Betty meditated cutting her eleven o'clock class, decided that with those eight pins on it would never do, and tried not to be glad that a severe headache prevented Mademoiselle from meeting her French division at twelve. She walked down to the Hilton House with a chattering little freshman, one of Polly Eastman's chums and a devoted admirer of Eleanor's.
"It's too bad that Eleanor Watson felt she ought to give up Dramatic Club, isn't it?" said the girl. "Some of the girls think it was an awfully queer thing to do, but I think it's fine to put your work first when you don't feel strong enough to do everything."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Betty cordially, glad to be able to meet her on her own ground.
"Polly is afraid," volunteered the little freshman, "that Eleanor is going to break down. She's had to drop themes, too, you know. Polly said they almost missed their train Saturday night because Eleanor would wait to write to Miss Raymond about it, when anybody could see that Monday would have done just as well. And she was so tired that she cried while she was writing the note."
Betty shook off her loquacious companion by stopping on the second floor to see a girl who was sure to be out, and went on up the back stairway to Eleanor's corner.
There was no answer to her knock, and after a second trial she deliberately opened the door and went in. Eleanor lay in a forlorn disheveled little heap on her couch. Her cheeks were flushed with crying, her eyes rimmed with dark circles that made them look bigger and brighter than ever.
"Oh, I thought the door was locked," she cried, when Betty appeared.
"But luckily for me it wasn't." Betty took her up brightly, dropping sociably down to the couch beside her. "You dear old Eleanor," she went on quickly, "I've come to tell you that Dorothy thinks you're a trump and Beatrice Egerton thinks you're a brick and I'm so proud of you I don't know what to do. There now!"
"Oh, Betty, you can't be, after everything." Eleanor shook off the clinging arms and sat up among the pillows. "Listen," she commanded. "It isn't fair for me to take anything from you after what I've thought. I had a letter from Mr. Blake this morning. He has been very nice to me about the story, Betty. And he said he felt that he ought to tell me what good friends I had here. So now I know all about it, but oh, Betty! I'd thought such horrid things—"
"Never mind that now," said Betty. "Please don't tell me. It would only hurt both of us, and it wouldn't be any use that I can see."
[Illustration: "NEVER MIND THAT NOW," SAID BETTY]
"I'm a coward, too," Eleanor went on steadily. "I was afraid to see Beatrice, and now I'm afraid to see Jean and all the rest of them. Oh, Betty, I can't bear to have people think I'm a freak. If I could take those two notes back I would this minute. I hate giving things up. There, now you know just how mean I am."
"No," said Betty, gently, "I only know how tired you are and how much you needed some one to come in and tell you that we are all ready to stand by you."
Eleanor waited a minute before she answered. "Betty," she said at last, an uncertain little smile fluttering about her mouth, "shall you be glad when you've got me through college?" Then she straightened with sudden energy. "This is your day, Betty,"—she pointed to the pins,—"and I won't spoil another minute of it. Of course there isn't any use in hiding up here. I promise to go down to lunch and to take what's coming to me, and do the best I can. Now run and let the rest of the college congratulate you."
"And if the Chapin house girls should have a spread to-night over atRachel's—" began Betty, doubtfully.
"I'll come. I'll even be the life of the party. Only you're not to worry about me one instant longer."
Eleanor kept her word to the letter for the rest of the day, but the weeks that followed were necessarily full of ups and downs, of petty humiliations and bitter discouragements, and Betty uncomplainingly shared them all. The editors did what little they could, and Madeline and Miss Ferris and Katherine and Rachel helped without understanding anything except that Betty wanted them to; but the brunt of it all fell on her.
"I can't bother Miss Ferris with my blues," said Eleanor one afternoon, "and I know I oughtn't to bother you with them."
"Nonsense!" laughed Betty. "I like being bothered," and did not mention that she had given up the golf tournament because the practice would have interfered with her position as Eleanor's confidante.
There were nice things to share too. Miss Raymond wrote a prompt and cordial answer to Eleanor's note about the theme course. "After your action of last week, I see no reason why you should not continue in my classes on the old, pleasant footing. Please don't deprive me of the privilege of seeing your work."
There was a note from the Dramatic Club too. Dorothy had managed to get herself and Beatrice and Frances made a special committee to consider the resignation—the first in the annals of the society,—and they decided to accept it for one year from its date. After that, they said, they saw no reason "to deprive the society of a valued member."
Betty was delighted, but Eleanor shook her head. "I may not have earned it even then," she said gloomily.
"Leave it to Miss Ferris," suggested Betty. "She'll be a perfectly fair judge. If she says you can take it then, you will know it's all right."
