CHAPTER IIITHE BELDEN HOUSE “INITIATION PARTY”
Lucile Merrifield, Betty’s stately sophomore cousin, and Polly Eastman, Lucile’s roommate and dearest friend, sat on Madeline Ayres’s bed and munched Madeline’s sweet chocolate complacently.
“Wish I had cousins in Paris that would send me ‘eats’ as good as this,” sighed Polly.
“Isn’t it just too delicious!” agreed Lucile. “I say, Madeline, I’m on the sophomore reception committee and there aren’t half enough sophomores to go round among the freshmen. Won’t you take somebody?”
“I? Hardly.” Madeline shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “Don’t you know, child, that I detest girl-dances—any dances for that matter. Ask me to do something amusing.”
“You ought to want to do something useful,” said Polly reproachfully. “Think of all those poor little friendless freshmen!”
“What kind of a class is it this year?” inquired Madeline, lazily, breaking up more chocolate. “Any fun?”
“The chief thing I’ve noticed about them,” said Lucile, “is that they’re so horribly numerous.”
“Fresh?” asked Madeline.
“Yes, indeed,” declared Polly emphatically, “dreadfully fresh. But somehow,—I’m on the grind committee, you know,—and they don’t do anything funny. They just do quantities and quantities of stupid, commonplace things, like mistaking the young faculty for freshmen and expecting Miss Raymond to help them look up their English references. I just wish they’d think of something original,” ended Polly dolefully.
“Why don’t you make up something?” asked Madeline.
Polly stared. “Oh, I don’t think that would do at all. The grinds are supposed to be true, aren’t they? They’d be sure to find out and then they’d always dislike us.” Polly smiled luminously. “I’ve got a good many freshmen friends,” she explained.
“Which means violet-bestowing crushes, Isuppose,” said Madeline severely. “You shouldn’t encourage that sort of thing, Polly. You’re too young.”
“I’m not a bit younger than Lucile,” Polly defended herself, “and they all worship her.” Polly giggled. “Only instead of violets, they send her Gibson girls, with touching notes about her looking like one.”
“Come now,” said Lucile calmly. “That’s quite enough. Let Madeline tell us how to get some good grinds.”
Madeline considered, frowning. “Why if you won’t make up,” she said at last, “the only thing to do is to lay traps for them. Or no—I’ll tell you what—let’s give an initiation party.”
“A what?” chorused her guests.
“Oh, you know—hazing, the men would call it; only of course we’ll have nice little amusing stunts that couldn’t frighten a fly. Is anything doing to-night?”
“In the house, you mean?” asked Lucile. “Not a thing. But if you want our room——”
“Of course we do,” interposed Madeline calmly. “It’s the only decent-sized one in the house. Go and straighten it up, and let thisbe a lesson to you to keep it in order hereafter. Polly, you invite the freshmen for nine o’clock. I’ll get some more sophomores and seniors, and some costumes. Come back here to dress in half an hour.”
“Goodness,” said the stately Lucile, slipping out of her nest of pillows. “How you do rush things through, Madeline.”
Madeline smiled reminiscently. “I suppose I do,” she admitted. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve looked upon life as a big impromptu stunt. I got ready for a year abroad once in half an hour, and I gave the American ambassador to Italy what he said was the nicest party he’d ever been to on three hours’ notice, one night when mother was ill and father went off sketching and forgot to come in until it was time to dress. Oh, it’s just practice,” said Madeline easily,—“practice and being of a naturally hopeful disposition. Run along now.”
“I thought I’d better not tell them,” Madeline confided to the genius of her room, when the sophomores were safely out of earshot, “that I haven’t the faintest notion what to do with those freshmen after we get themthere. Being experienced, I know that something will turn up; but they, being only sophomores, might worry. Now what the mischief”—Madeline pulled out drawer after drawer of her chiffonier—“can I have done with those masks?”
The masks turned up, after the Belden House “Merry Hearts” had searched wildly through all their possessions for them, over at the Westcott in Babbie Hildreth’s chafing dish, where she had piled them neatly for safe-keeping the June before.
“Madeline said for you each to bring a sheet,” explained Helen Adams, who had been deputed to summon the B’s and Katherine. “They’re to dress up in, I guess. She said we couldn’t lend you the other ones of ours, because they might get dirty trailing around the floors, and we must have at least one apiece left for our beds.”
The B’s joined rapturously in the preparations for Madeline’s mysterious party. Katherine could not be found, and Rachel and Eleanor were both engaged for the evening; but that was no matter, Madeline said. It ought to be mostly a Belden House affair,but a few outsiders would help mystify the freshmen.
Promptly at quarter to nine Polly, Lucile, and the rest of the Belden House contingent arrived, each bringing her sheet with her, and presently Madeline’s room swarmed with hooded, ghostly figures.
“Is that you, Polly?” whispered Lucile to somebody standing near her.
“No, it’s not,” squeaked the figure, from behind its little black mask.
“Why, we shan’t even know each other, after we get mixed up a little,” giggled somebody else, as the procession lined up for a hasty dash through the halls.
“Now, don’t forget that you’ve all got to help think up things for them to do,” warned Madeline, “especially you sophomores.”
“And don’t forget to remember the things for grinds,” added Polly Eastman lucidly. “That’s what the party is for.”
“If the freshmen find out that you had to get us to help you, you’ll never hear the last of it,” jeered Babe.
“Now Babe, we’re their natural allies,”protested Babbie. “Of course we always help them.”
“Sh!” called a scout, sticking her head into the room. “Coast’s clear. Make a rush for it.”
The last ghost had just gotten safely into the room, when two freshmen, timid but much flattered by Polly’s cordial invitation, knocked on the door.
“Come in,” called Polly in her natural voice, and once unsuspectingly inside, they were pounced upon by the army of ghosts, and escorted to seats as far as possible from the door. The other guests luckily arrived in a body headed by Georgia Ames, who, having come into the house only the day before, was already an important personage in the eyes of her classmates. What girl wouldn’t be who called Betty Wales by her first name, and wasn’t one bit afraid to “talk back” to the clever Miss Ayres?
Georgia’s attitude of amused tolerance therefore set the tone for the freshmen’s behavior. “Don’t you see that it’s some sophomore joke?” she demanded. “Might as well let the poor creatures get as much fun out ofus as they can, and then perhaps they’ll give us something good to eat by and by.”
