helen had +elected Mary’s theme course at mid-years, though no one in the Chapin +house knew it.</p> + +<p>Betty did not get home till quarter of ten, and then she went straight off to +find Katherine and Rachel. “I came to see if there’s anything left +of Rachel,” she said.</p> + +<p>“There’s a big bump on my forehead,” said Rachel, sitting +up in bed with a faint smile. “I’m sure of that because it +aches.”</p> + +<p>“Poor lady!” Betty turned to Katherine. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_276'></a>276</span> “You got your chance, +didn’t you? I felt it in my bones that you would. Wasn’t it all +splendid?”</p> + +<p>“Yes indeed,” assented the contestants heartily.</p> + +<p>“It made me feel so energetic,” Betty went on eagerly. “Of +course I felt proud of you and of 19–, just as I did at the rally, but +there was something else, too. You’ll see me going at things next term the +way T. Reed went at that ball.”</p> + +<p>“You’re one of the most energetic persons I know, as it +is,” said Rachel, smiling at her earnestness.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Betty impatiently. “I fly around and make a +great commotion, but I fritter away my time, because I forget to keep my eyes on +the ball. Why, I haven’t done anything this year.”</p> + +<p>Katherine pulled Betty down beside her on the couch. “Child, +you’ve done a lot,” she said. “We were just considering all +you’ve done, and wondering why you weren’t asked to usher to-day. +You’ve sub-subed a lot and you know so many girls on the team and are such +good friends with Jean Eastman.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277'></a>277</span>To her +consternation Betty felt a hot flush creeping up her neck and over her cheeks. +It had been the one consolation in the trouble with Eleanor that none of the +Chapin house girls had asked any questions or even appeared to notice that +anything was wrong.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know Miss Eastman much,” she said quickly. +“And as for substituting on the subs, that was a great privilege. That +wasn’t anything to make me an usher for.”</p> + +<p>“Well, all the other girls who did it much ushered,” persisted +Katherine. “Christy Mason and Kate Denise and that little Ruth Ford. And +you’d have made such a stunning one.”</p> + +<p>“Goosie!” said Betty, rising abruptly. “I know you girls +want to go to bed. We’ll talk it all over to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>As she closed the door, Rachel and Katherine exchanged glances. “I told +you there was trouble,” said Katherine, “and mark my words, Eleanor +Watson is at the bottom of it somehow.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t let’s notice it again, though,” answered the +considerate Rachel. “She evidently doesn’t want to tell us about +it.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278'></a>278</span>Betty undressed +almost in silence. Her exhilaration had left her all at once and her ambition; +life looked very complicated and unprofitable. As she went over to turn out the +light, she noticed a sheet of paper, much erased and interlined, on +Helen’s desk. “Have you begun your song already?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I wrote a theme,” said Helen with what seemed needless +embarrassment. But the theme was a little verse called “Happiness.” +She got it back the next week heavily under-scored in red ink, and with a +succinct “Try prose,” beneath it; but she was not discouraged. She +had had one turn; she could afford to wait patiently for another, which, if you +tried long enough and cared hard enough must come at last.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279'></a>279</span><a id='link_16'></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /><span class='h2fs'>A CHANCE TO HELP</span></h2> + +<p>Eleanor Watson had gotten neither class spirit nor personal ambition from +19–’s “glorious old defeat,” as Katherine called it. The +Saturday afternoon of the game she had spent, greatly to the disgust of her +friends, on the way to New York, whither she went for a Sunday with Caroline +Barnes. Caroline’s mother had been very ill, and the European trip was +indefinitely postponed, but the family were going for a shorter jaunt to +Bermuda. Caroline begged Eleanor to join them. “You can come as well as +not,” she urged. “You know your father would let you–he always +does. And we sail the very first day of your vacation too.”</p> + +<p>“But you stay three weeks,” objected Eleanor, “and the +vacation is only two.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the difference? Say you were ill and had to stay +over,” suggested Caroline promptly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280'></a>280</span>Eleanor’s +eyes flashed. “Once for all, Cara, please understand that’s not my +way of doing business nowadays. I should like to go, though, and I imagine my +father wouldn’t object. I’ll write you if I can arrange +it.”</p> + +<p>She had quite forgotten her idle promise when, on the following Monday +morning, she stood in the registrar’s office, waiting to get a record card +for chapel attendance in place of one she had lost. The registrar was busy. +Eleanor waited while she discussed the pedagogical value of chemistry with a +sophomore who had elected it, and now, after a semester and a half of gradually +deteriorating work, wished to drop it because the smells made her ill.</p> + +<p>“Does the fact that we sent you a warning last week make the smells +more unendurable?” asked the registrar suggestively, and the sophomore +retreated in blushing confusion.</p> + +<p>Next in line was a nervous little girl who inquired breathlessly if she might +go home right away–four days early. Some friends who were traveling south +in their private car had telegraphed her to meet them in <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_281'></a>281</span> Albany and go with them to her home in +Charleston.</p> + +<p>“My dear, I’m sorry,” began the registrar sympathetically, +“but I can’t let you go. We’re going to be very strict about +this vacation. A great many girls went home early at Christmas, and it’s +no exaggeration to say that a quarter of the college came back late on various +trivial excuses. This time we’re not going to have that sort of thing. The +girls who come back at all must come on time; the only valid excuse at either +end of the vacation will be serious illness. I’m sorry.”</p> + +<p>“So am I,” said the little girl, with a pathetic quiver in her +voice. “I never rode in a private car. But–it’s no matter. +Thank you, Miss Stuart.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor had listened to the conversation with a curl of her lip for the +stupid child who proffered her request in so unconvincing a manner, and an angry +resentment against the authorities who should presume to dictate times and +seasons. “They ought to have a system of cuts,” she thought. +“That’s the only fair way. Then you can take them when <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282'></a>282</span> you please, and if you +cut over you know it and you do it at your peril. Here everything is in the air; +you are never sure where you stand―”</p> + +<p>“What can I do for you, Miss Watson?” asked the registrar +pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Eleanor got her chapel card and hurried home to telegraph her father for +permission to go to Bermuda, and, as she knew exactly what his answer would be, +to write Caroline that she might expect her. “You know I always take a +dare,” she wrote. “My cuts last semester amounted to twice as much +as this trip will use up, and if they make a fuss I shall just call their +attention to what they let pass last time. Please buy me a steamer-rug, a blue +and green plaid one, and meet me at the Forty-second Street station at two on +Friday.”</p> + +<p>Betty knew nothing about Eleanor’s plans, beyond what she had been able +to gather from chance remarks of the other girls; and that was not much, for +every time the subject came up she hastened to change it, lest some one should +discover that Eleanor had told her nothing, and had scarcely spoken to her +indeed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283'></a>283</span> for weeks. +When Eleanor finally went off, without a sign or a word of good-bye, Betty +discovered that she was dreadfully disappointed. She had never thought of the +estrangement between them as anything but a temporary affair, that would blow +over when Eleanor’s mortification over the debate was forgotten. She had +felt sure that long before the term ended there would come a chance for a +reconciliation, and she had meant to take the chance at any sacrifice of her +pride. She was still fond of Eleanor in spite of everything, and she was sorry +for her too, for her quick eyes detected signs of growing unhappiness under +Eleanor’s ready smiles. Besides, she hated “schoolgirl +fusses.” She wanted to be on good terms with every girl in 19–. She +wanted to come back to a spring term unclouded by the necessity for any of the +evasions and subterfuges that concealment of the quarrel with Eleanor and Jean +Eastman’s strange behavior had brought upon her. And now Eleanor was gone; +the last chance until after vacation had slipped through her fingers.</p> + +<p>At home she told Nan all about her troubles, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_284'></a>284</span> first exacting a solemn pledge of secrecy. +“Hateful thing!” said Nan promptly. “Drop her. Don’t +think about her another minute.”</p> + +<p>“Then you don’t think I was to blame?” asked Betty +anxiously.</p> + +<p>“To blame? No, certainly not. To be sure,” Nan added truthfully, +“you were a little tactless. You knew she didn’t know that you were +in the secret of her having to resign, and you didn’t intend to tell her, +so it would have been better for you to let some one else help Miss Eastman +out.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought I was helping Eleanor out.”</p> + +<p>“In a way you were. But you see it wouldn’t seem so to her. It +would look as though you disapproved of her appointment.”</p> + +<p>“But Nan, she knows now that I knew.”</p> + +<p>“Then I suppose she concludes that you took advantage of knowing. You +say that it made you quite prominent for a while. You see, dear, when a person +isn’t quite on the square herself―”</p> + +<p>But Betty had burst into a storm of tears. “I am to blame,” she +sobbed. “I am to blame! I knew it, only I couldn’t quite see <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285'></a>285</span> how. Oh, what shall I +do? What shall I do?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t cry, dear,” said Nan in distress, at the +unprecedented sight of Betty in tears. “I tell you, you were not to blame. +You were a little unwise perhaps at first, but Miss Watson has refused your +apologies and explanations and only laughs at you when you try to talk to her +about it. I should drop her at once and forever; but, if you are bound to bring +her around, the only way I can think of is to look out for some chance to serve +her and so prove your real friendship–though what sort of friend she can +be I can’t imagine.”</p> + +<p>“Nan, she’s just like the girl in the rhyme,” said Betty +seriously.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“‘When she was good she was very, very good,<br /> And when she was +bad she was horrid.’</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>“Eleanor is a perfect dear most of the time. And Nan, there’s +something queer about her mother. She never speaks of her, and she’s been +at boarding school for eight years now, though she’s not seventeen till +May. Think of that!”</p> + +<p>“It certainly makes her excusable for a <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_286'></a>286</span> good deal,” said Nan. “How +is my friend Helen Chase Adams coming on?”</p> + +<p>“Why Nan, she’s quite blossomed out. She’s really lots of +fun now. But I had an awful time with her for a while,” and she related +the story of Helen’s winter of discontent. “I suppose that was my +fault too,” she finished. “I seem to be a regular +blunderer.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a dear little sister, all the same,” declared +Nan.</p> + +<p>“I say girls, come and play ping-pong,” called Will from the hall +below, and the interview ended summarily.</p> + +<p>But the memory of Eleanor Watson seemed fated to pursue Betty through her +vacation. A few days later an old friend of Mrs. Wales, who had gone to Denver +to live some years before and was east on a round of visits, came in to call. +The moment she heard that Betty was at Harding, she inquired for Eleanor. +“I’m so glad you know her,” she said. “She’s quite +a protégé of mine and she needs nice friends like you if ever a girl did. +Don’t mention it about college, Betty, but she’s had a very sad +life. Her mother <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287'></a>287</span> +was a strange woman–but there’s no use going into that. She died +when Eleanor was a tiny girl, and Eleanor and her brother Jim have been at +boarding schools ever since. In the summers, though, they were always with their +father in Denver. They worshiped him, particularly Eleanor, and he has always +promised her that when she was through school he would open the old Watson +mansion and she should keep house for him and Jim. Then last year a pretty +little society girl, only four or five years older than Eleanor, set her cap for +the judge and married him. Jim liked her, but Eleanor was heart-broken, and the +judge, seeing storms ahead, I suppose, and hoping that Eleanor would get +interested and want to finish the course, made her promise to go to Harding for +a year. Now don’t betray my confidence, Betty, and do make allowances for +Eleanor. I hope she’ll be willing to stay on at college. It’s just +what she needs. Besides, she’d be very unhappy at home, and her aunt in +New York isn’t at all the sort of person for her to live with.”