“Yes,” said Mary Todd. “It’s just part of college life. And you may as well go to the orchard now, while it is still light and bright. I certainly hope I don’t have to do that stunt. No orchard in mine.”
“Some of us probably will have to gather the apples later,” declared Jane Randall. “But a soph, who got a little friendly with me, said that the best apples were at the far side of the orchard. So you girls had better go there at the start, as Toots and her crowd won’t accept nubbins, and you don’t want to have to make two trips.”
“I should say not,” murmured Sim. “One is bad enough.”
Arden and Terry were still a bit bewildered, even after this well-meant advice, and Sim declared she was “dying from embarrassment.”
“I suppose we may as well go. What do you say, girls?” asked Arden.
“Yes, let’s! Anything to get away from here!” Sim was regarding the circle of amused girls.
“You take our books to our room, will you?” Terry asked Mary Todd. “We’ll let you know later how we make out.”
The fated trio started down the southern slope of Bordmust Hall hill toward the picturesque orchard where, even now, though it was not very late, the shadows were lengthening and the sun had lost some of its brightness. They crossed a field, deep with grass, crawled through the bars of a snake-rail fence, and found themselves beneath the trees.
“I vote we pick up the first apples we can see,” voiced Terry.
“Certainly!” agreed Arden.
“Apples are apples,” quoth Sim. “Why should we go to the far end to gather fine fruit when windfalls may answer?”
“Why, indeed,” assented Arden. “But still I suppose we had better not pick up these.” With her foot she kicked out from amid the fallen leaves some withered, wrinkled, and partly rotted specimens.
“No, they won’t do,” declared Sim.
“Then let’s separate a bit. We can cover more ground that way,” suggested Arden. “Whoever first finds some decent apples must give a shout, and we’ll gather there.” She was quite businesslike.
“All right, Colonel!” laughed Terry. “‘You take the highland and I’ll take the low,’” she sang softly. “Scatter, my lassies!”
They separated and began the search in the growing dusk.
Apples there were, but such poor things, windfalls and rots, that even the enthusiastic Arden began to feel discouraged. They might, after all, need to go to the far end of the orchard. Still, it was delightful beneath the old, gnarled trees. Their trunks were shaped like dragons, their branches like Chinese letters, and the roots, where they cropped out above the ground, like intertwined serpents grim and black, seeming to writhe in the shifting shadows. A little wind rustled the leaves, swung the hanging fruit, and made the limbs squeak as they rubbed one on the other.
Here and there they wandered, growing more and more apprehensive and nervous as the darkness deepened. There seemed to be something sinister about that orchard, although it was so close to the life and joy of Cedar Ridge College. The taxi-man had surely warned them—but of what? This was no time to think about that.
“Ah!” Sim suddenly exclaimed. “A perfect apple, red and round!” She picked it up from beneath a large gnarled tree. “And there are others,” she called. “This way! Over here, girls!” Her voice was joyous.
Arden and Terry ran toward Sim. But as Sim stooped to pick up another apple she saw something in a pile of leaves. It looked like—surely not the leg of blue overalls! A last lingering gleam of the setting sun, shining through a cleft in the hills, glinted upon that leg. Sim glided closer. Could it be——?
It was part of an overall suit, and there, thrust out of the lower end and twisted grotesquely to one side, was a foot!
“Oh-h-h-h-ee!” screamed Sim, dropping her apples. “Oh, girls, look here! Quick! Hurry!”
She stood in a panic of terror, rooted as firmly to the spot, for the moment, as one of the black gnarled trees.
“What is it, Sim? What’s the matter?” gasped Terry, the first to arrive.
“Look!” Sim pointed, breathless. She and the others, for Arden was now one of the trio beneath the tree, saw more than just the overall leg and the foot. They saw the huddled form of a man partly buried in the fallen leaves. And they could see—his face!
“Why, it’s Tom—the porter!” cried Arden. Instantly she was down on her knees beside him. “His head is cut. We must get help. Sim! Terry! Come here to me!”
Arden was dependable in a real emergency. She attempted to lift the death-like head. Terry struggled to help her while Sim bravely tried to straighten out a crooked arm beneath the senseless form.
It was so terribly tragic. The girls saw where all that blood was coming from. Tom Scott’s forehead was cut, and the wound appeared to be serious. Realizing this, the three hesitated about what to do next.
“Oh!” gasped Terry. “Is he—dead?”