“We’ll give you something right away,” squeaked a ghost. “Georgia Ames and Miss Ashton, stand forth. Now kneel down, shut your eyes and open your mouths.”
“Don’t do it. It will be some horrid, peppery mess,” advised a sour-tempered freshman named Butts.
But Georgia and her companion stood bravely forth, to be rewarded by two delicious mouthfuls of Madeline’s French chocolate. After this pleasant surprise, the freshmen, all but Miss Butts and one or two more, grew more cheerful and began to enter into the spirit of the occasion.
“Josephine Boyd, you are elected to scramble like an egg,” announced a tall ghost.
Josephine’s performance was so realistic that it evoked peals of laughter from ghosts and freshmen alike.
“We’ll recommend you for a part in the next menagerie that the house or the college has,” said the tall ghost, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies. “The Dutton twins are now commanded to push matches acrossthe floor with their noses. You’ll find the matches on the table by the window. Somebody tie their hands behind them. Now start at the door and go straight across to Georgia Ames’s chair. The one that wins the race must send Polly some flowers,” added the tall ghost maliciously as the twins, blushing violently at this barefaced reference to their rivalry for Polly’s affections, took their matches, and at Georgia’s signaled “One, two, three, go!” began their race.
Pushing a match across a slippery floor with one’s nose looked so easy and proved so difficult that both ghosts and freshmen, as they cheered on the eager contestants, longed to take part in the enticing sport. The fluffy-haired twin kept well ahead of her straight-haired sister, until, when her match was barely a foot from Georgia’s chair it caught in a crack and broke in two.
“Oh, dear!” sighed the fluffy-haired twin forlornly, trying to single out her divinity from among the sheeted ghosts.
Her despair was too much for soft-hearted Polly. “Never mind,” she said kindly “The race is hereby called off.”
“And we can both send you flowers, can’t we?” demanded the straight-haired twin, jumping up, flushed and panting from her exertions.
Every one waited eagerly to hear what the next stunt would be.
“This is for you, Miss Butts,” announced the tall ghost, after a whispered colloquy with her companions, “and as you don’t seem very happy to-night we’ve made it easy. Tell the name of your most particular crush. Now don’t pretend you haven’t any.”
“I won’t tell,” muttered Miss Butts sullenly.
“Then you’ll have to make up Lucile Merrifield’s bed for two weeks as a penalty for disobeying our decrees. Now all the rest of you may tell your crushes’ names. I will explain, as some of you look a little dazed about it, that your crush is the person you most deeply adore.”
Some of the freshmen meekly accepted the penalty rather than divulge their secret affections, one declared that she hadn’t a crush, one, remembering the legend of Georgia Ames, made up a sophomore’s name and aftershe had been safely “passed” exulted over the simplicity of her victims. A few, including Georgia, calmly confessed their divinities’ names and gloated over the effect their announcements had upon some of the ghosts.
When this entertainment was exhausted, the ghosts held another conference. “Carline Dodge, get under the bed and develop like a film,” decreed the leader finally.
“Oh, not under mine,” cried a tall, impressive-looking ghost plaintively. “My botany and zoölogy specimens are under it. She’d be sure to upset the jars.”
“There!” said Georgia Ames complacently. “That makes six of you that we know. Polly Eastman and now Lucile have given themselves away. Babbie Hildreth crumpled all up when Carline Dodge called out her crush’s name. If she’s here, the other two that they call the B’s are, and Madeline Ayres is directing the job. It’s easy enough to guess who the rest of you are, so why not take off those hot things and be sociable?”
“Go on, Carline Dodge,” ordered the tall ghost imperturbably.
“But I don’t get the idea of the action,”objected the serious-faced freshman, and looked amazed that everybody should laugh so uproariously.
“That’s so funny that we’ll let you off,” said Madeline, when the mirth had subsided. “I foresee that you’ve invented a very useful phrase.”
And sure enough Carline’s reply was speedily incorporated into Harding’s special vocabulary, and its author found herself unwittingly famous.
“Now,” said Madeline cheerfully, “you may all chase smiles around the room for a while, and when I say ‘wipe,’ you are to wipe them off on a crack in the floor. Then we’ll have a speech from one of you and you will be dismissed.”
Most of the freshmen entered gaily into the “action” of chasing smiles, and caught a great many on their own and each other’s faces. That frolic ended, Madeline called upon a quiet little girl who had hardly been seen to open her mouth since she reached Harding, to make a speech. To every one’s surprise she rose demurely, without a word of objection or the least appearance of embarrassment, anddelivered an original monologue supposed to be spoken by a freshman newly arrived and airing her impressions of the college. It hit everybody with its absurd humor, which no one enjoyed better, apparently, than the quiet little freshman herself.
“Encore! Encore! Give us another!” shouted the freshmen when she had finished; but their quiet little classmate only shook her head, and assuming once more the mincing, confidential tone she had been using in the monologue, remarked: “Do you know, there are some girls in our class that will forget their heads before long. Why, when they’re being hazed, they forget it and think they’re at a real party.”
Everybody laughed again, and the tall ghost made the little freshman blush violently by saying, “You’ll get a part in the house play, my child, and if you can write that monologue down I’ll send an ‘Argus’ editor around after it.”
The little freshman, whose name was Ruth Howard, pinched herself softly, when no one was looking, to make sure that she was awake. Like Mother Hubbard she felt a little doubtfulof her identity, as she noticed the admiring glances cast upon her by even the haughtiest of the freshmen. She had been rather lonely during these first weeks, and it was very pleasant now to find that the things she could do were going to make a place for her in this big, busy college world.
“A hazing party isn’t a half-bad idea, is it?” said Georgia Ames, reflectively. “It’s got us all acquainted a lot faster than anything else would, I guess,—even if there wasn’t any food.”
“Considering that we’ve done everything else, you children might find the food——” began one of the ghosts, but a bell in the corridor interrupted her.
“Is that the twenty-minutes-to or the ten o’clock?” asked another ghost anxiously.
“Ten,” said a freshman. “The other rang while we were chasing smiles.”
“Then we’re locked out,” cried a small ghost tragically, and three sheeted figures rushed down the hall, tripping over their flowing robes and struggling with their masks as they ran.