</p> + +<p>So it came about that Betty returned to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_288'></a>288</span> college more than ever determined to get back upon +the old footing with Eleanor, and behold, Eleanor was not there! The Chapin +house was much excited over her absence, for tales of the registrar’s +unprecedented hardness of heart had gone abroad, and almost nobody else had +dared to risk the mysterious but awful possibilities that a late return +promised. As Betty was still supposed by most of the house to be in +Eleanor’s confidence, she had to parry question after question as to her +whereabouts. To, “Did she tell you that she was coming back late?” +she could truthfully answer “No.” But the girls only laughed when +she insisted that Eleanor must be ill.</p> + +<p>“She boasts that she’s never been ill in her life,” said +Mary Brooks.</p> + +<p>And Adelaide Rich always added with great positiveness, “It’s +exactly like her to stay away on purpose, just to see what will +happen.”</p> + +<p>Unfortunately Betty could not deny this, and she was glad enough to drop the +argument. She had too many pleasant things to do to care to waste time in +profitless discussion. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_289'></a>289</span> For it was spring term. Nobody but a Harding girl +knows exactly what that means. The freshman is very likely to consider the much +heralded event only a pretty myth, until having started from home on a cold, +bleak day that is springtime only by the calendar, she arrives at Harding to +find herself confronted by the genuine article. The sheltered situation of the +town undoubtedly has something to do with its early springs, but the attitude of +the Harding girl has far more. She knows that spring term is the beautiful crown +of the college year, and she is bound that it shall be as long as possible. So +she throws caution and her furs to the winds and dons a muslin gown, plans +drives and picnics despite April showers, and takes twilight strolls regardless +of lurking germs of pneumonia. The grass grows green perforce and the buds swell +to meet her wishes, while the sun, finding a creature after his brave, warm +heart, does his gallant best for her.</p> + +<p>“Do what little studying you intend to right away,” Mary Brooks +advised her freshmen. “Before you know it, it will be too warm to +work.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290'></a>290</span>“But at +present it’s too lovely,” objected Roberta.</p> + +<p>“Then join the Athletic Association and trust to luck, but above all +join the Athletic Association. I’m on the membership committee.”</p> + +<p>“Can I get into the golf club section this time?” asked Betty, +who had been kept on the waiting list all through the fall.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you just squeeze in, and Christy Mason wants you to play round +the course with her to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“I’m for tennis,” said Katherine. “Miss Lawrence and +I are going to play as soon as the courts are marked out. By the way, when do +the forget-me-nots blossom?”</p> + +<p>“Has Laurie roped you into that?” asked Mary Brooks +scornfully.</p> + +<p>“Don’t jump at conclusions,” retorted Katherine.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t have to jump. The wild ones blossom about the middle of +May. You’ll have to think of something else if you want to make an +immediate conquest of your angel. And speaking of angels,” added Mary, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291'></a>291</span> who was sitting by +a window, “Eleanor Watson is coming up the walk.”</p> + +<p>The girls trooped out into the hall to greet Eleanor, who met them all with +the carefully restrained cordiality that she had used toward them ever since the +break with Betty. Yes, Bermuda had been charming, such skies and seas. Yes, she +was just a week late–exactly. No, she had not seen the registrar yet, but +she had heard last term that excuses weren’t being given away by the +dozen.</p> + +<p>“I met a friend of yours during vacation,” began Betty timidly in +the first pause.</p> + +<p>Eleanor turned to her unsmilingly. “Oh yes, Mrs. Payne,” she +said. “I believe she mentioned it. I saw her last night in New +York.” Then she picked up her bag and walked toward her room with the +remark that late comers mustn’t waste time.</p> + +<p>The next day at luncheon some one inquired again about her excuse. Eleanor +shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, that’s all right; you needn’t be +at all anxious. The interview wasn’t even amusing. The week is to be +counted as unexcused absence–which as far as I can see means nothing +whatever.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292'></a>292</span>“You may +find out differently in June,” suggested Mary, nettled by Eleanor’s +superior air.</p> + +<p>“Oh, June!” said Eleanor with another shrug. “I’m +leaving in June, thank the fates!”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you’ll change your mind after spring term. Everybody +says it’s so much nicer,” chirped Helen.</p> + +<p>“Possibly,” said Eleanor curtly, “but I really can’t +give you much encouragement, Miss Adams.” Whereat poor Helen subsided +meekly, scarcely raising her eyes from her plate through the rest of the +meal.</p> + +<p>“Better caution your friend Eleanor not to air those sentiments of hers +about unexcused absences too widely, or she’ll get into trouble,” +said Mary Brooks to Betty on the way up-stairs; but Betty, intent on persuading +Roberta to come down-town for an ice, paid no particular attention to the +remark, and it was three weeks before she thought of it again.</p> + +<p>She found Eleanor more unapproachable than ever this term, but remembering +Nan’s suggestion she resolved to bide her time. Meanwhile there was no +reason for not enjoying <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_293'></a>293</span> life to the utmost. Golf, boating, walking, +tennis–there were ten ways to spend every spare minute. But golf usually +triumphed. Betty played very well, and having made an excellent record in her +first game with Christy, she immediately found herself reckoned among the +enthusiasts and expected to get into trim for the June tournament. Some three +weeks after the beginning of the term she went up to the club house in the late +afternoon, intending to practice putting, which was her weak point and come home +with Christy and Nita Reese, another golf fiend, who had spent the whole +afternoon on the course.</p> + +<p>But on the club house piazza she found Dorothy King. Dorothy played golf +exceedingly well, as she did everything else; but as she explained to Betty, +“By junior year all this athletic business gets pretty much crowded +out.” She still kept her membership in the club, however, and played +occasionally, “just to keep her hand in for the summer.” She had +done six holes this afternoon, all alone, and now she was resting a few moments +before going home. She greeted Betty warmly. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_294'></a>294</span> “I looked for you out on the course,” +she said, “but your little pals thought you weren’t coming up +to-day. How’s your game?”</p> + +<p>“Better, thank you,” said Betty, “except my putting, and +I’m going to practice on that now. Did you know that Christy had asked me +to play with her in the inter-class foursomes?”</p> + +<p>“That’s good,” said Dorothy cordially. “Do you see +much of Eleanor Watson these days?” she added irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>“Why–no-t much,” stammered Betty, blushing in spite of +herself. “I see her at meals of course.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you told me once that you were very fond of her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did–I am,” said Betty quickly, wondering what in +the world Dorothy was driving at.</p> + +<p>“She was down at the house last night,” Dorothy went on, +“blustering around about having come back late, saying that she’d +shown what a bluff the whole excuse business is, and that now, after she has +proved that it’s perfectly easy to cut over at the end <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295'></a>295</span> of a vacation, perhaps +some of us timid little creatures will dare to follow her lead. But perhaps +you’ve heard her talking about it.”</p> + +<p>“I heard her say a little about it,” admitted Betty, suddenly +remembering Mary Brooks’s remark. Had the “trouble” that Mary +had foreseen anything to do with Dorothy’s questions?</p> + +<p>“She’s said a great deal about it in the last two weeks,” +went on Dorothy. “Last night after she left, her senior friend, Annette +Cramer, and I had a long talk about it. We both agreed that somebody ought to +speak to her, but I hardly know her, and Annette says that she’s tried to +talk to her about other things and finds she hasn’t a particle of +influence with her.” Dorothy paused as if expecting some sort of comment +or reply, but Betty was silent. “We both thought,” said Dorothy at +last, “that perhaps if you’d tell her she was acting very silly and +doing herself no end of harm she might believe you and stop.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Miss King, I couldn’t,” said Betty in consternation. +“She wouldn’t let me–indeed she wouldn’t!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296'></a>296</span>“She told +Annette once that she admired you more than any girl in college,” urged +Dorothy quietly, “so your opinion ought to have some weight with +her.”</p> + +<p>“She said that!” gasped Betty in pleased amazement. Then her face +fell. “I’m sorry, Miss King, but I’m quite sure she’s +changed her mind. I couldn’t speak to her; but would you tell me please +just why any one should–why you care?”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course, it’s not exactly my business,” said +Dorothy, “except that I’m on the Students’ Commission, and so +anything that is going wrong is my business. Miss Watson is certainly having a +bad influence on the girls she knows in college, and besides, if that sort of +talk gets to the ears of the authorities, as it’s perfectly certain to do +if she keeps on, she will be very severely reprimanded, and possibly asked to +leave, as an insubordinate and revolutionary character. The Students’ +Commission aims to avoid all that sort of thing, when a quiet hint will do it. +But Miss Watson seems to be unusually difficult to approach; I’m afraid if +you can’t help us out, Betty, we shall have to let the matter rest.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297'></a>297</span> She gathered up +her caddy-bag. “I must get the next car. Don’t do it unless you +think best. Or if you like ask some one else. Annette and I couldn’t think +of any one, but you know better who her friends are.” She was off across +the green meadow.</p> + +<p>Betty half rose to follow, then sank back into her chair. Dorothy had not +asked for an answer; she had dropped the matter, had left it in her hands to +manage as she thought fit, appealing to her as a friend of Eleanor’s, a +girl whom Eleanor admired. “Whom she used to admire,” amended Betty +with a sigh. But what could she do? A personal appeal was out of the question; +it would effect nothing but a widening of the breach between them. Could Kate +Denise help? She never came to see Eleanor now. Neither did Jean +Eastman–why almost nobody did; all her really intimate friends seemed to +have dropped away from her. And yet she must think of some one, for was not this +the opportunity she had so coveted? It might be the very last one too, thought +Betty. “If anything happened to hurt Eleanor’s feelings again, she +wouldn’t wait till June. She’d go now.” She considered <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298'></a>298</span> girl after girl, but +rejected them all for various reasons. “She wouldn’t take it from +any girl,” she decided, and with that decision came an inspiration. Why +not ask Ethel Hale? Ethel had tried to help Eleanor before, was interested in +her, and understood something of her moody, many-sided temperament. She had put +Eleanor in her debt too; she could urge her suggestion on the ground of a return +favor.</p> + +<p>In an instant Betty’s mind was made up. She looked ruefully at her +dusty shoes and mussed shirt-waist. “I can’t go to see Ethel in +these,” she decided, “but if I hurry home now I can dress and go +right up there after dinner, before she gets off anywhere.” The putting +must wait. With one regretful glance out over the green, breezy course Betty +started resolutely off toward the dusty highway and the noisy trolleys.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299'></a>299</span><a id='link_17'></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /><span class='h2fs'>AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION</span></h2> + +<p>“I wish I could do it, Betty, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be +the least use for me to try. I thought I had a little hold on her for a while, +but I’m afraid I was too sure of her. She avoids me now–goes around +corners and into recitation rooms when she sees me coming. You see–I +wonder if she told you about our trip to New York?”</p> + +<p>Betty nodded, wishing she dared explain the full extent of her +information.</p> + +<p>“I thought so from your coming up here to-night. Well, as you’ve +just said, she’s very reserved, strangely so for a young girl; when she +lets out anything about herself she wishes that she hadn’t the next +minute.