And to this arrangement, after some hesitation, Eleanor consented.
A week or two later Bob came to Eleanor, in a sad state of embarrassment. "It's about the basket-ball song, Eleanor. The committee never saw it. Babe was chairman, you know, and she put her shoulder out of joint playing hockey the day the songs were called in, so I emptied the box for her. I remember I stopped in my room on the way back and I must have dropped yours there. Anyhow it turned up to-day in my top drawer. I'm awfully sorry."
Eleanor took the song and read through a stanza or two, while Bob wriggled, blushed and waited for the storm to burst. She had heard a good deal about Eleanor Watson's uncertain temper.
But at first Eleanor only laughed. "Goodness! What jiggly meter! It's lucky you lost it, Bob."
"No," said Bob, sturdily. "It was a dandy song, one of the best that came in. Babe said so too. I am really awfully sorry. I'm too careless to live."
"Well, you were lucky not to have found it a month ago," said Eleanor, with a sudden flash of anger, and Bob departed, wondering.
"Little things do make a big difference," said Betty, when she heard the story. "If they'd chosen it and everybody had said how clever it was—"
"I should have felt that I'd squared my account—proved that I could do what I hadn't done, and I should never have owned up to anybody."
"Then you really ought to have been nicer to Bob," laughed Betty, "because she helped you to come to the point."
"Yes, that helped," Eleanor admitted, soberly, "just as Dora helped and Beatrice in her way and Jim in his; but you were the one who meant to help, Betty. You got me the chance to begin over, and you made up my mind for me about taking it, and you've kept me to it ever since."
"But El—"
"Now let's not argue about it," laughed Eleanor. "I only wanted to say that I'm going to try to be nice to you to the extent of 'staying put' this time. I don't mean that you shall have to waste your junior year over me."
"Oh, Betty Wales, what's your hurry?"
Betty, who had strolled up Main Street with Emily Davis and now was walking back alone, turned to see Eleanor and Dora Carlson coming down the steps of the house behind her.
"We're hunting rooms," explained Eleanor, gaily, "the most systematic hunt you ever heard of. We went to every possible house on the other side on the way up, and then we came back on this side, doing the same thing. So if you want any pointers—"
"But you're not going off the campus, Eleanor," asked Betty anxiously.
"Oh, no, it's a room for me," interposed Dora, with an adoring glance atEleanor. "I've always longed to live up among the elm-trees of MainStreet, but I knew its glories were not for me until—"
"Dora," warned Eleanor, laughingly, "I told you not to mention elm-trees again this afternoon." She turned to Betty. "They all come down to two possibilities. Which should you prefer, a big room with a microscopic closet or a microscopic room with an enormous closet?"
"Oh, the one with the big closet," said Betty, decidedly. "I've tried the other, you know."
"And unknown horrors are always preferable to familiar ones," laughedEleanor.
Dora left them at the next corner and as soon as she was out of hearing Betty turned upon Eleanor. "Well," she said, "I've caught you in the act, and I think it's perfectly lovely of you. College will be a different place to her if she can live up here somewhere near things."
"It will be nicer for her, I think," said Eleanor, simply. "But Betty, I'm not doing much,—just making her a little present of the difference between Mrs. Bryant's prices and the very cheapest ones up here. I can do as much as that, I hope, after spoiling her sugaring-off party; and I really don't need that extra-priced room again."
"You mean," said Betty, in amazement, "that you're going to give up your corner-room with the three windows and the lovely burlap hangings?"
Eleanor nodded. "It wouldn't be much of a present from me if I just asked father for the money."
"Eleanor," said Betty, solemnly, "I don't believe I could do it."
"But it's really all your doing, Betty. If it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't have known Dora Carlson, and I shouldn't be here now. Besides, you set the example with Helen. So if you don't like it, there's only yourself to thank, you see," ended Eleanor, playfully.
"No, I don't see,—not one bit," declared Betty. "You'll be telling me that I'm responsible for the way you recite next."
"Well, you are, partly," laughed Eleanor, turning off to the Hilton.
Betty went up-stairs behind two strange girls who were evidently expecting to be in the Belden House next year.
"Of course the fourth floor is a long way up," one was saying, "and I suppose it's hot sometimes. But if I can get a single room there, I'd rather have it, wouldn't you?"
"Well, perhaps," answered the other doubtfully.