“My light is on. Will they report it?”asked little Ruth Howard shyly of Georgia Ames.
“Mine will be reported all right before I’ve done with it,” declared a ghost gloomily. “I’ve got to study for a physics review. I oughtn’t to have come near this festive function.”
“Same here.”
“Come on, Carline. Don’t you know the action of going home?”
“Jolly fun though, wasn’t it?”
The initiation party dissolved noisily down the dusky corridors.
Next day the college rang with the report that hazing was now practiced at Harding. Strange accounts of the Belden House party were passed from group to group of excited freshmen who declared that they were “just scared to death” of the sophomores and wouldn’t for the world be out alone after dark, and of amused upper-classmen who allowed for exaggerations and considered the whole episode in the light of a good joke. But a particularly susceptible Burton House freshman, who sat at Miss Stuart’s table and burned to make a favorable impression upon thataugust lady, repeated the story to her at luncheon. Miss Stuart received it in silence, wondered what the truth of it was, and asked some of her friends about it that afternoon at a faculty meeting. Of course some of the wrong people heard about it and took it up officially, as a matter calculated to ruin the spirit of the college. The result was that Miss Ferris and Dr. Hinsdale were furnished with the names of some of the offenders and requested to interview them on the subject of their misdemeanors. Miss Ferris unerringly selected Madeline Ayres as the ring-leader of the affair and Betty Wales as the best person to make an appeal to, if any appeal was needed, and set an hour for them to come and see her.
Madeline, who never looked at bulletin-boards, did not get her note of summons, and Betty, who had taken hers as a friendly invitation to have tea with her friend, went over to the Hilton House alone and in the highest spirits. But Miss Ferris was not serving tea, and Dr. Hinsdale showed no intention of leaving them in peace to indulge in one of those long and delightful talks that Bettyhad so anticipated. Indeed it was he, with his coldest expression and his dryest tone, who introduced the subject of the initiation party and demanded to know why Madeline Ayres had neglected Miss Ferris’s summons. Betty had no trouble in explaining that to everybody’s satisfaction, but she longed desperately for Madeline’s support, as she listened to Dr. Hinsdale’s stern arraignment of the innocent little gathering.
“It’s not lady-like,” he asserted. “It’s aping the men. Hazing is a discredited practice anyhow. All decent colleges are dropping it. We certainly don’t want it here, where the aim of the faculty has always been to encourage the friendliest relations between classes. The members of the entering class always find the college life difficult at first. It’s quite unnecessary to add to their troubles.”
Betty listened with growing horror. What dreadful thing had she unwittingly been a party to? And yet, after all, could it have been so very dreadful? If Dr. Hinsdale had been there, would he have felt this way about it? A smile wavered on Betty’s lips at thisthought. She looked at Miss Ferris, who smiled back at her.
“Say it, Betty,” encouraged Miss Ferris, and Betty began, explaining how Madeline had happened to think of the hazing, relating the absurdities that she and the rest had devised, dwelling on Ruth Howard’s clever impersonation and Josephine Boyd’s effective egg-scrambling. Gradually Dr. Hinsdale’s expression softened, and when she repeated Carline Dodge’s absurd retort, he laughed like a boy.
“Do you think it was so very dreadful?” Betty inquired anxiously, whereupon her judges exchanged glances and laughed again.
“There’s another thing,” Betty began timidly after a moment. “I don’t know as I should ever have thought of it myself, but it did certainly work that way.” And Betty explained Georgia Ames’s idea of the hazing-party as a promoter of good-fellowship. “It’s awfully hard to get acquainted with freshmen, you see,” she went on. “We have our own friends and we are all busy with our own affairs. But since that night we’ve been just as friendly. That one evening took the place oflots of calls and formal parties. We know now what the different ones can do. Of course,” Betty admitted truthfully, “it didn’t help Miss Butts any, unless it showed her that at Harding you’ve got to do your part, if you want a good time. She’s certainly been a little more agreeable since. But Ruth Howard now—why it would have been ages—oh, I mean months,” amended Betty blushingly, “before we should have known about her, unless Madeline had called for that speech.”
Again the judges exchanged amused glances, and Dr. Hinsdale cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Wales,” he said, “you’ve made your point, I think. You’ve found the legitimate purpose for a legitimate and distinctly feminine kind of hazing. And now, if Miss Ferris will excuse me, I have an engagement at my rooms.”
So Betty had her talk and her tea, after all, and went away loving Miss Ferris harder than ever. For Miss Ferris, by the mysterious process that brought all college news to her ken, had heard about Eleanor Watson and the Champion Blunderbuss, and she was looking out for Eleanor, who, she was surefrom a number of little things she had noticed and pieced together, was now quite capable of looking out for herself. This confirmation of her own theory encouraged Betty vastly, and she was able to feel a little more charitable toward the Champion, who, as Miss Ferris had pointed out, was really the one most to be pitied.
CHAPTER IVAN ADVENTUROUS MOUNTAIN DAY
“The 19— scholarships, providing aid to the approximate sum of one hundred dollars for each of four students, preferably members of an upper class”—thus the announcement was to appear formally in the college catalogue. The president and the donor had both heartily approved of Betty’s scheme, and the scholarships were an accomplished fact. It had been the donor’s pleasant suggestion that 19— should keep in perpetual touch with its gift to the college by appointing a committee to act with one from the faculty in disposing of the scholarships. Betty Wales was chairman, of course. 19— did not intend that she should forget her connection with those scholarships. Betty took her duties very seriously. She watched the girls at chapel, in the recitation halls, on the campus, noted those with shabby clothes and worried faces, found out their names and their boarding-places,and set tactful investigations on foot about their needs. The enormous number of her “speaking acquaintances” became a college joke.
“Bow, Betty,” Katherine would whisper, whenever on their long country walks, they met a group of girls who looked as if they might belong to the college. And then, “Is it possible I’ve found somebody you don’t know? Better look them up right away.”
“It’s splendid training for your memory,” Betty declared, and it was, and splendid training besides in helpfulness and social service, though Betty did not put it so grandly. To her it was just trying to take Dorothy King’s place, and not succeeding very well either.
In looking up strangers, Betty did not forget her friends. Nobody could be more deserving of help than Rachel Morrison. Her hard summer’s work had worn on her and made the busy round of tutoring and study seem particularly irksome. But Rachel, while she was pleased to think that she had been the joint committee’s first choice, refused the money.