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” admitted Betty grudgingly.</p> + +<p>“And so, having once let me get a glimpse of her better self, and then +having decided as usual that she wished she hadn’t, she needed <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300'></a>300</span> a proof from me that I +was worthy of her confidence. But I didn’t give it; I was busy and let the +matter drop, and now I am the last person who could go to her. I’m very +sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear!” said Betty forlornly.</p> + +<p>“But isn’t it so? Don’t you agree with me?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I do.”</p> + +<p>“Then go back and speak to her yourself, dear. She’s very fond of +you, and I’m sure a little friendly hint from you is all that she +needs.”</p> + +<p>“No, I can’t speak to her either, Ethel. You wouldn’t +suggest it if you knew how things are between us. But I see that you +can’t. Thank you just as much. No, I mustn’t stop +to-night.”</p> + +<p>Betty walked down the elm-shaded street lost in thought. Eleanor had +declaimed upon the foolishness of coming back on time after vacations through +most of the dinner hour, and Betty understood as she had not that afternoon what +Dorothy meant. But now her one hope had failed her; Ethel had shown good cause +why she should not act as <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_301'></a>301</span> Eleanor’s adviser and Betty had no idea what +to do next.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Betty Wales! Christy and I thought we saw you up at the golf +club this afternoon.” Nita Reese’s room overlooked the street and +she was hanging out her front window.</p> + +<p>“I was up there,” said Betty soberly, “but I had to come +right back. I didn’t play at all.”</p> + +<p>“Then I should say it was a waste of good time to go up,” +declared Nita amiably. “You’d better be on hand to-morrow. The +juniors are going to be awfully hard to beat.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try,” said Betty unsmilingly, and Nita withdrew her +head from the window, wondering what could be the matter with her usually +cheerful friend.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Meriden Place Betty hesitated. Then, noticing that Mrs. +Chapin’s piazza was full of girls, she crossed Main Street and turned into +the campus, following the winding path that led away from the dwelling-houses +through the apple orchard. There were seats along this path. Betty chose one on +the crest of the hill, screened <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_302'></a>302</span> in by a clump of bushes and looking off toward +Paradise and the hills beyond. There she sat down in the warm spring dusk to +consider possibilities. And yet what was the use of bothering her head again +when she had thought it all over in the afternoon? Arguments that she might have +made to Ethel occurred to her now that it was too late to use them, but nothing +else. She would go back to Dorothy, explain why she could not speak to Eleanor +herself, and beg her to take back the responsibility which she had unwittingly +shifted to the wrong shoulders. She would go straight off too. She had found an +invitation to a spread at the Belden house scrawled on her blotting pad at +dinner time, and she might as well be over there enjoying herself as here +worrying about things she could not possibly help.</p> + +<p>As she got up from her seat she glanced at the hill that sloped off below +her. It was the dust-pan coasting ground. How different it looked now in its +spring greenery! Betty smiled at the memory of her mishap. How nice Eleanor had +been to her then. And Miss Ferris! If only Miss Ferris would speak to <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303'></a>303</span> Eleanor. “Why, +perhaps she will,” thought Betty, suddenly remembering Miss Ferris’s +note. “I could ask her to, anyway. But–she’s a faculty. Well, +Ethel is too, though I never thought of it.” And Dorothy had wanted +Betty’s help in keeping the matter out of the hands of the authorities. +“But this is different,” Betty decided at last. “I’m +asking them not as officials, but just as awfully nice people, who know what to +say better than we girls do. Miss King would think that was all +right.”</p> + +<p>Without giving herself time to reconsider, Betty sped toward the Hilton +house. All sorts of direful suppositions occurred to her while she waited for a +maid to answer her ring. What if Miss Ferris had forgotten about writing the +note, or had meant it for what Nan called “a polite nothing”? +Perhaps it would be childish to speak of it anyway. Perhaps Miss Ferris would +have other callers. If not, how should she tell her story?</p> + +<p>“I ought to have taken time to think,” reflected Betty, as she +followed the maid down the hall to Miss Ferris’s rooms.</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris was alone; nevertheless Betty <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_304'></a>304</span> fidgeted dreadfully during the preliminary +small-talk. Somebody would be sure to come in before she could get started, and +she should never, never dare to come again. At the first suggestion of a pause +she plunged into her business.</p> + +<p>“Miss Ferris, I want to ask you something, but I hated to do it, so I +came right along as soon as I decided that I’d better, and now I +don’t know how to begin.”</p> + +<p>“Just begin,” advised Miss Ferris, laughing.</p> + +<p>“That is what they say to you in theme classes,” said Betty, +“but it never helped me so very much, somehow. Well, I might begin by +telling you why I thought I could come to you.”</p> + +<p>“Unless you really want to tell that you might skip it,” said +Miss Ferris, “because I don’t need to be reminded that I shall +always be glad to do anything I can for my good friend Betty Wales.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you! That helps a lot,” said Betty gratefully, and +went on with her story.</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris listened attentively. “Miss Watson is the girl with the +wonderful gray <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305'></a>305</span> +eyes and the lovely dark hair. I remember. She comes down here a great deal to +see Miss Cramer, I think. It’s a pity, isn’t it, that she +hasn’t great good sense to match her beauty? So you want me to speak to +her about her very foolish attitude toward our college life. Suppose I +shouldn’t succeed in changing her mind?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you would succeed,” said Betty eagerly. “Mary Brooks +says you can argue a person into anything.”</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris laughed again. “I’m glad Miss Brooks approves of my +argumentative ability, but are you sure that Miss Watson is the sort of person +with whom argument is likely to count for anything? Did you ever know her to +change her mind on a subject of this sort, because her friends disapproved of +her?”</p> + +<p>Betty hesitated. “Yes–yes, I have. Excuse me for not going into +particulars, Miss Ferris, but there was a thing she did when she came here that +she never does now, because she found how others felt about it. Indeed, I think +there are several things.”</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris nodded silently. “Then why <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_306'></a>306</span> not appeal to the same people who influenced her +before?”</p> + +<p>It was the question that Betty had been dreading, but she met it +unflinchingly. “One of them thinks she has lost her influence, Miss +Ferris, and another one who helped a little bit before, can’t, +because–I’m that one, Miss Ferris. I unintentionally did something +last term that made Eleanor angry with me. It made her more dissatisfied and +unhappy here too; so when I heard about this I felt as if I was a little to +blame for it, and then I wanted to make up for the other time too. But of course +it is a good deal to ask of you.” Betty slid forward on to the edge of her +chair ready to accept a hasty dismissal.</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris waited a moment. “I shall be very glad to do it,” she +said at last. “I wanted to be sure that I understood the situation and +that I could run a chance of helping Miss Watson. I think I can, but you must +forgive me if I make a bad matter worse. I’ll ask her to have tea with me +to-morrow. May I send a note by you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course you won’t tell her that I spoke to you?” asked +Betty anxiously, when Miss <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_307'></a>307</span> Ferris handed her the note. Miss Ferris promised +and Betty danced out into the night. Half-way home she laughed merrily all to +herself.</p> + +<p>“What’s the joke?” said a girl suddenly appearing around +the corner of the Main Building.</p> + +<p>“It was on me,” laughed Betty, “so you can’t expect +me to tell you what it was.”</p> + +<p>It had just occurred to her that, as there was no possibility of +Eleanor’s finding out her part in Miss Ferris’s intervention, a +reconciliation was as far away as ever. “She wouldn’t like it if she +should find out,” thought Betty, “and perhaps it was just another +tactless interference. Well, I’m glad I didn’t think of all these +things sooner, for I believe it was the right thing to do, and it was a lot +easier doing it while I hoped it might bring us together, as Nan said. I wonder +what kind of things Nan meant.”</p> + +<p>She dropped the note on the hall table and slipped softly up-stairs. As she +sat down at her desk she looked at the clock and hesitated. It was not so late +as she had thought, only quarter of nine. There was still time to go <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308'></a>308</span> back to the Belden. But +after a moment’s wavering Betty began getting out of her dress and into a +kimono. Since the day of the basket-ball game she had honestly tried not to let +the little things interfere with the big, nor the mere +“interruptions” that were fun and very little more loom too large in +her scale of living. “Livy to-night and golf to-morrow,” she told +the green lizard, as she sat down again and went resolutely to work.</p> + +<p>When Eleanor came in to dinner the next evening Betty could hardly conceal +her excitement. Would she say anything? If she said nothing what would it mean? +The interview had apparently not been a stormy one. Eleanor looked tired, but +not in the least disturbed or defiant. She ate her dinner almost in silence, +answering questions politely but briefly and making none of her usual effort to +control and direct the conversation. But just as the girls were ready to leave +the table she broke her silence. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I +want to ask you please to forget all the foolish things I said last night at +dinner. I’ve said them a good many times, and I can’t contradict +them to every one, but I can here–and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_309'></a>309</span> I want to. I’ve thought more about it since +yesterday, and I see that I hadn’t at all the right idea of the situation. +The students at a college are supposed to be old enough to do the right thing +about vacations without the attaching of any childish penalty to the wrong +thing. But we all of us get careless; then a public sentiment must be created +against the wrong things, like cutting over. That was what the registrar was +trying to do. Anybody who stays over as I did makes it less possible to do +without rules and regulations and penalties–in other words hurts the tone +of the college, just as a man who likes to live in a town where there are +churches but never goes to them himself, unfairly throws the responsibility of +church-going on to the rest of the community. I hadn’t thought of it in +that way; I didn’t mean to be a shirk, but I was one.”</p> + +<p>A profound silence greeted Eleanor’s argument. Mary Rich, who had been +loud in her championship of Eleanor’s sentiments the night before, looked +angry at this sudden desertion; and Mary Brooks tried rather unsuccessfully not +to smile. The rest were merely astonished at so sudden a change of mind. <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310'></a>310</span> Finally Betty gave a +little nervous cough and in sheer desperation began to talk. “That’s +a good enough argument to change any one’s mind,” she said. +“Isn’t it queer how many different views of a subject there +are?”</p> + +<p>“Of some subjects,” said Eleanor pointedly.</p> + +<p>It was exactly what Betty should have expected, but she couldn’t help +being a little disappointed. Eleanor had just shown herself so fine and +downright, so willing to make all the reparation in her power for a course whose +inconsistency had been proved to her. It was very disheartening to find that she +cherished the old, reasonless grudge as warmly as ever. But if Betty had +accomplished nothing for herself, she had done all that she hoped for Eleanor, +and she tried to feel perfectly satisfied.</p> + +<p>“I think too much about myself, anyway,” she told the green +lizard, who was the recipient of many confidences about this time.