"No perhapses about it, my friend," thought Betty, turning off to her own quarters. Rooms and roommates—the air was full of them! And to-morrow was the day that the Belden House matron had appointed for settling all such matters. Betty could have a single room, if she wanted it, on the other side of Madeline Ayres, and she had almost made up her mind to take it. To be sure, it did seem a little hard on Helen. Nobody in the house had approached her on the subject of roommates, Betty felt sure of that; she would have to be "assigned" with some outsider. Well, why not? If she didn't take the trouble to make friends, of course she would have to suffer the consequences. And yet—if Eleanor had really been influenced by what she had tried to do for Helen, wouldn't it be mean to back out now? "But Eleanor has decided already," thought Betty, "and there's no reason why I should keep on bothering with Helen forever. I don't believe she's one bit happier for it."
Helen looked up expectantly when Betty came in. After all she was a sweet little thing; her face lighted up wonderfully at times.
"What's the news, Helen?" Betty asked. "You look as if something extra nice had happened."
"Why no," answered Helen, "unless you count that I've learned my Latin for tomorrow."
The answer was just like her, Betty reflected with a sigh. She might improve a great deal, but she would be a "dig" to the end of the chapter. As she dressed, Betty tried to lead up gradually to the subject of rooms by telling about the two strange girls she had met in the hall. But it was no use; Helen preserved the same gentle, obtuse silence that had kept Betty from opening the subject before. Little by little her courage oozed out, and with the ringing of the supper-bell she surrendered.
"I can't do it," she told the green lizard savagely. "She thinks we're settled here forever and I can't bear to disappoint her. It's not generosity though; it's just hating to make a fuss."
At supper all the girls were talking about rooms. "I'm first on the waiting list for singles," Nita Reese announced, "but I might as well be first on the waiting list for a trip to the moon, I suppose. Nobody ever gives up a chance at a single."
Betty opened her mouth to tell Nita the sad truth, saw Helen looking at her queerly, and shut it again. It would be time enough for Nita to hear of her good fortune to-morrow.
After supper Helen hurried back to her work and Betty joined a merry party on the piazza, went for a moonlight stroll on the campus, helped serenade Dorothy King, and finally, just as the ten o'clock bell was pealing warningly through the halls, rushed in upon Helen in a state of breathless excitement.
"Helen," she cried, "T. Reed's coming into the Belden and you never told me."
"I didn't know till this afternoon."
"Then that was the piece of news I saw in your face. Why didn't you tell it?"
"Why, I don't know—"
"Helen," cried Betty, with a sudden inspiration, "you and T. Reed want to room together."
"Oh, Betty, Theresa couldn't have gone and said so!" Helen looked the picture of distress.
"Nobody went and said so till you did just now," laughed Betty. "Oh,Helen, why didn't you tell me?"
"Why didn't you tell me that you'd rather room alone?"
Then they both laughed and, sitting close together on Helen's bed in the dark, talked it all over.
"You've been just lovely," Helen said. "You've given me all the good times I've had—except Theresa. But you couldn't make it any different from what it is. I never shall know how to get along the way other girls do, and Theresa is a good deal the same way, except that she can play basket-ball. So I guess we belong together."
"You needn't think you'll be rid of me," said Betty. "I shall be just two doors away, and I shall come in and bother you when you want to work and take you walking and ask you to hook up my dresses, just as I do now. Helen, how fast things are getting settled."
"They'd better be," said Helen. "There's only two weeks left of our sophomore year."
For a long time Betty lay awake, staring at the patch of moonlight on the floor beside her bed. "How mean I should have felt, if I'd told her when she wouldn't tell me," she thought. "I wonder if it's all right now. I wonder if next year is going to be as perfect as it seems. I wonder—" Betty Wales was asleep. Five minutes later she woke from a cat-nap that had turned her last thoughts into a very realistic dreamland. "No," she decided, "it won't be quite perfect. Dorothy will be gone."
Those are the good-byes that count—the ones you must say to the seniors. Dorothy would come back to visit the college, of course, and to attend class reunions, but that would not be the same thing as living next door to her all through the year. Betty was not going to stay to Commencement. Sophomores were only in everybody's way then, she thought, and she preferred to say good-bye to Dorothy before the onslaught of families, alumnae and friends should have upset the regular routine of life and made the seniors seem already lost to the college world. Packing was worse than ever this year, and examinations could not have been more inconveniently arranged, but in spite of everything Betty slipped off on her last evening for a few minutes with Dorothy.
The Belden House was a pandemonium, the piazzas deserted, the hot rooms ablaze with lights, the halls noisy with the banging of trunk-lids and the cries of distracted damsels; but the Hilton, either because it had more upper-class girls who were staying to Commencement, or because its freshmen and sophomores were of a serener temperament, showed few signs of "last days." The piazza was full, as it always was on warm nights, and a soft little crooning song was wafted across the lawn to Betty's ears. Dorothy was singing. Her voice was not highly cultivated, but it was the kind of voice that has a soul in it—which is better than much training. As Betty stole softly up to the piazza, so as not to interrupt the song, and found a place on the railing, she remembered her first evening in Harding. How forlorn and frightened she had been, and how lovely Dorothy was to her. Well, she had been just as lovely ever since.