“I could only take it as a loan,” she said, “and I don’t want to have a debt hanging over my head next year. I’m not so tired now as I was when I first got back, and I can rest all next summer. Did I tell you that Babbie Hildreth’s uncle has offered me a position in his school for next fall?”
Emily Davis, on the other hand, was very glad to accept a scholarship,—“As a loan of course,” she stipulated. She had practically supported herself for the whole four years at Harding, and the strain and worry had begun to tell on her. A little easier time this year would mean better fitness for the necessarily hard year of teaching that was to follow, without the interval of rest that Rachel counted upon. Emily’s mother was dead now, and her father made no effort to help his ambitious daughter. She might have had a place in the woolen mills, where he worked years before, he argued; since she had not taken it, she must look out for herself.
But with the serious side of life was mixed, for Betty and the rest, plenty of gaiety. 19— might not be greatly missed after they had gone out into the wide, wide world, but whilethey stayed at Harding everybody seemed bent on treating them royally.
“You know this is the last fall you’ll have here,” Polly Eastman would say, pleading with Betty to come for a drive. “There’s no such beautiful autumn foliage near Cleveland.”
Or, “You must come to our house dance,” Babbie Hildreth would declare. “Just think how few Harding dances there are left for us to go to!”
Even the most commonplace events, such as reading aloud in the parlors after dinner, going down to Cuyler’s for an ice, or canoeing in Paradise at sunset took on a new interest. Seniors who had felt themselves superior to the material joys of fudge-parties and scorned the crudities of amateur plays and “girl-dances,” eagerly accepted invitations to either sort of festivity.
“And the moral of that, as our dear departed Mary Brooks would say,” declared Katherine, “is: Blessings brighten as diplomas come on apace. Between trying not to miss any fun and doing my best to distinguish myself in the scholarly pursuits that my soul loves, Iam well nigh distraught. Don’t mind my Shakespearean English, please. I’m on the senior play committee, and I recite Shakespeare in my sleep.”
Dearest of all festivities to the Harding girl is Mountain Day, and there were all sorts of schemes afoot among 19—’s members for making their last Mountain Day the best of the four they had enjoyed so much. Horseback riding was the prevailing fad at Harding that fall, and every girl who could sit in a saddle was making frantic efforts to get a horse for an all-day ride among the hills. Betty was a beginner, but she had been persuaded to join a large party that included Eleanor, Christy, Madeline, Nita, and the B’s. They were going to take a man to look after the horses, and they had planned their ride so that the less experienced equestrians could have a long rest after luncheon, and taking a cross-cut through the woods, could join the others, who would leave the picnic-place earlier and make a long detour, so as to have their gallop out in peace.
It was a sunny, sultry Indian summer day,—a perfect day to ride, drive or walk, or just to sit outdoors in the sunshine, as RobertaLewis announced her intention of doing. She helped the horseback riders to adjust their little packages of luncheon, and looked longingly after them, as they went cantering down the street, waving noisy farewells to their friends.
“I wish I weren’t such a coward,” she confided to Helen Adams, who was starting to join Rachel and Katherine for a long walk. “I love horses, but I should die of fright if I tried to ride one.”
“Oh, they have a man with them,” said Helen easily, “and it’s a perfect day for a ride.”
Roberta, who almost lived outdoors, and was weatherwise in consequence, looked critically at the western horizon. “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it rained before night,” she said. “You’d better decide to laze around in Paradise with me.”
But Helen only laughed at Roberta’s caution and went on, whereat Roberta Lewis was very nearly the only Harding girl who was not drenched to the skin before Mountain Day was over.
The riding-party galloped through the townand stopped at the edge of the meadows for consultation.
“Let’s go by the bridge and come back by the ferry,” suggested Madeline. “Then we shall have the prettiest part of the ride saved for sunset.”
“And you’ll have a better road both ways, miss,” put in the groom practically.
So the party crossed the long toll-bridge, the horses stepping hesitatingly and curveting a little at the swish of the noisy water, climbed the sunny hills beyond, and dipped down to a level stretch of wood, in the heart of which they chose a picnic-ground by the side of a merry little brook.
“We must have a fire,” announced Bob, who had fallen behind the procession, and now came up at the trot, just as the others were dismounting.
“But we haven’t anything to cook,” objected Eleanor.
“Coffee,” grinned Bob jubilantly. “I’ve got folding cups stuffed around under my sweater, and I stopped at that farmhouse back by the fork in the road to get a pail.”
“And there are marshmallows to toast,”added Babe. “That’s what I’ve got in my sweater.”
“I thought you two young ladies had grown awful stout on a sudden,” chuckled the groom, beginning to pile up twigs under an overhanging ledge of rock.
“And here are some perfectly elegant mushrooms,” declared Madeline, who had been poking about among the fallen leaves. “We can use the pail for those first, and have the coffee with dessert.”
All the girls had brought sandwiches, stuffed eggs, cakes, and fruit, so that, with the extras, the picnic was “truly elegant,” as Babe put it. They sang songs while they waited for the coffee to boil, and toasted Babe’s marshmallows, two at a time, on forked sticks, voting Babe a trump to have thought of them.
Then they lay on the green turf by the brook, talking softly to the babbling accompaniment of its music.
Finally Eleanor shivered and sat up. “Where is the sun?” she asked. “Oughtn’t we to be starting?”
"HERE ARE SOME PERFECTLY ELEGANT MUSHROOMS"“HERE ARE SOME PERFECTLY ELEGANT MUSHROOMS”
The sky was not dark or threatening, only a bit gray and dull. The groom was to stay with the novices—Christy, Babe and Betty—who, as soon as the rest had mounted, raced down the road to get warm and also to return the pail that Bob had borrowed, to its owner. By the time they got back, after making a short call on the farmer’s wife, the sun was struggling out again, but the next minute big drops began to patter down through the leaves.
The groom considered the situation. “I guess you’ll jest have to wait and git wet. Miss Hildreth’s horse is skittish on ferries. I wouldn’t wanter go on with you an’ leave her to cross alone.”
So they waited, keeping as dry as possible under a pine tree, until the time appointed for starting to the rendezvous. It was raining steadily now. Babe’s horse objected to getting wet, and pulled on the reins sullenly. The sky was fairly black. Altogether it was an uncomfortable situation.