</p> + +<p>The rest of the month sped by like the wind. As Betty thought it over +afterward, it seemed to have been mostly golf practice and bird club. Roberta +organized the bird club. Its object, according to her, was to assist <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311'></a>311</span> Mary Brooks with her +zoology by finding bird haunts and conveying Mary to them; its ultimate +development almost wrought Mary’s ruin. Mary had elected a certain one +year course in zoology on the supposition that one year, general courses are +usually “snaps,” and the further theory that every well conducted +student will have one “snap” on her schedule. These propositions +worked well together until the spring term, when zoology 1a resolved itself into +a bird-study class. Mary, who was near-sighted, detested bird-study, and hardly +knew a crow from a kinglet, found life a burden, until Roberta, who loved birds +and was only too glad to get a companion on her walks in search of them, +organized what she picturesquely named “the Mary-bird club.” Rachel +and Adelaide immediately applied for admission, and about the time that Mary +appropriated the forget-me-nots that Katherine had gathered for Marion Lawrence +and wore them to a dance on the plea that they exactly matched her evening +dress, and also decoyed Betty into betraying her connection with the freshman +grind-book, Katherine and Betty joined. They seldom <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_312'></a>312</span> accompanied the club on its official +walks, preferring to stroll off by themselves and come back with descriptions of +the birds they had seen for Mary and Roberta to identify. Occasionally they met +a friendly bird student who helped them with their identifications on the spot, +and then, when Roberta was busy, they would take Mary out in search of +“their birds,” as they called them. Oddly enough they always found +these rare species a second time, though Mary, because of her near-sightedness, +had to be content with a casual glance at them.</p> + +<p>“But what you’ve seen, you’ve seen,” she said. +“I’ve got to see fifty birds before June 1st; that doesn’t +necessarily mean see them so you’ll know them again. Now I shouldn’t +know the nestle or the shelcuff, but I can put them down, can’t +I?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” assented Katherine, “a few rare birds like +those will make your list look like something.”</p> + +<p>The pink-headed euthuma, which came to light on the very last day of May, +interested Mary so much that she told Roberta about it immediately and Roberta +questioned the discoverers. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_313'></a>313</span> Their accounts were perfectly consistent.</p> + +<p>“Way out on Paradise path, almost to the end, we met a man dashing +around as if he were crazy,” explained Betty. “We should have +thought he was an escaped lunatic if we hadn’t seen others like +him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” continued Katherine. “But he acted too much like you +to take us in. So we said we were interested in birds too, and he danced around +some more and said we had come upon a rare specimen. Then he pointed to the top +of an enormous pine-tree―”</p> + +<p>“Those rare birds are always in the very tops of trees,” put in +Mary eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Of course; that’s one reason they’re rare,” went on +Betty. “But that minute it flew into the top of a poplar, and we three +pursued it. It was a beauty.”</p> + +<p>“And then you came back after me, and it was still there. Tell her how +it was marked,” suggested Mary. “Perhaps she knows it under some +other name.”</p> + +<p>“It had a pink head, of course,” said Katherine, “and blue +wings.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_314'></a>314</span>“Goodness!” exclaimed Roberta +suspiciously.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you mean black wings, Katherine?” asked Betty +hastily.</p> + +<p>“Did I say blue? I meant black of course. Mary thought they looked blue +and that confused me. And its breast was white with brown marks on +it.”</p> + +<p>“What size was it?” asked Roberta.</p> + +<p>Katherine looked doubtful. “What should you say, Mary?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was quite small–about the size of a sparrow or a robin, +I thought.”</p> + +<p>“They’re quite different sizes,” said Roberta wearily. +“Your old man must have been color-blind. It couldn’t have had a +pink head. Who ever heard of a pink-headed bird?”</p> + +<p>“We three are not color-blind,” Katherine reminded her. +“And then there’s the name.” Roberta sighed deeply. The new +members of the Mary-bird club were very unmanageable.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mary was industriously counting the names on her list, which must +be handed in the next day. “I think I’d better <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_315'></a>315</span> put the euthuma down, Roberta,” +she said finally. “We saw it all right. They won’t look the list +over very carefully, but they will notice how many birds are on it, and even +with the pink-headed euthuma I haven’t but forty-five. I rather wish now +that I’d bought a text-book, but I thought it was a waste of money when +you knew all about the birds, and it would certainly be a waste of money +now.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said Roberta. “If only the library hadn’t +wanted its copy back quite so soon!”</p> + +<p>“It was disagreeable of them, wasn’t it?” said Mary +cheerfully, copying away on her list. “You were going to look up the +nestle too. Girls, did we hear the nestle sing?”</p> + +<p>“It whistled like a blue jay,” said Katherine promptly.</p> + +<p>“It couldn’t,” protested Roberta. “You said it was +only six inches long.”</p> + +<p>“On the plan of a blue jay’s call, but smaller, Roberta,” +explained Betty pacifically.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s funny that you can never find any of these birds when +I’m with you,” said Roberta.</p> + +<p>Katherine looked scornful. “We were <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_316'></a>316</span> mighty lucky to see them even twice, I +think,” she retorted.</p> + +<p>Next day Mary came home from zoology 1a, which to add to its other unpleasant +features met in the afternoon, wearing the air of a martyr to circumstance. +Roberta, Katherine and Betty happened to be sitting on the piazza translating +Livy together. “Girls,” she demanded, as she came up the steps, +“if I get you the box of Huyler’s that Mr. Burgess sent me will you +tell me the truth about those birds?”</p> + +<p>“She had the lists read in class!” shouted Katherine.</p> + +<p>“I knew it!” said Roberta in tragic tones.</p> + +<p>“Did you tell her about the shelcuff’s neck?” inquired +Betty.</p> + +<p>Mary sat down on the piazza railing with her feet cushioned on a lexicon. +“I told her all about the shelcuff,” she said, “likewise the +euthuma and the nestle. What is more, the head of the zoology department was +visiting the class, so I also told him, and when I stayed to explain he stayed +too, and–oh, you little wretches!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317'></a>317</span>“Not at +all,” said Katherine. “We waited until you’d made a reputation +for cleverness and been taken into a society. I think we were considerateness +itself.”</p> + +<p>Roberta was gazing sadly at Mary. “Why did you try all those queer +ones?” she asked. “You knew I wasn’t sure of them.”</p> + +<p>“I had to, my dear. She asked us for the rare names on our lists. I was +the third one she came to, and the others had floundered around and told about +birds I’d never heard of. I didn’t really know which of mine were +rare, because I’d never seen any of them but once, you know, and I was +afraid I should strike something that was a good deal commoner than a robin, and +then it would be all up with me. So I boldly read off these three, because I was +sure they were rare. You should have seen her face when I got to the pink-headed +one,” said Mary, beginning suddenly to appreciate the humor of the +situation. “Did you invent them?”</p> + +<p>“Only the names,” said Betty, “and the stories about +finding them. I thought of nestle, and Katherine made up the others. +Aren’t they lovely names, Roberta?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_318'></a>318</span>“Yes,” said Roberta, “but think of +the fix Mary is in.”</p> + +<p>Mary smiled serenely. “Don’t worry, Roberta,” she said. +“The names were so lovely and the shelcuff’s neck and the note of +the nestle and all, and I am honestly so near-sighted, that I don’t think +Miss Carter will have the heart to condition me. But girls, where did you get +the descriptions? Professor Lawrence particularly wanted to know.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked at Katherine and the two burst into peals of laughter. +“Mary Brooks, you invented most of those yourself,” explained +Katherine, when she could speak. “We just showed you the first bird we +happened to see and told you its new name and you’d say, ‘Why it has a +green crest and yellow wings!’ or ‘How funny its neck is! It must have a +pouch.’ All we had to do was to encourage you a little.”</p> + +<p>“And suppress you a little when you put colors like pink and blue into +the same bird,” continued Betty, “so Roberta wouldn’t get too +suspicious.”</p> + +<p>“Then those birds were just common, ordinary ones that I’d seen +before?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319'></a>319</span>“Exactly. +The nestle was a blue jay, and the euthuma was a sparrow. We couldn’t see +what the shelcuff was ourselves, the tree was so tall.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“‘The primrose by a river’s brim,<br /> A yellow primrose was +to him,<br /> And it was nothing more.’”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>quoted Mary blithely. “You can never put that on my +tombstone.”</p> + +<p>“Better tell your friend Dr. Hinsdale about your vivid ornithological +imagination,” suggested Katherine. “It might interest +him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I shall,” said Mary easily. “But to-night, young +ladies, you will be pleased to learn that I am invited up to Professor +Lawrence’s to dinner, so that I can see his bird skins. Incidentally I +shall meet his fascinating brother. In about ten minutes I shall want to be +hooked up, Roberta.”</p> + +<p>“She’s one too many for us, isn’t she?” said +Katherine, as Mary went gaily off, followed by the devoted Roberta, declaring in +loud tones that the Mary-bird club was dissolved.</p> + +<p>“I wish things that go wrong didn’t bother <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_320'></a>320</span> me any more than they do her,” +said Betty wistfully.</p> + +<p>“Cheer up,” urged Katherine, giving her a bearish hug. +“You’ll win in the golf again to-morrow, and everything will come +out all right in the end.”</p> + +<p>“Everything? What do you mean?” inquired Betty sharply.</p> + +<p>“Why, singles and doubles–twosomes and foursomes you call them, +don’t you? They’ll all come out right.”</p> + +<p>A moment later Katherine burst in upon her long-suffering roommate with a +vehemence that made every cup on the tea-table rattle. “I almost let her +know what we thought,” she said, “but I guess I smoothed it over. Do +you suppose Eleanor Watson isn’t going to make up with her at +all?”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321'></a>321</span><a id='link_18'></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>INTO PARADISE–AND OUT</span></h2> + +<p>It was a glorious summer twilight. The air was sweet with the odor of lilacs +and honeysuckle. One by one the stars shone softly out in the velvet sky, across +which troops of swallows swooped and darted, twittering softly on the wing. Near +the western horizon the golden glow of sunset still lingered. It was a night for +poets to sing of, a night to revel in and to remember; but it was assuredly not +a night for study. Gaslight heated one’s room to the boiling point. Closed +windows meant suffocation; open ones–since there are no screens in the +Harding boarding house–let in troops of fluttering moths and burly +June-bugs.</p> + +<p>“And the moral of that is, work while it is yet light,” +proclaimed Mary Brooks, ringing her bicycle bell suggestively.</p> + +<p>There was a sudden commotion on the piazza and then Betty’s clear voice +rose above <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322'></a>322</span> the +tumult. “We won it, one up! Isn’t that fine? Oh no, not the singles; +we go on with them to-morrow, but I can’t possibly win. Oh, I’m so +hot!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor Watson smiled grimly as these speeches floated up to her from below. +She had been lounging all the breathless afternoon, trying vainly to get rid of +a headache; and the next day’s lessons were still to be learned.</p> + +<p>“Ouch, how I hate June-bugs,” she muttered, stopping for the +fifth time in as many minutes to drive out a buzzing intruder. She had just +gotten one out when another flew straight at her unperceived and tangled himself +in her hair. That was the limit of endurance. With one swift movement Eleanor +turned off the gas, with another she pulled down her hair and released the +prisoned beetle. Then she twisted up the soft coil again in the dark and went +out into the sweet spring dusk.</p> + +<p>At the next corner she gave an angry little exclamation and turned back +toward the house. The girls had deserted the piazza before she came down, and +now the only light <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323'></a>323</span> +seemed to be in Betty’s room. Every window there was shut, so it was no +use to call. Eleanor climbed the stairs and knocked. Katherine and Betty were +just starting for a trolley ride, to cool off the champion, Katherine explained; +but Helen was going to be in all the evening.</p> + +<p>“I pity you from the bottom of my heart,” said Eleanor, +“but if you are really going to be here would you tell Lil Day when she +comes that I have an awful headache and have gone off–that I’ll see +her to-morrow. I could go down there, but if she’s in, her room will be +fuller of June-bugs than mine. Hear them slam against that glass!” She +turned to Betty stiffly. “I congratulate you on your victory,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“Oh thank you!” answered Betty eagerly. “Christy did most +of it. Would–won’t you come out with us?