Dorothy's song stopped suddenly. "Girls, I can't sing to-night," she said. "It's—so—warm. And besides, Betty Wales has come to see me on a very particular errand, haven't you, Betty, dear?"
Up in Dorothy's room, in the dusk, nobody said much of anything. There is never much left to say at the last. But Dorothy had a way of putting things and of looking at things that was like nobody's else, Betty thought; and when she said, "I know I can trust you to work for the democratic, helpful spirit and to keep down cliques and snobbishness and see that everybody has a fair chance and a good time," Betty felt more pleased than she had about her election to Dramatic Club. She had been Dorothy's lieutenant. Now she must be Dorothy's successor, and it was a great honor and a greater responsibility—but first she must pack her trunks.
On the way home she overtook Roberta. "I'm in the Belden, Betty," she announced, breathlessly, "and there are a lot of things I want to ask you and Mary about, but I can't stay long, because those dear little freshmen are going to give me a good-bye spread."
"Those snippy freshmen?" laughed Betty.
"Oh, but they came around after the Jabberwock party, just as you said they would. It was an impromptu party, Betty. I did it the night Sara Westervelt was there, and somebody stole the ice cream. That's why you weren't invited."
Up-stairs the rest of the "old guard" were sitting on boxes, trunks and the floor, waiting to say good-bye to Betty and meanwhile being entertained by Madeline Ayres, who was giving a lively account of her experience with a washwoman.
"She said, 'It's twinty white skirruts Oi have to do up now, me dear,' and I said, 'But I can't go without a skirt, Mrs. Mulvaney, and everybody who doesn't wear white to chapel will be expelled, and then where will your goose that lays the golden eggs be?' 'Shure, I kape no geese, me dear,' said she, and—oh, here's Betty."
"Finish up," demanded Katherine.
"Oh, there isn't any more," said Madeline, "except that she's just sent the skirt home, and it isn't mine, but it fits rather well, doesn't it, and I can't possibly return it before chapel, now can I?"
"Is that the way they do in Bohemia?" said Mary, severely. "Betty, I've got to have half your bed to-night. An alum, who came on from San Francisco got mixed in her dates and appeared a day too early. And as she is a particular pal of the matron and I am notoriously good-natured, she's got my room."
"To think of it," said Katherine, impressively, "and you a senior next week."
"And we juniors next week!" said Rachel. "It doesn't seem possible, does it? Here's to hoping we shall all be back next year."
"What a forlorn toast!" said Katherine, who knew better than the rest how hard it was for Rachel to make both ends meet. "Here's to hoping that we all go on as splendidly as we've begun!"
"You have done tolerably well so far, children," said Mary, beaming around the group.
"See the society pins bristle in our midst!" said Katherine, with melodramatic gestures in the direction of Mary, Betty, and of Rachel, who wore the Clio Club insignia proudly.
"And we've got the college beauty," added Betty quickly.
"And the Jabberwock," put in Eleanor.
"Please don't forget the basket-ball stars," suggested Katherine, with becoming modesty.
"Nor the basket-ball song," added Rachel, smiling at Helen.
"So many honors," laughed Betty. "Do you suppose we've left anything for next year?"
"The song of the classes talks about 'jolly juniors,'" said Rachel. "That sounds as if there would be plenty of fun in it."
"There is; junior year is the nicest one in college," declared Mary.
"It can't be," objected Katherine, "because each year has been as nice as it possibly could."
"Unless you were foolish enough to spoil it," whispered Eleanor inBetty's ear.
Roberta suddenly remembered her waiting freshmen, Mary offered to escort her to Mrs. Chapin's, and the other three declared they must go home to their packing. Betty and the girl from Bohemia went to the head of the stairs to see them off. It was not exactly good-bye, because there were chances of meeting at chapel and the station, but it was near enough to it to be a little sad.
"Oh, dear, I hate endings," said Betty, waving her hand to Eleanor.
"Do you?" said the girl from Bohemia. "You'd get used to them if you lived my scrappy, now-here-and-now-there kind of life. You'd find out that one thing has to end before another can begin, and that each new one is too good to miss."
"Um—perhaps," said Betty, doubtfully. "Any how we've got to take the chance. So here's to junior year!"
End of Project Gutenberg's Betty Wales, Sophomore, by Margaret Warde