The road to the river was damp and slippery, and most of it was a steep down-grade. There was nothing to do but walk the horses, Babe’s dancing sidewise in a fashion most upsetting to Betty’s nerves. By the time they hadreached the ferry, darkness seemed to have settled, and there were low growlings of thunder. Babe’s horse reared, and she dismounted and stood at his head while they waited for the ferry to cross to them.
“I guess there’s goin’ to be a bad shower,” volunteered the groom. “I guess we’d better wait over in that barn till it’s over. Animals don’t like lightning.”
The ferry seemed to crawl across the river, but it arrived at last, and each girl led her horse on board. They were all frightened, but nobody showed the “white feather.” Babe’s cheeks were pale, though, as she patted her restive mount, and laughed bravely at Madeline’s futile efforts to feed sugar to her tall “Black Beauty,” who jerked his nose impatiently out of her reach each time she tried.
“Beauty must be awfully upset if he doesn’t want sugar,” said Babbie, who was standing next the groom. “He’s the greed——” The next minute Betty found herself holding her own and the groom’s horse, while he plunged after Babbie’s, who was snorting and kicking right into the midst of everything. It had lightened, and between the lightning and thewater Babbie’s high-spirited mare was frantic, and was fast communicating her excitement to the others.
A minute later there was a tremendous jolt which set all the horses to jumping.
“I swan,” said the apathetic ferryman who had paid no attention to the previous confusion. “We’re aground.”
The girls looked at one another through the gathering shadows.
“How are we going to get off?” asked the groom desperately.
The ferryman considered. “I dunno.”
Babbie’s horse plunged again.
“Can we wade to shore?” asked the groom, when something like order was restored.
“Easy. You see I knew the river was awful low, but I s’posed——”
“The only thing that I can think of,” interrupted the groom, “is for us to leave you girls with the horses, while we get to shore. Then you send ’em off one by one, and we’ll catch ’em. Miss Hildreth, you send yours first. No, Miss Wales, you send mine first, then Miss Hildreth’s may follow better. I’mawfully sorry to make you young ladies so much trouble.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Babbie bravely, shaking the water out of her eyes. “Only—do hurry, please.”
The “easy wading” proved to be through water up to a man’s shoulders, and it lightened twice, with the usual consequences to Babbie’s horse, before the groom signaled. His horse went off easily enough, but Babbie’s balked and then reared, and Betty’s lay down first and then kicked viciously, when she and Babbie between them had succeeded in getting him to stand up. Finally Madeline broke her crop in getting him over the side, and when Black Beauty had also been sent ashore the ferry lurched a little and floated.
“Do you suppose we shall ever get dry again?” asked Eleanor lightly, while they waited for the ferryman to come back to them.
Babbie touched her black coat gingerly. “Am I wet?” she whispered to Betty. “Of course I am, but I’d forgotten it.” The reins had cut one of her hands through her heavyglove, but she had forgotten that too, as she shivered and clung to the railing that Black Beauty had splintered when he went over. All she could think of was the horror of riding that plunging, foam-flecked horse home.
The ferryman took them to his house, which was the nearest one to the landing; and while he and the groom rubbed down the horses, his wife and little daughter made more coffee for the girls and helped them wring out their dripping clothes.
Babe pretended to find vast enjoyment in watching the water trickle off her skirts and gaiters. Christy, who rode bare-headed, declared that she had gotten a beautiful shampoo free of charge. Even Babbie smiled faintly and called attention to the “mountain tarn” splashing about in the brim of her tri-corn hat.
“I tell ye, them girls air game,” declared the ferryman watching them ride off as soon as the storm was over. “That little slim one on the bay mare is a corker. Her horse cut up somethin’ awful. They all offered to change with her, but she said she guessed she could manage. Look at the way she sets an’ pulls.She’s got grit all right. I guess I’ll have to make out to have you go to college, Annie.”
Whereupon little Annie spent a rapturous evening dreaming of the time when she should be a Harding girl, and be able to say bright, funny things like Miss Ayres. She resolved to wear her hair like Miss Watson and to have a pleasant manner like Miss Wales, and above all to be “gritty” like Miss Hildreth. For the present evening the fiercest steed she could find to subdue was an arithmetic lesson. Annie hated arithmetic, but in the guise of a plunging bay mare, that it took grit to ride, she rather enjoyed forcing the difficult problems to come out right.
Meanwhile the riding party had reached the campus, a little later and a little wetter than most of their friends, and they were provided with hot baths and hot drinks, and put to bed, where they lay in sleepy comfort enjoying the feeling of being heroines.
Very soon after dinner Betty got tired of being a heroine, and when Georgia Ames appeared and announced that a lot of freshmen were making fudge in her room and wishedBetty would come and have some and tell them all about her experiences, she looked anxiously at Helen Adams, who was the only person in the room just then.
“It’s awfully good fudge—got marshmallows in it, and nuts,” urged Georgia. “They want Miss Adams too.”
“Can I come in a kimono?” asked Betty. “I’m too tired to dress.”
“Of course. Only——” Georgia hesitated.
“There’s a man in the parlor, calling on Polly Eastman. And the folding doors are stuck open. I wish my room wasn’t down on that floor. You have to be so careful of your appearance.”
Betty frowned. “I want awfully to come. Can’t you two think of a way?”
“Why of course,” cried Georgia gleefully, after a moment’s consideration. “We’ll hold a screen around you. The man will know that something queer is inside it, but he can’t see what.”
So the procession started, Helen and Georgia carrying the screen. At the top of the last flight, they adjusted it around Betty, and began slowly to make the descent. At thecurve Georgia looked down into the hall and stopped, in consternation.
“They’ve moved out into the hall,” she whispered. “No—this is Lucile Merrifield and another man. We’ve got to go right past them.”
“Let’s go back,” whispered Betty.
“But they’ve seen us,” objected Helen, “and you’d miss the fudge.”
A moment later, three girls and a Japanese screen fell through Georgia’s door into the midst of an amazed freshmen fudge party.
“Goodness,” said Georgia, when she had recovered her breath. “Did you hear that horrid Lucile? ‘A regular freshman trick’—that’s what she said to her man. They blame everything on us.”