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you. I feel like being all alone. I’m going down for a +twilight row on Paradise.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll get malaria,” said Katherine.</p> + +<p>“You’ll catch cold, too, in that thin dress,” added +Helen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324'></a>324</span>“I +don’t mind, if only I don’t see any June-bugs,” answered +Eleanor, “or any girls,” she added under her breath, when she had +gained the lower hall.</p> + +<p>The quickest way to Paradise was through the campus, but Eleanor chose an +unfrequented back street, too ugly to attract the parties of girls who swarmed +over the college grounds, looking like huge white moths as they flitted about +under the trees. She walked rapidly, trying to escape thought in activity; but +the thoughts ill-naturedly kept pace with her. As everybody who came in contact +with Eleanor Watson was sure to remark, she was a girl brimful of strong +possibilities both for good and evil; and to-night these were all awake and +warring. Her year of bondage at college was nearly over. Only the day before she +had received a letter from Judge Watson, coldly courteous, like all his epistles +to his rebellious daughter, inquiring if it was her wish to return to Harding +another year, and in the same mail had come an invitation from her aunt, asking +her to spend the following winter in New York. Eleanor shrewdly guessed that in +spite of her father’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_325'></a>325</span> disapproval of his sister’s careless +frivolity, he would allow her to accept this invitation, for the obvious relief +it would bring to himself and the second Mrs. Watson. He was fond of her, that +she did not for a moment question, and he honestly wished her best good; but he +did not want her in his house in her present mood.</p> + +<p>“For which I don’t in the least blame him,” thought +Eleanor.</p> + +<p>She had started to answer his letter immediately, as he had wished, and then +had hesitated and delayed, so that the decision involved in her reply was still +before her. And yet why should she hesitate? She did not like Harding college; +she had kept the letter of her agreement to stay there for one year; surely she +was free now to do as she pleased–indeed, her father had said as much. But +what did she please–that was a point that, unaccountably, she could not +settle. Lately something had changed her attitude toward the life at Harding. +Perhaps it was the afternoon with Miss Ferris, with the perception it had +brought of aims and ideals as foreign to the ambitious schemes with which she +had begun <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326'></a>326</span> the year +as to the angry indifference in which she was finishing it. Perhaps, as poor +Helen had suggested, it was the melting loveliness of spring term. At any rate, +as she heard the girls making their plans for the next year, squabbling amiably +over the merits of the various campus houses, choosing roommates, bargaining for +furniture, even securing partners for the commencement festivities still three +years off, an unexplainable longing to stay on and finish the four years’ +drama with the rest had seized upon Eleanor. But each time it came she had +stifled it, reminding herself sternly that for her the four years held no +pleasant possibilities; she had thrown away her chance–had neglected her +work, alienated her friends, disappointed every one, and most of all herself. +There was nothing left for her now but to go away beaten–not outwardly, +for she still flattered herself that she had proved both to students and faculty +her ability to make a very brilliant record at Harding had she been so inclined, +and even her superiority to the drudgery of the routine work and the childish +recreations. But in her heart of hearts Eleanor knew that this <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327'></a>327</span> very disinclination to +make the most of her opportunities, this fancied superiority to requirements +that jarred on her undisciplined, haphazard training, was failure far more +absolute and inexcusable than if dulness or any other sort of real inability to +meet the requirements of the college life had been at the bottom of it. Her +father would know it too, if the matter ever came to his notice; and her brother +Jim, who was making such a splendid record at Cornell–he would know that, +as Betty Wales had said once, quoting her sister’s friend, “Every +nice girl likes college, though each has a different reason.” Well, Jim +had thought for two years that she was a failure. Eleanor gulped hard to keep +back the tears; she had meant to be everything to Jim, and she was only an +annoyance.</p> + +<p>It was almost dark by the time she reached the landing. A noisy crowd of +girls, who had evidently been out with their supper, were just coming in. They +exclaimed in astonishment when her canoe shot out from the boat-house.</p> + +<p>“It’s awfully hard to see your way,” called one officious +damsel.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328'></a>328</span>“I can see +in the dark like an owl,” sang back Eleanor, her good-humor restored the +instant her paddle touched water,–for boating was her one passion.</p> + +<p>Ah, but it was lovely on the river! She glided around the point of an island +and was alone at last, with the stars, the soft, grape-scented breezes, and the +dark water. She pulled up the stream with long, swift strokes, and then, where +the trees hung low over the still water, she dropped the paddle, and slipping +into the bottom of the canoe, leaned back against a cushioned seat and drank in +the beauty of the darkness and solitude. She had never been out on Paradise +River at night. “And I shall never come again except at night,” she +resolved, breathing deep of the damp, soft air. Malaria–who cared for +that? And when she was cold she could paddle a little and be warm again in a +moment.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she heard voices and saw two shapes moving slowly along the path on +the bank.</p> + +<p>“Oh, do hurry, Margaret,” said one. “I told her I’d +be there by eight. Besides, it’s awfully dark and creepy here.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329'></a>329</span>“I tell +you I can’t hurry, Lil,” returned the other. “I turned my +ankle terribly back there, and I must sit down and rest, creeps or no +creeps.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well,” agreed the other voice grudgingly, and the +shapes sank down on a knoll close to the water’s edge.</p> + +<p>Eleanor had recognized them instantly; they were her sophomore friend, Lilian +Day, and Margaret Payson, a junior whom Eleanor greatly admired. Her first +impulse was to call out and offer to take the girls back in her canoe. Then she +remembered that the little craft would hold only two with safety, that the girls +would perhaps be startled if she spoke to them, and also that she had come down +to Paradise largely to escape Lil’s importunate demands that she spend a +month of her vacation at the Day camp in the Adirondacks. So, certain that they +would never notice her in the darkness and the thick shadows, she lay still in +the bottom of her boat and waited for them to go on.</p> + +<p>“It’s a pity about her, isn’t it?” said Miss Payson, +after she had rubbed her ankle for a while in silence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330'></a>330</span>“About +whom?” inquired Lilian crossly.</p> + +<p>“Why, Eleanor Watson; you just spoke of having an engagement with her. +She seems to have been a general failure here.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor started at the sound of her own name, then lay tense and rigid, +waiting for Lilian’s answer. She knew it was not honorable to listen, and +she certainly did not care to do so; but if she cried out now, after having kept +silent so long, Lilian, who was absurdly nervous in the dark, might be seriously +frightened. Perhaps she would disagree and change the subject. But no―</p> + +<p>“Yes, a complete failure,” repeated Lilian distinctly. +“Isn’t it queer? She’s really very clever, you know, and +awfully amusing, besides being so amazingly beautiful. But there is a little +footless streak of contrariness in her–we noticed it at +boarding-school,–and it seems to have completely spoiled her.”</p> + +<p>“It is queer, if she is all that you say. Perhaps next year +she’ll be―”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she isn’t coming back next year,” broke in Lilian. +“She hates it here, you know, and she sees that she’s made a mess of +it, too, though she wouldn’t admit it in a torture <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_331'></a>331</span> chamber. She thinks she has shown that +college is beneath her talents, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Little goose! Is she so talented?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. She sings beautifully and plays the guitar rather +well–she’d surely have made one of the musical clubs next +year–and she can act, and write clever little stories. Oh, she’d +have walked into everything going all right, if she hadn’t been such a +goose–muddled her work and been generally offish and horrid.”</p> + +<p>“Too bad,” said Miss Payson, rising with a groan. “Who do +you think are the bright and shining stars among the freshmen, Lil?”</p> + +<p>“Why Marion Lustig for literary ability, of course, and Emily Davis for +stunts and Christy Mason for general all-around fineness, and socially–oh, +let me think–the B’s, I should say, and–I forget her +name–the little girl that Dottie King is so fond of. Here, take my arm, +Margaret. You’ve got to get home some way, you know.”</p> + +<p>Their voices trailed off into murmurs that grew fainter and fainter until the +silence of the river and the wood was again unbroken. Eleanor sat up stiffly and +stretched her arms <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332'></a>332</span> +above her head in sheer physical relief after the strain of utter stillness. +Then, with a little sobbing cry, she leaned forward, bowing her head in her +hands. Paradise–had they named it so because one ate there of the fruit of +the tree of knowledge?</p> + +<p>“A little footless streak!”</p> + +<p>“An utter failure!”</p> + +<p>What did it matter? She had known it all before. She had said those very +words herself. But she had thought–she had been sure that other people did +not understand it that way. Well, perhaps most people did not. No, that was +nonsense. Lilian Day had achieved a position of prominence in her class purely +through a remarkable alertness to public sentiment. Margaret Payson, a girl of a +very different and much finer type, stood for the best of that sentiment. +Eleanor had often admired her for her clear-sightedness and good judgment. They +had said unhesitatingly that she was a failure; then the college thought so. +Well, it was Jean Eastman’s fault then, and Caroline’s, and Betty +Wales’s. Nonsense! it was her own. Should she go off in June and leave her +name spelling failure <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_333'></a>333</span> behind her? Or should she come back and somehow +change the failure to success? Could she?</p> + +<p>She had no idea how long she sat there, turning the matter over in her mind, +viewing it this way and that, considering what she could do if she came back, +veering between a desire to go away and forget it all in the gay bustle of a New +York winter, and the fierce revolt of the famous Watson pride, that found any +amount of effort preferable to open and acknowledged defeat. But it must have +been a long time, for when she pulled herself on to her seat and caught up the +paddle, she was shivering with cold and her thin dress was dripping wet with the +mist that lay thick over the river. Slowly she felt her way down-stream, pushing +through the bank of fog, often running in shore in spite of her caution, and +fearful every moment of striking a hidden rock or snag. Soft rustlings in the +wood, strange plashings in the stream startled her. Lower down was the +bewildering net-work of islands. Surely there were never so many before. Was the +boat-house straight across from the last island, or a little down-stream? <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334'></a>334</span> Which was straight +across? And where was the last island? She had missed it somehow in the mist. +She was below it, out in the wide mill-pond. Somewhere on the other side was the +boat-house, and further down was a dam. Down-stream must be straight to the +left. All at once the roar of the descending water sounded in Eleanor’s +ears, and to her horror it did not come from the left. But when she tried to +tell from which direction it did come, she could not decide; it seemed to +reverberate from all sides at once; it was perilously near and it grew louder +and more terrible every moment.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a fierce, unreasoning fear took possession of Eleanor. She told +herself sternly that there was no danger; the current in Paradise River was not +so strong but that a good paddler could stem it with ease. In a moment the mist +would lift and she could see the outline of one shore or the other. But the mist +did not lift; instead it grew denser and more stifling, and although she turned +her canoe this way and that and paddled with all her strength, the roar from the +dam grew steadily to an ominous thunder. Then <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_335'></a>335</span> she remembered a gruesome legend that hung about +the dam and the foaming pool in the shadow of the old mill far below, and +dropped her paddle in an agony of fear. She might hurry herself over the dam in +striving to escape it!