“Well if this fudge is regular freshman fudge, it’s the best I ever tasted,” said little Helen Adams tactfully.
Later in the evening Betty trailed her red kimono into Helen’s room. “Helen,” she began, “did I have on my pearl pin when we started down-stairs to-night? I can’t find it anywhere.”
“I don’t think you did,” said Helen,thoughtfully, “but I’ll go and see. You might have dropped it off when we all landed in a heap on the floor.”
But the freshmen had not found the pin and diligent search of Georgia’s room, as well as of the halls and stairways, failed to reveal it.
“Oh, well, I suppose it will turn up,” said Betty easily. “I lost it once last year, and ages afterward I found it in my desk. I shan’t worry yet awhile. I didn’t have it on this morning, did I?”
This time Helen remembered positively. “No, you had on your lucky pin—the silver four-leaved clover that I like so much. I noticed particularly.”
“All right then,” said Betty. “I saw it last night, so it must be about somewhere. Some day when I’m not so lame from riding and so sleepy, I’ll have a grand hunt for it.”
CHAPTER VTHE RETURN OF MARY BROOKS
All through the fall Mary Brooks’s “little friends” had been hoping for a visit from her, and begging her to come soon, before the fine weather was over. Now she was really and truly coming. Roberta had had the letter of course, by virtue of being Mary’s most faithful satellite; but it was meant for them all.
“The conquering heroine is coming,” Mary wrote. “She will arrive at four on Monday, and you’d better, some of you, meet the train, because there’s going to be a spread along, and the turkey weighs a ton. Don’t plan any doings for me. I’ve been to a dance or a dinner every night for two weeks and I’m already sick of being a busy bud, though I’ve only been one for a month—not to mention having had the gayest kind of a time all summer. So you see I’m coming to Harding to rest and recuperate, and to watch you children play at being seniors. I know how busy youare, and what a bore it is to have company, but I shall just take care of myself. Only get me a room at Rachel’s little house around the corner, and I won’t be a bit of trouble to anybody.”
“Consider the touching modesty of that now!” exclaimed Katherine. “As if we weren’t all pining for a sight of her. And can’t you just taste the spread she’ll bring?”
“We must make her have it the very night she gets here,” said Betty practically. “There’s a lot going on next week, and as soon as people find out that she’s here they’ll just pounce on her for all sorts of things.”
“I hereby pounce upon her for our house dance,” announced Babbie Hildreth hastily. “Isn’t it jolly that it comes this week? I had a presentiment that I’d better save one of my invitations.”
“You needn’t have bothered,” said Babe enviously. “I guess there’ll always be room for Mary Brooks at a Westcott House dance—as long as 19— stays anyway.”
“Don’t quarrel, children,” Madeline intervened. “Your dance is on Wednesday. Is there anything for Tuesday?”
“A psychology lecture,” returned Helen Adams promptly.
“Cut it out,” laughed Katherine. “Mary isn’t coming up here to go to psychology lectures.”
“But she does want to go to it,” declared Roberta, suddenly waking up to the subject in hand. “I thought it was queer myself, but she speaks about it particularly in her letter. Let me see—oh, here it is, in the postscript. It’s by a friend of Dr. Hinsdale, she says; and somebody must have written her about it and offered her a ticket, because she says she’s already invited and so for us not to bother. Did you write her, Helen?”
“No,” said Helen, “I didn’t. The lecture wasn’t announced until yesterday. There was a special meeting of the Philosophical Club to arrange about it.”
“It’s queer,” mused Katherine. “Mary was always rather keen on psychology——”
“On the psychology of Dr. Hinsdale you mean,” amended Madeline flippantly. “But that doesn’t explain her inside information about this lecture. We’ll ask her how she knew—that’s the quickest way to find out.Now let’s go on with our schedule. What’s Thursday?”
“The French Club play,” explained Roberta. “I think she’d like that, don’t you?”
Madeline nodded. “Easily. It’s going to be awfully clever this time. Then that leaves only Friday. Let’s drive out to Smuggler’s Notch in the afternoon and have supper at Mrs. Noble’s.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Betty. “That will make such a perfectly lovely end-up to the week. And of course we shall all want to take her to Cuyler’s and Holmes’s. May I have her for Tuesday breakfast? I haven’t any class until eleven, so we can eat in peace.”
“Then I’ll take lunch on Tuesday,” put in Katherine hastily, “because I am as poor as poverty at present, and a one o’clock luncheon preceded by a breakfast ending at eleven appeals to my lean pocketbook.”
“I should like to take her driving that afternoon,” put in Babbie.
“You may, if you’ll take me to sit in the middle and do the driving,” said Bob, “and let’s all have dinner at Cuyler’s that night—agrand affair, you know, ordered before hand, at a private table with a screen around it, and a big bunch of roses for a centre piece. Old girls like that sort of thing. It makes them feel important.”
“With or without food?” demanded Madeline sarcastically, but no one paid any attention to her, in the excitement of bidding for the remaining divisions of Mary’s week.
All the Chapin House girls and the three B’s met her at the station and “ohed” and “ahed” in a fashion that would have been disconcerting to anybody who was unfamiliar with the easy manners of Harding girls, at the elegance of her new blue velvet suit and the long plumes that curled above her stylishly dressed hair, and at the general air of “worldly and bud-like wisdom,” as Katherine called it, that pervaded her small person.
They had not finished admiring her when her trunk appeared.
“Will you look at that, girls!” cried Katherine, feigning to be quite overpowered by its huge size. “Mary Brooks, whatever do youexpect to do with a trousseau like that in this simple little academic village?”
Mary only smiled placidly. “Don’t be silly, K. Some of the spread is in there. Besides, I want to be comfortable while I’m here, and this autumn weather is so uncertain. Who’s going to have first go at carrying the turkey?”
“I’ve got a runabout waiting,” explained Babbie. “I’m going to drive him up. There’ll be room for you too, Mary, and for some of the others.”
The seat of a runabout can be made to hold four, on a pinch, and there is still standing-room for several other adaptable persons. The rest of the party walked, and the little house around the corner was soon the scene of a boisterous reunion.
Mary’s conversation was as abundant and amusing as ever, and she did not show any signs of the weariness that her letter had made so much of.
“That’s because I have acquired a society manner,” she announced proudly. “I conceal my real emotions under a mask of sparkling gaiety.”