</p> + +<p>And still the deafening torrent pounded in her ears. If only she could get +away from it–somewhere–anywhere just to be quiet. Would it be quiet +in the pool by the mill? Eleanor slipped unsteadily into the bottom of her boat +and tried to peer through the darkness at the black water, and to feel about +with her hands for the current. As she did so, a bell rang up on the campus. It +must be twenty minutes to ten. Eleanor gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. How stupid +she had been! She would call, of course. If she could hear their bell, they +could hear her voice and come for her. There would be an awkward moment of +explanation, but what of that?</p> + +<p>“Hallo! Hallo–o-o!” she called. Only the boom of the water +answered.</p> + +<p>“Hallo! Hallo–o-o!”</p> + +<p>Again the boom of the water swallowed her cry and drowned it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_336'></a>336</span>It was no use to +call,–only a waste of strength.</p> + +<p>Eleanor caught up her paddle and began to back water with all her might. That +was what she should have done from the first, of course. She was cold all at +once and very tired, but she would not give up yet.</p> + +<p>She had quite forgotten that only a little while before it had not seemed to +matter much what became of her. “But if I can’t keep at it all +night―” she said to the mist and the river.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337'></a>337</span><a id='link_19'></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /><span class='h2fs'>A LAST CHANCE</span></h2> + +<p>Helen’s choice of closed windows in preference to invading companies of +moths and June-bugs had made the room so insufferably warm that between heat and +excitement Betty could not get to sleep. Instead she tossed restlessly about on +her narrow couch, listening to the banging of the trolleys at the next corner +and wishing she were still sitting on the breezy front seat, as the car dashed +down the long hill toward the station. At length she slipped softly out of bed +and opened the door. Perhaps the breeze would come in better then. As she stood +for a moment testing the result of her experiment, she noticed with surprise +that Eleanor’s door was likewise open. This simple fact astonished her, +because she remembered that on the hottest nights last fall Eleanor had +persisted in shutting and locking her door. She had acquired the habit from +living so much in hotels, she <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_338'></a>338</span> said; she could never go to sleep at all so long as +her door was unfastened. “Perhaps it’s all right,” thought +Betty, “but it looks queer. I believe I’ll just see if she’s +in bed.” So she crept softly across the hall and looked into +Eleanor’s room. It was empty, and the couch was in its daytime dress, +covered with an oriental spread and piled high with pillows. “I suppose +she stopped on the campus and got belated,” was Betty’s first idea. +“But no, she couldn’t stay down there all night, and it’s long +after ten. It must be half past eleven. I’ll–I’d better +consult–Katherine.”</p> + +<p>She chose Katherine instead of Rachel, because she had heard Eleanor speak +about going to Paradise, and so could best help to decide whether it was +reasonable to suppose that she was still there. Rachel was steadier and more +dependable, but Katherine was resourceful and quick-witted. Besides, she was not +a bit afraid of the dark.</p> + +<p>She was sound asleep, but Betty managed to wake her and get her into the hall +without disturbing any one else.</p> + +<p>“Goodness!” exclaimed Katherine, when she heard the news. +“You don’t think―”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339'></a>339</span>“I think +she’s lost in Paradise. It must have been pitch dark down there under the +trees even before she got started, and you know she hasn’t any sense of +direction. Don’t you remember her laughing about getting turned around +every time she went to New York?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but it doesn’t seem possible to get lost on that little +pond.”</p> + +<p>“It’s bigger than it looks,” said Betty, “and there +is the mist, too, to confuse her.”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t thought of that. Does she know how to manage a +boat?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, capitally,” said Betty in so frightened a voice that +Katherine dropped the subject.</p> + +<p>“She’s lost up stream somewhere and afraid to move for fear of +hitting a rock,” she said easily. “Or perhaps she’s right out +in the pond by the boat-house and doesn’t dare to cross because she might +go too far down toward the dam. We can find her all right, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“Then you’ll come?” said Betty eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Why, of course. You weren’t thinking of going alone, were +you?”</p> + +<p>“I thought maybe you’d think it was silly <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_340'></a>340</span> for any one to go. I suppose she might +be at one of the campus houses.”</p> + +<p>“She might, but I doubt it,” said Katherine. “She was +painfully intent on solitude when she left here. Now don’t fuss too long +about dressing.”</p> + +<p>Without a word Betty sped off to her room. She was just pulling a rain-coat +over a very meagre toilet when Katherine put her head in at the door. +“Bring matches,” she said in a sepulchral whisper. Betty emptied the +contents of her match-box into her ulster pocket, threw a cape over her arm for +Eleanor, and followed Katherine cat-footed down the stairs. In the lower hall +they stopped for a brief consultation.</p> + +<p>“Ought we to tell Mrs. Chapin?” asked Betty doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Eleanor will hate us forever if we do,” said Katherine, +“and I don’t see any special advantage in it. If we don’t find +her, Mrs. Chapin can’t. We might tell Rachel though, in case we were +missed.”</p> + +<p>“Or we might leave a note where she would find it,” suggested +Betty. “Then if we weren’t missed no one need know.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341'></a>341</span>“All +right. You can go more quietly; I’ll wait here.” Katherine sank down +on the lowest stair, while Betty flew back to scribble a note which she laid on +Rachel’s pillow. Then the relief expedition started.</p> + +<p>It was very strange being out so late. Before ten o’clock a girl may go +anywhere in Harding, but after ten the streets are deserted and dreadful. Betty +shivered and clung close to Katherine, who marched boldly along, declaring that +it was much nicer outdoors than in, and that midnight was certainly the top of +the evening for a walk.</p> + +<p>“And if we find her way up the river we can all camp out for the +night,” she suggested jovially.</p> + +<p>“But if we don’t find her?”</p> + +<p>Katherine, who had noticed Betty’s growing nervousness, refused to +entertain the possibility.</p> + +<p>“We shall,” she said.</p> + +<p>“But if we don’t?” persisted Betty.</p> + +<p>“Then I suppose we shall have to tell somebody who–who +could–why, hunt for her more thoroughly,” stammered Katherine. +“Or possibly we’d better wait till morning <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_342'></a>342</span> and make sure that she didn’t +stay all night with Miss Day. But if we don’t find her, there will be +plenty of time to discuss that.”</p> + +<p>At the campus gateway the girls hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we should meet the night-watchman?” said Betty +anxiously. “Would he arrest us?”</p> + +<p>Katherine laughed at her fears. “I was only wondering if we +hadn’t better take the path through the orchard. If we go down by the +dwelling-houses we might meet him, of course, and it would be awkward getting +rid of him if he has an ordinary amount of curiosity.”</p> + +<p>“But that path is spooky dark,” objected Betty.</p> + +<p>“Not so dark as the street behind the campus,” said Katherine +decidedly, “and that’s the only alternative. Come on.”</p> + +<p>When they had almost reached the back limit of the campus Katherine halted +suddenly. Betty clutched her in terror. “Do you see any one?” she +whispered. Katherine put an arm around her frightened little comrade. “Not +a person,” she said reassuringly, “not even the ghost of my +grandmother. I <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343'></a>343</span> was +just wondering, Betty, if you’d care to go ahead down to the landing and +call, while I waited up by the road. Eleanor is such a proud thing; she’ll +hate dreadfully to be caught in this fix, and I know she’d rather have you +come to find her than me or both of us. But perhaps you’d rather not go +ahead. It is pretty dark down there.”</p> + +<p>Betty lifted her face from Katherine’s shoulder and looked at the black +darkness that was the road and the river bank, and below it to the pond that +glistened here and there where the starlight fell on its cloak of mist.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Katherine after a moment’s silence, +“we can keep together just as well as not, as far as I am concerned. I +only thought that perhaps, since this was your plan and you are so fond of +Eleanor–oh well, I just thought you might like to have the fun of rescuing +her,” finished Katherine desperately.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean for me to go ahead and call, and if Eleanor answers not to +say anything to her about your having come?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Then how would you get home?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344'></a>344</span>“Oh, walk +along behind you, just out of sight.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t you be afraid?”</p> + +<p>“Hardly.”</p> + +<p>“But I should be taking the credit for something I hadn’t +done.”</p> + +<p>“And Eleanor would be the happier thereby and none of the rest of the +world would be affected either way.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked at the pond again and then gave Katherine a soft little hug. +“Katherine Kittredge, you’re an old dear,” she said, +“and if you really don’t mind, I’ll go ahead; but if she asks +me how I dared to come alone or says anything about how I got here, I shall tell +her that you were with me.”</p> + +<p>“All right, but I fancy she won’t be thinking about that. The +matches are so she can see her way to you. It’s awfully hard to follow a +sound across the water, but if you light one match after another she can get to +you before the supply gives out, if she’s anywhere near. Don’t light +any till she answers. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll come down to you +and we’ll walk on up the river a little way and find her there.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_345'></a>345</span>“Yes,” said Betty. “Where shall +you stay?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, right under this tree, I guess,” answered Katherine +carelessly.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>When Betty had fairly gone, doubts began to assail Katherine, as they have a +habit of assailing impulsive people, after it is too late to pay heed to them. +It occurred to her that she was cooperating in what might easily turn out to be +a desperate adventure, and that it would have been the part of wisdom to enlist +the services of more competent and better equipped searchers at once, without +risking delay on the slender chance of finding Eleanor near the wharf. +“Eleanor would have hated the publicity, but if she wants to come up here +in the dark and frighten us all into hysteria she must take the consequences. +And I’d have let her too, if it hadn’t been for Betty.”</p> + +<p>An owl hooted, and Katherine jumped as nervously as Betty would have done. +Poor Betty! She must be almost at the landing by this time. At that very moment +a little quavering voice rang out over the water.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346'></a>346</span>“Eleanor! +Eleanor Watson! Eleanor! Oh, Eleanor, where are you?”</p> + +<p>For a long moment there was silence. Then the owl hooted again. That was too +much. Katherine jumped up with a bound and started down the bank toward Betty. +She did not stop to find the path, and at the second step caught her foot and +fell headlong. Apparently Betty did not hear her. She had not yet given up hope, +for she was calling again, pausing each time to listen for the answer that did +not come.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Eleanor, Eleanor, aren’t you there?” she cried and +stopped, even the courage of despair gone at last. Katherine, nursing a bruised +knee on the hill above, had opened her mouth to call encouragement, when a low +“Who is it?” floated across the water.</p> + +<p>“Eleanor, is that you? It’s I–Betty Wales!” shrieked +Betty.</p> + +<p>Katherine nodded her head in silent token of “I told you so,” and +slid back among the bushes to recuperate and await developments.</p> + +<p>For the end was not yet. Eleanor was evidently far down toward the dam, close +to the opposite bank. It was hard for her to hear <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_347'></a>347</span> Betty, and still harder for Betty to +hear her. Her voice sounded faint and far off, and she seemed to be paralyzed +with fear and quite incapable of further effort. When Betty begged her to paddle +right across and began lighting matches in reckless profusion to show her the +way, Eleanor simply repeated, “I can’t, I can’t,” in +dull, dispirited monotone.