“You can’t conceal things from us that way,” declared Katherine. “How under the sun did you hear about that psychology lecture?”
“Why, a man I know told me,” explained Mary innocently. “He’s also a friend of the lecturer. We were at dinner together one night last week, and he knew I was a Harding-ite, and happened to mention it. Any objections?”
“And you really want to go?” demanded Madeline.
“Of course,” retorted Mary severely. “I always welcome every opportunity to improve my mind.”
But to the elaborate plans that had been made for her entertainment Mary offered a vigorous protest. “My dears,” she declared, “I should be worn to a frazzle if I did all that. Didn’t I tell you that I’d come up to rest? I’ll have breakfast with anybody who can wait till I’m ready to get up, and we’ll have one dinner all together. But it’s really too cold to drive back from Smuggler’s Notch after dark, and besides you know I never caredmuch for long drives. But we’ll have the spread to-night, anyway, just as you planned, because it’s going to be such a full week, and I wouldn’t for the world have any of you miss anything on my account.”
“And you don’t care about the French play?” asked Roberta, who had moved heaven and earth to get her a good seat.
“No, dear,” answered Mary sweetly. “My French is hopelessly rusty.”
“Then I should think you’d go in for improving it,” suggested Babe.
“There’s not enough of it to improve,” Mary retorted calmly.
“Well, you will go to our house-dance, won’t you?” begged Babbie.
“Oh, you must,” seconded Bob. “I’ve told piles of people you were coming.”
“We shall die of disappointment if you don’t,” added Babe feelingly.
Mary laughed good-naturedly. “All right,” she conceded, “I’ll come. Only be sure to get me lots of dances with freshmen. Then I can amuse myself by making them think I’m one, also, and I shan’t be bored.”
On the way back to the campus the girls discussed Mary’s amazing attitude toward the pleasures of college life.
“She must be awfully used up,” said Roberta, solemnly. “Why, she used to be crazy about plays and dances and ‘eats.’”
“No use in coming up at all,” grumbled Katherine, “if she’s only going to lie around and sleep.”
“She doesn’t look one bit tired,” declared Betty, “and she seems glad to be back, only she doesn’t want to do anything. It’s certainly queer.”
“She must be either sick or in love,” said Madeline. “Nothing else will account for it.”
“Then I think she’s in love,” declared little Helen Adams sedately. “She has a happy look in her eyes.”
“Bosh!” jeered Bob. “Mary isn’t the sentimental kind. I’ll bet she feels different after the spread.”
But though the spread was quite the grandest that had ever been seen at Harding, and though Mary seemed to enjoy it quite as heartily as her guests, who had conscientiously starved on campus fare for the week before it,it failed to arouse in her the proper enthusiasm for college functions.
On Tuesday “after partaking of a light but elegant noontide repast on me,” as Katherine put it, Mary declared her intention of taking a nap, and went to her room. But half an hour later, when Babbie tiptoed up to ask if she really meant to waste a glorious afternoon sleeping, and to put the runabout at her service, the room was empty, and Mary turned up again barely in time for the grand dinner at Cuyler’s.
“We were scared to death for fear you’d forgotten us,” said Madeline, helping her off with her wraps. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Why, dressing,” explained Mary, wearing her most innocent expression. “It takes ages to get into this gown, but it’s my best, and I wanted to do honor to your very grand function.”
“That dress was lying on your bed when I stopped for you exactly fifteen minutes ago,” declared Bob triumphantly. “So you’ll have to think of another likely tale.”
Mary smiled her “beamish” smile.
“Well, I came just after you’d gone and isn’t fourteen minutes to waste on dressing an age? If you mean where was I before that, why my nap wasn’t a success, so I went walking, and it was so lovely that I couldn’t bear to come in. These hills are perfectly fascinating after the city.”
“You little fraud,” cried Madeline. “You hate walking, and you can’t see scenery——”
“As witness the nestle,” put in Katherine.
“So please tell us who he is,” finished Madeline calmly.
“The very idea of coming back to see us and then going off fussing with Winsted men!” Babe’s tone was solemnly reproachful.
But Mary was equal to the situation. “I haven’t seen a Winsted man since I came,” she declared. “I was going to tell you who was with me this afternoon, but I shan’t now, because you’ve all been so excessively mean and suspicious.” A waitress appeared, and Mary’s expression grew suddenly ecstatic. “Do I see creamed chicken?” she cried. “Girls, I dreamed about Cuyler’s creamed chicken every night last week. I was so afraid you wouldn’t have it!”
Her appreciation of the dinner was so delightfully whole-hearted that even Roberta forgave her everything, down to her absurd enthusiasm over a ponderous psychology lecture and the very dull reception that followed it. At the latter, to be sure, Mary acted exactly like her old self, for she sat in a corner and monopolized Dr. Hinsdale for half an hour by the clock, while her little friends, to quote Katherine Kittredge, “champed their bits” in their impatience to capture her and escape to more congenial regions.
The next night at the Westcott House dance Mary was again her gay and sportive self. If she was bored, she concealed it admirably, and that in spite of the fact that her little scheme of playing freshman seemed doomed to failure. Mary had walked out of chapel that morning with the front row, and, even without the enormous bunch of violets which none of her senior friends would confess to having sent her, she was not a figure to pass unnoticed. So most of the freshmen on her card recognized her at once, and the few who did not stoutly refused to be taken in by her innocent references to “our class.”
She had the last dance but one with the sour-faced Miss Butts, who never recognized any one; but Mary did not know that, and being rather tired she swiftly waltzed her around the hall a few times and then suggested that they watch the dance out from the gallery.
“What class are you?” asked Miss Butts, when they were established there. “My card doesn’t say.”
“Doesn’t it?” said Mary idly, watching the kaleidoscope of gay colors moving dizzily about beneath her. “Then suppose you guess.”
Miss Butts considered ponderously. “You aren’t a freshman,” she said finally, “nor a sophomore.”
“How are you so sure of that?” asked Mary. “I was just going to say——”
“You’re a junior,” announced Miss Butts, calmly disregarding the interruption.
Mary shook her head.
“Senior, then.”
Mary shook her head again.
“I didn’t think you looked old enough for that,” said Miss Butts. “Then I was mistaken and you’re a sophomore.”