</p> + +<p>“Shall–I–come–for–you?” shouted +Betty.</p> + +<p>“You can’t,” returned Eleanor again.</p> + +<p>“Non–sense!” shrieked Betty and then stood still on the +wharf, apparently weighing Eleanor’s last opinion.</p> + +<p>“Go ahead,” called Katherine in muffled tones from above.</p> + +<p>Betty did not answer.</p> + +<p>“Thinks I’m another owl, I suppose,” muttered Katherine, +and limped down the bank to the wharf, frightening the nervous, overwrought +Betty almost out of her wits at first, and then vastly relieving her by taking +the entire direction of affairs into her own competent hands.</p> + +<p>“You go right ahead. It’s the only way, and it’s perfectly +easy in a heavy boat. That <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_348'></a>348</span> canoe might possibly go down with the current, but +a big boat wouldn’t. Rachel and I tried it last week, when the river was +higher. Now cross straight over and feel along the bank until you get to her. +Then beach the canoe and come back the same way. Give me some matches. +I’ll manage that part of it and then retire,–unless you’d +rather be the one to wait here.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’ll go,” answered Betty eagerly, vanishing into the +boat-house after a pair of oars.</p> + +<p>“She must be hanging on to something on shore,” went on +Katherine, when Betty reappeared, “and she’s lost her nerve and +doesn’t dare to let go. If you can’t get her into your boat, +I’ll come; but somebody really ought to stay here. I had no idea the fog +was so thick. Hurry now and cross straight over. You’re sure you’re +not afraid?”</p> + +<p>“Quite sure.” Betty was off, splashing her oars nervously through +the still water, wrapped in the mist, whispering over and over Katherine’s +last words, “Hurry and go straight. Hurry, hurry, go straight +across.”</p> + +<p>When she reached the other shore she called again to Eleanor, and the sobbing +cry <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349'></a>349</span> of relief that +answered her made all the strain and effort seem as nothing. Cautiously creeping +along the bank where the river was comparatively quiet, backing water now and +then to test her strength with the current, she finally reached Eleanor, who had +happened quite by chance to run near the bank and now sat in the frail canoe +hanging by both hands to a branch that swept low over the water, exactly as +Katherine had guessed.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you beach the canoe, and stay on shore?” asked +Betty, who had tied her own boat just above and was now up to her knees in the +water, pulling Eleanor in.</p> + +<p>“I tried to, but I lost my paddle, and so I was afraid to let go the +tree again, and the water looked so deep. Oh, Betty, Betty!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor sank down on the bank, sobbing as if her heart would break. Betty +patted her arm in silence, and in a few moments she stood up, quieted. +“You’re going to take me back?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Betty, cheerfully, leading the way to her +boat.</p> + +<p>“Please wait a minute,” commanded Eleanor.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350'></a>350</span>Betty trembled. +“She’s going to say she won’t go back with me,” she +thought. “Please let me do it, Eleanor,” she begged.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Eleanor, quickly, “but first I want to say +something. I’ve been a hateful, horrid thing, Betty. I’ve believed +unkind stories and done no end of mean things, and I deserve all that I’ve +had to-night, except your coming after me. I’ve been ashamed of myself for +months, only I wouldn’t say so. I know you can never want me for a friend +again, after all my meanness; but Betty, say that you won’t let it hurt +you–that you’ll try to forget all about it.”</p> + +<p>Betty put a wet arm around Eleanor’s neck and kissed her cheek softly. +“You weren’t to blame,” she said. “It was all a mistake +and my horrid carelessness. Of course I want you for a friend. I want it more +than anything else. And now don’t say another word about it, but just get +into the boat and come home.”</p> + +<p>They hardly spoke during the return passage; Eleanor was worn out with all +she had gone through, and Betty was busy rowing and watching for +Katherine’s matches, which <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_351'></a>351</span> made tiny, glimmering dots of light in the gloom. +Eleanor did not seem to notice them, nor the shadowy figure that vanished around +the boat-house just before they reached the wharf.</p> + +<p>From her appointed station under the pine-tree Katherine heard the grinding +of the boat on the gravel, the rattle of oars thrown down on the wharf, and then +a low murmur of conversation that did not start up the hill toward her, as she +had expected.</p> + +<p>“Innocents!” sighed Katherine. “They’re actually +stopping to talk it out down there in the wet. I’m glad they’ve made +it up, and I’d do anything in reason for Betty Wales, but I certainly am +sleepy,” and she yawned so loud that a blue jay that was roosting in the +tree above her head fluttered up to a higher branch, screaming angrily.</p> + +<p>“The note of the nestle,” laughed Katherine, and yawned +again.</p> + +<p>Down on the wharf Betty and Eleanor were curled up close together in an +indiscriminate, happy tangle of rain-coat, golf-cape, and very drabbled muslin, +holding a conversation that neither would ever forget. Yet it was perfectly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352'></a>352</span> commonplace; +Harding girls are not given to the expression of their deeper emotions, though +it must not therefore be inferred that they do not have any to express.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Betty, you can’t imagine how dreadful it was out +there!” Eleanor was saying. “And I thought I should have to stay all +night, of course. How did you know I hadn’t come in?”</p> + +<p>Betty explained.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why you bothered,” said Eleanor. +“I’m sure I shouldn’t have, for any one as horrid as +I’ve been. Oh, Betty, will you truly forgive me?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say that. I’ve wanted to do something that would +make you forgive me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know you have,” broke in Eleanor quickly. “Miss +Ferris told me.”</p> + +<p>“She did!” interrupted Betty in her turn. “Why, she +promised not to.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I asked her. It seemed to me queer that she should have taken +such an interest in me, and all of a sudden it flashed over me, as I sat talking +to her, that you were at the bottom of it. So I said, ‘Miss Ferris, Betty Wales +asked you to say this to me,’ and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_353'></a>353</span> she said, ‘Yes, but she also asked me not to +mention her having done so.’ I was ashamed enough then, for she’d +made me see pretty plainly how badly I needed looking after, but I was bound I +wouldn’t give in. Oh, Betty, haven’t I been silly!”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by what I said at that class +meeting, Eleanor,” said Betty shyly.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t hurt them. I was just cross at things in +general–at myself, I suppose that means,–and angry at you because +I’d made you despise me, which certainly wasn’t your +fault.”</p> + +<p>“Eleanor, what nonsense! I despise you?”</p> + +<p>A rustling on the bank reminded Betty that Katherine was waiting. “We +must go home,” she said. “It’s after midnight.”</p> + +<p>“So it is,” agreed Eleanor, getting up stiffly. “Oh, Betty, +I am glad I’m not out there hanging on to that branch and shivering and +wondering how soon I should have to let go and end it all. Oh, I shall never +forget the feel of that stifling mist.”</p> + +<p>They walked home almost in silence. Katherine, missing the murmur of +conversation, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354'></a>354</span> +wondered if this last effort at reconciliation had failed after all; but near +Mrs. Chapin’s the talk began again.</p> + +<p>“I’m only sorry there isn’t more of spring term left to +have a good time in. Why, Eleanor, there’s only two weeks.”</p> + +<p>“But there’s all next year,” answered Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“I thought you weren’t coming back.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t, but I am now. I’ve got to–I can’t go +off letting people think that I’m only a miserable failure. The Watson +pride won’t let me, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, people don’t think anything of that kind,” objected +Betty consolingly.</p> + +<p>“I know one person who does,” said Eleanor with decision, +“and her name is Eleanor Watson. I decided while I was out there waiting +for you that one’s honest opinion of herself is about as important as any +outsider’s. Don’t you think so?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” said Betty gaily. “But the thing that interests +me is that you’re coming back next year. Why, it’s just grand! Shall +you go on the campus?”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355'></a>355</span><a id='link_20'></a>CHAPTER XX<br /><span class='h2fs'>LOOSE THREADS</span></h2> + +<p>Betty Wales had to leave her trunk half packed and her room in indescribable +confusion in order to obey a sudden summons from the registrar. She had secured +a room on the campus at last, so the brief note said; but the registrar wished +her to report at the office and decide which of two possible assignments she +preferred.</p> + +<p>“It’s funny,” said Betty to Helen, as she extracted her hat +from behind the bookcase, where she had stored it for safe keeping, +“because I put in my application for the Hilton house way back last +fall.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps she means two different rooms.”</p> + +<p>“No, Mary says they never give you a choice about rooms, unless +you’re an invalid and can’t be on the fourth floor or something of +that kind.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s nice that you’re on,” said Helen <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356'></a>356</span> wistfully. “I +don’t suppose I have the least chance for next year.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s all summer,” said Betty hopefully. “Lots +of people drop out at the last minute. Which house did you choose?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t choose any because Miss Stuart told me I would probably +have to wait till junior year, and I thought I might change my mind before +then.”</p> + +<p>“It’s too bad,” said Betty, picking her way between trunk +trays and piles of miscellaneous débris to the door. “I think I shall stop +on my way home and get a man to move my furniture right over to the +Hilton.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely if I’d got into the Hilton house +too!” said Helen with a sigh of resignation. “Then perhaps we could +room together.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Betty politely, closing the door after her. Under the +circumstances it was not necessary to explain that Alice Waite and she had other +plans for the next year.</p> + +<p>It was a relief to stop trying to circumvent the laws of nature by forcing +two objects into the space that one will fill–which is the cardinal +principle of the college girl’s June packing–and <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357'></a>357</span> Betty strolled slowly +along under the elm-trees, in no haste to finish her errand. On Main Street, +Emily Davis, carrying an ungainly bundle, overtook her.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid I wasn’t going to see you to say good-bye,” +she said. “Everybody wants skirt braids put on just now, and between that +and examinations I’ve been very busy.”</p> + +<p>“Are those skirts?” asked Betty.</p> + +<p>“Yes, two of Babbie’s and one of Babe’s. I was going up to +the campus, so I thought I’d bring them along and save the girls trouble, +since they’re my best patrons, as well as being my good +friends.”</p> + +<p>“It’s nice to have them both.”</p> + +<p>“Only you hate to take money for doing things for your +friends.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you going to be this summer?” inquired Betty. +“You never told me where you live.”</p> + +<p>“I live up in northern New York, but I’m not going home this +summer. I’m going to Rockport―”</p> + +<p>“Why, so am I!” exclaimed Betty. “We’re going to stay +at The Breakers.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear!” said Emily sadly, “I was <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_358'></a>358</span> hoping that none of my particular +friends would be there. I’m going to have charge of the linen-room at The +Breakers, Betty.”</p> + +<p>“What difference does that make?” demanded Betty eagerly. +“You have hours off, don’t you? We’ll have the gayest sort of +a time. Can you swim?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’ve never seen the ocean.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Will and Nan will teach you. They’re going to teach +me.”</p> + +<p>Emily shook her head. “Now, Betty, you must not expect your family to +see me in the same light that you do. Here those things don’t make any +difference, but outside they do; and it’s perfectly right that they +should, too.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! My family has some sense, I hope,” said Betty gaily, +stopping at the entrance to the Main Building. “Then I’ll see you +next week.