“No,” said Mary firmly.
Miss Butts stared. “Freshman?”
“No,” said Mary, who considered the befooling of Miss Butts beneath her. “I graduated last year.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that: I believe you’re a freshman after all,” declared Miss Butts. “You started to say you were a few minutes ago.”
“No, I graduated last June,” repeated Mary, a trifle sharply. “Here’s Miss Hildreth coming for my next dance. You can ask her. I’m her guest this evening. Didn’t I graduate last year, Babbie?”
Babbie stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she remembered Mary’s plan.
“Why, you naughty little freshman!” she cried reprovingly. “Have you been telling her that?”
Miss Butts looked dazedly from the amused and reproachful Babbie to Mary, whose expression was properly cowed and repentant.
“Are you really a freshman?” she asked. “Why, I don’t believe you are. I—I don’t know what to believe!”
Mary smiled at her radiantly. “Nevermind,” she said, “you’ll know the truth some day. Next fall at about this time I’ll invite you to dinner, and then you’ll know all about me. Now good-bye.”
Babbie regarded this speech as merely Mary’s convenient little way of getting rid of the stupid Miss Butts, who for her part promptly forgot all about it. But Mary remembered, and she declared that the sight of Miss Butts’s face on the occasion of that dinner-party, with all its rather remarkable accessories, was worth many evenings of boredom at “girl dances.”
It was not until Friday, that Mary’s “little friends” caught her red-handed, in an escapade that explained everything from the size of her trunk to the puzzling insouciance of her manner. They all, and particularly Roberta, had begun to feel a little hurt as the days went by and Mary indulged in many mysterious absences and made unconvincing excuses for refusing invitations that, as Katherine Kittredge said, were enough to turn the head of a crown-princess. Friday, the day that had been reserved for the expedition to Smuggler’s Notch, dawned crisp and clear, andsome girls who had had dinner at Mrs. Noble’s farm the night before brought back glowing reports of the venison her brother had sent her from Maine, and the roaring log fire that she built for them in the fireplace of her new dining-room. So Roberta and Madeline hurried over before chapel to ask Mary to reconsider. But she was firm in her refusal. She had waked with a headache. Besides, she had letters to write and calls to make on her faculty friends and the people she knew in town.
The embassy returned, disconsolate, and reported its failure.
“It’s just a shame,” said Eleanor. “We’ve been saving that trip all the fall, so that Mary could go.”
“Let’s just go without her,” suggested Katherine rebelliously. “There can’t be many more nice days.”
But Betty shook her head. “We don’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s a dear, even if she does act queerly this week. Besides, every one of us but Roberta and Madeline has that written lesson in English 10 to-morrow, and we ought to study. I’m scared to death over it.”
“So am I,” agreed Katherine sadly. “I suppose we’d better wait.”
“But we can go walking,” said Madeline to Roberta, and Roberta, more hurt than any of the rest by her idol’s strange conduct, silently assented.
They were scuffling gaily through the fallen leaves on an unfrequented road through the woods, when they heard a carriage coming swiftly up behind them and turned to see—of all persons—Mary Brooks, who hated driving, and Dr. Hinsdale. Mary was talking gaily and looked quite reconciled to her fate, and Dr. Hinsdale was leaving the horses very much to themselves in the pleasant absorption of watching Mary’s face. Indeed so interested were the pair in each other that they almost passed the two astonished girls standing by the roadside, without recognizing them at all. But just as she whirled past, Mary saw them, and leaned back to wave her hand and smile her “beamish” smile at the unwitting discoverers of her secret.
It was dusk and nearly dinner time before Dr. Hinsdale drew his horses up in front of the house around the corner, but Mary’s “littlefriends” gave up dressing, without a qualm, and even risked missing their soup to sit, lined up in an accusing row on her bed and her window-box, ready to greet her when she stumbled into her dark room and lit her gas.
“Oh, girls! What a start you gave me!” she cried, suddenly perceiving her visitors. “I suppose you think I’m perfectly horrid,” she went on hastily, “but truly I couldn’t help it. When a faculty asks you to go driving, you can’t tell him that you hate it—and I couldn’t for the life of me scrape up a previous engagement.”
“Speaking of engagements”—began Madeline provokingly.
“All’s fair in love, Mary,” Katherine broke in. “You’re perfectly excusable. We all think so.”
“Who said anything about love?” demanded Mary, stooping to brush an imaginary speck of dust from her skirt.
“Next time,” advised Rachel laughingly, “you’d better take us into your confidence. You’ve given yourself a lot of unnecessary bother, and us quite a little worry, though we don’t mind that now.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that he spent the summer at the same place that you did?” asked little Helen Adams.
Mary started. “Who told you that?” she demanded anxiously.
“Nobody but Lucile,” explained Betty in soothing tones. “She visited there for a week, and this afternoon just by chance she happened to speak of seeing him. It fitted in beautifully, you see. She doesn’t know you were there too, so it’s all right.”
Mary gave a relieved little sigh, and then, turning suddenly, fell upon the row of pitiless inquisitors, embracing as many as possible and smiling benignly at the rest. “Oh, girls, he’s a dear,” she said. “He’s worth twenty of the gilded youths you meet out in society.” She drew back hastily. “But we’re only good friends,” she declared. “He’s been down a few times to spend Sunday—that was how I heard about the lecture—but he comes to see father as much as to see me—and—and you mustn’t gossip.”
“We won’t,” Katherine promised for them all. “You can trust us. We always seem tohave a faculty romance or two on our hands. We’re getting used to it.”
“But it’s not a romance,” wailed Mary. “He took me walking and driving because mother asks him to dinner. We’re nothing but jolly good friends.”
“Nothing but jolly good friends—”
That was the last thing Mary said when, late the next afternoon, her “little friends” waved her off for home.
“Isn’t she just about the last person you’d select for a professor’s wife?” said Helen, as Mary’s stylish little figure, poised on the rear platform of the train, swung out of sight around a curve.
“No, indeed she isn’t,” declared Roberta loyally. “She’ll be a fine one. She’s awfully clever, only she makes people think she isn’t, because she knows how to put on her clothes.”
“And it’s one mission of the modern college girl,” announced Madeline oracularly, “to show the people aforesaid that the two things can go together. Let’s go to Smuggler’s Notch Monday to celebrate.”