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but remember you are not to bother your family with me. +Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye. You just wait and see!” called Betty, climbing the +steps. Half-way up she frowned. Nan and mother would understand, but Will was an +awful snob. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359'></a>359</span> +“He’ll have to get used to it,” she decided, “and he +will, too, after he’s heard her do ‘the temperance lecture by a female +from Boston.’ But it will certainly seem funny to him at first. Why, I +guess it would have seemed funny to me last year.”</p> + +<p>The registrar looked up wearily from the litter on her desk, as Betty +entered. “Good-afternoon, Miss Wales. I sent for you because I was sure +that, however busy you might be you had more time than I, and I can talk to you +much quicker than I could write. As I wrote you, I have reached your name on the +list of the campus applicants, and you can go into the Hilton if you choose. But +owing to an unlooked-for falling out of names just below yours, Miss Helen C. +Adams comes next to you on the list. You hadn’t mentioned the matter of +roommates, and noticing that you two girls live in the same house, I thought I +would ask you if you preferred a room in the Belden house with Miss Adams. There +are two vacancies there, and she will get one of them in any case.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Betty.</p> + +<p>“I shall be very glad to know your decision <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_360'></a>360</span> to-night if possible, so that I can +make the other assignment in the morning, before the next applicant leaves +town.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Betty.</p> + +<p>“You will probably wish to consult Miss Adams,” went on the +registrar. “I ought to have sent for her too–I don’t know why +I was so stupid.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s all right,” said Betty hastily. “I will +come back in about an hour, Miss Stuart. I suppose there isn’t any hope +that we could both go into the Hilton.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m afraid not. Any time before six o’clock will do. I +shan’t be here much longer, but you can leave the message with my +assistant. And you understand of course that it was purely on your account that +I spoke to you. I thought that under the circumstances―” The +registrar was deep in her letters again.</p> + +<p>But as Betty was opening the door, she looked up to say with a merry twinkle +in her keen gray eyes, “Give my regards to your father, Miss Wales, and +tell him he underrates his daughter’s ability to take care of +herself.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361'></a>361</span>“Oh, Miss +Stuart, I hoped you didn’t know I was that girl,” cried Betty +blushing prettily.</p> + +<p>Miss Stuart shook her head. “I couldn’t come to meet you, but I +didn’t forget. I’ve kept an eye on you.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you haven’t seen anything very dreadful,” laughed +Betty.</p> + +<p>“I’ll let you know when I do,” said Miss Stuart. +“Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Betty went out on to the campus, where the shadows were beginning to grow +long on the freshly mown turf, and took her favorite path back to the edge of +the hill, where she sat down on her favorite seat to consider this new problem. +On the slope below her a bed of rhododendrons that had been quite hidden under +the snow in winter, and inconspicuous through the spring, had burst into a +sudden glory of rainbow blossoms–pink and white and purple and flaming +orange.</p> + +<p>“Every day is different here,” thought Betty, “and the +horrid things and the lovely ones always come together.”</p> + +<p>Helen would be pleased, of course; as she had hinted to the registrar, there +was really no need of consulting Helen; the only person <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_362'></a>362</span> to be considered was Betty Wales. If +only Miss Stuart had assigned her to the Hilton house and said nothing!</p> + +<p>From her seat Betty could look over to Dorothy King’s windows. It would +have been such fun to be in the house with Dorothy. Clara Madison was going to +leave the campus and go to a place where they would make her bed and bring her +hot water in the morning. Alice’s room was a lovely big one on the same +floor as Dorothy’s, and she had delayed making arrangements to share it +with a freshman who was already in the house, until she was sure that Betty did +not get her assignment. Eleanor had applied for an extra-priced single there, +too, to be near Betty.</p> + +<p>Helen was a dear little thing and a very considerate roommate, but she was +“different.” She didn’t fit in somehow, and it was a bother +always to be planning to have her have a good time. She would be lonely in the +Belden; she loved college and was very happy now, but she needed to have +somebody who understood her and could appreciate her efforts, to encourage her +and keep her in touch with the lighter side of college life. <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363'></a>363</span> She didn’t know a +soul in the Belden–but then neither did lots of other freshmen when they +moved on to the campus. She need never hear anything about the registrar’s +plan, and she could come over to the Hilton as much as she liked.</p> + +<p>Nita Reese would be at the Belden, and Marion Lawrence; and Mary Brooks was +going there if she could get an assignment. It was a splendid house, the next +best to the Hilton. But those girls were not Dorothy King, and Miss Andrews was +not Miss Ferris. It would have been lovely to be in the house with Miss +Ferris.</p> + +<p>Would have been! Betty caught herself suddenly. It wasn’t settled yet. +Then she got up from her seat with quick determination. “I’ll stop +in and see Miss Ferris for just a minute, and then I shall go back and tell Miss +Stuart right off, for I must finish packing to-night, whatever +happens.”</p> + +<p>Miss Ferris was in, and she and her darkened, flower-scented room wore an air +of coolness and settled repose that was a poignant relief after the glaring +sunshine outside and the confusion of “last days.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364'></a>364</span>“So you go +to-morrow,” said Miss Ferris pleasantly. “I don’t get off till +next week, of course. Are you satisfied?”</p> + +<p>“Satisfied?” repeated Betty. She had heard of Miss Ferris’s +habit of flashing irrelevant questions at her puzzled auditors, but this was her +first experience of it.</p> + +<p>“With your first year at Harding,” explained Miss Ferris.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Betty, relieved that it was no worse. “Why, +y-es–no, I’m not. I’ve had a splendid time, but I +haven’t accomplished half that I ought. Next year I’m going to work +harder from the very beginning, and―” Betty stopped abruptly, +realizing that all this could not possibly interest Miss Ferris.</p> + +<p>“And what?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t want to bore you,” apologized Betty. “Why, +I’m going to try to–I don’t know how to say it–try not +scatter my thoughts so. Nan says that I am so awfully interested in every +one’s else business that I haven’t any business of my +own.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Miss Ferris musingly. “That’s quite a +possible point of view. Still, I’m inclined <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_365'></a>365</span> to think that on the whole we have just +as much orange left and it tastes far better, if we give a good deal of it away. +If we try to hang on to it all, it’s likely to spoil in the pantry before +we get around to squeeze it dry.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked puzzled again.</p> + +<p>“You don’t like figures of speech, do you?” said Miss +Ferris. “You must learn to like them next year. What I mean is that it +seems to me far better in the long run to be interested in too many people than +not to be interested in people enough. Of course, though, we mustn’t +neglect to be sufficiently interested in ourselves; and how to divide ourselves +fairly between ourselves and the rest of the world is the hardest question we +ever have to answer. You’ll be getting new ideas about it all through your +course–and all through your life.”</p> + +<p>There was a moment of silence, and then Betty rose to go. “I have to +pack and I know you are busy. Miss Ferris, I’m going to be at the Belden +next year.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry you’re not coming here,” said Miss Ferris +kindly. “Couldn’t you manage it?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366'></a>366</span>“Yes, but +the–the orange seems to cut better the other way,” said Betty. +“That isn’t a good figure, but perhaps you can see what it +means.”</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>It was worth most of what it had cost to see Helen’s face when she +heard the news. “Oh Betty, it’s too good to be true,” she +cried, “but are you sure you want me?”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t I given up the Hilton to be with you?” said Betty, +with her face turned the other way.</p> + +<p>Alice was disappointed, but she would be just as happy with Constance Fayles. +She found more “queer” things to like at Harding every day, and she +considered Betty Wales one of the queerest and one of the nicest.</p> + +<p>Eleanor pleased Betty by offering no objection to the change of plan. +“Only you needn’t think that you can get rid of me as easily as all +this,” she said. “I shall camp down in the registrar’s office +until she says that ‘under the circumstances,’ which is her pet phrase, +she will let me change my application to the Belden. By the way, Betty, Jean +Eastman wants to see you after chapel <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_367'></a>367</span> to-morrow. She said she’d be in number +five.”</p> + +<p>After “last chapel,” with its farewell greetings, that for all +but the seniors invariably ended with a cheerful “See you next +September,” and the interview with Jean, in which the class president +offered rather unintelligible apologies for “the stupid misunderstanding +that we all got into,” Betty went back to the house to get her bags and +meet Katherine, who was going on the same train. Some of the girls had already +gone, and none of them were in but Rachel, who was perched in a front window +watching anxiously for a dilatory expressman, and Katherine, who was frantically +stowing the things that would not go in her trunk into an already well-filled +suit-case.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s all over,” said Betty, sitting down on the +window seat beside Rachel.</p> + +<p>“Wish it were,” muttered Katherine, shutting the case and sitting +down on it with a thud.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s only well begun,” corrected Rachel.</p> + +<p>“A lot of things are over anyway,” persisted <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_368'></a>368</span> Betty. “Just think how much has +happened since last September!”</p> + +<p>“Jolly nice things too,” said Katherine cheerfully. She had quite +unexpectedly succeeded in fastening the lock.</p> + +<p>“Weren’t they!” agreed Betty heartily. “But I guess +the nicest thing about it is what you said, Rachel–that it’s ‘to be +continued in our next.’ Won’t it be fun to see how everything turns +out?”</p> + +<p>“I wish that expressman would turn up,” said Rachel ruefully.</p> + +<p>“We’ll tell him so if we meet him,” said Betty, shouldering +her bag and her golf clubs, while Katherine staggered along with the bursting +suit-case.</p> + +<p>As they boarded a car at the corner, Mary Brooks and the faithful Roberta +waved to them energetically from the other side of Main Street.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye! Good-bye!” shrieked Katherine.</p> + +<p>“See you next September,” called Betty, who had said good-bye to +them once already.</p> + +<p>“Katherine Kittredge has grown older this year,” said Mary +critically, “but Betty hasn’t <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_369'></a>369</span> changed a bit. I remember the night she came up the +walk, carrying those bags.”</p> + +<p>“She has changed inside,” said Roberta.</p> + +<p>As the car whizzed by the Main Building, Betty wanted to wave her hand to +that too, but she didn’t until Dorothy King, appearing on the front steps, +gave her an excuse.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said with a little sigh, as the campus disappeared +below the crest of the hill, “you and Rachel may talk all you like, but I +feel as if something was over, and it makes me sad. Just think! We can never be +freshmen at Harding again as long as we live.”</p> + +<p>“Quite true,” said Katherine calmly, “but we can be +sophomores–that is, unless the office sees fit to interfere.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we can be sophomores; and perhaps that’s just as +nice,” said Betty optimistically. “Perhaps it’s even +nicer.”</p> + +<p class='c fs08 mt40'>The Books in this Series are:</p> + +<table summary=''><tr><td><p class='fs08'>BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN<br /> +BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE<br /> +BETTY WALES, JUNIOR<br /> +BETTY WALES, SENIOR<br /> +BETTY WALES, B. A.<br /> +BETTY WALES & CO.<br /> +BETTY WALES ON THE CAMPUS<br /> +BETTY WALES DECIDES</p></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES FRESHMAN***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31387-h.txt or 31387-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/3/8/31387">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/8/31387</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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