“No,” Arden answered. “I can feel him breathing. But he’s had a hard blow.”
“What shall we do?” faltered Terry, becoming more and more alarmed.
“If we only had some water,” murmured Sim, “we could——”
The sound of approaching footsteps caused the girls to glance up. A man was hastening toward them through the aisles of the black trees of the orchard.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Arden as she let the inert head fall back on the cushion of leaves.
“What is he saying?” asked Terry.
“Nothing yet,” replied Arden, still watching closely the face of the unconscious man as well as she could in the fast gathering gloom.
“Who is coming?” asked Sim, for the approaching footsteps were pounding nearer.
No one answered.
Then they heard the voice of Tom Scott as he stirred on awakening from the stupor of unconsciousness.
“My head!” he murmured. “It—hurts. But it was so black and it came at me so quickly——”
The girls were so relieved to hear him speak that they all waited breathlessly. The running footsteps came nearer. It was a man. He fairly leaped through the dark tunnel of trees toward the group.
“Get away from here!” he snarled. “Get away—you girls! You’re not supposed to come in this orchard. Get away! I’ll take care of him!”
By his voice, for it was now too dark to distinguish his features, Arden and her chums knew him to be Anson Yaeger, the grim head farmer and gardener of Cedar Ridge. They had seen him from a distance that afternoon, had heard his snarling voice, and had been told who he was. Now he was living up to his reputation in ordering them off.
Arden and the others moved away from the still recumbent form of Tom Scott. But more life was coming back to him now. He murmured again:
“But I didn’t know. I couldn’t see—except that it was something black—as black as the hedge—and it—got me!”
Then the voice of Anson Yaeger broke in:
“All right! All right! I’ll look after you, Tom. You girls run away. It’s all right, I tell you! Go away!”
His angry command seemed to shatter the calm darkness of the night.
Scarcely realizing how they had changed their fright into action, Arden, Terry, and Sim found themselves running away as quickly as they could through the fast-gathering darkness enshrouding the mysterious orchard. The cool wind whipped back their hair, and their feet stumbled on the uneven ground. Loose stones tripped them, and smashed apples made slippery spots that once caused Sim almost to fall. But she quickly recovered herself, ran on, and passed her chums.
As the three neared the dormitory building, the grounds about it were deserted, as this was the before-supper lull.
“I hope no one saw that mad rush!” panted Arden.
“What are we going to do?” asked Terry as they slowed to a walk.
“Say nothing—for a while, at least,” advised Arden.
“Right!” agreed Sim.
To this course of action, or, rather, lack of action, each agreed with unspoken loyalty. They must keep the secret of the orchard to themselves. It was their secret. None of the other girls, for the time, must know anything about the mystery tangled in those gnarled trees and in the smoky ivy vines that hung from some branches like tangled snakes. Even the tall and almost impenetrable hedge that, in one corner, formed a terrifying tunnel before it opened into the wide aisles of trees took on a sinister shape and seemed to add to the mystery as the girls thought of it while standing in the gleam of lights from the dormitory building.
They were safe now. They need run no longer. They could stop and let their panting breaths ease. They must go inside. Oh, to be able to sit down and calmly consider what had happened.
But the five flights of stairs between them and their room! How could they be climbed? The same thought was in the minds of each one. To get safely inside their room and throw themselves down upon the beds until hearts beat a little less poundingly.
It was finally accomplished, somehow. Silently they reclined in their favorite relaxed positions. No sound, except a clock-like puffing, disturbed the stillness. The room was almost dark, only a little gleam filtering in from the hall through a transom. No one made a move to turn on a light. Just to rest, for the moment, was enough.
Gradually they grew calmer. Arden sat up.
“What an adventure!” she exclaimed. “But do you know what we did?”
“What?” murmured Terry.
“We left the precious apples.”
“For all I care they can stay there!” Sim had lost all interest. “I’ll never forget how that poor young fellow looked! I only wish that old man hadn’t chased us away. Perhaps we could have found out what Tom meant by that black thing he talked about.”
“I’d never have the courage to try!” murmured Terry.
“Do you know, girls,” burst out Arden, “I think we’ve stumbled on something important! You remember what Henry, our dear old chaplain, was muttering about the day we passed him. Something about coming out of the orchard and some sort of a promise. And the old taxi-man, too, warned us, in a way. Certainly that orchard holds a real mystery in its dark leafiness.” Arden smiled a little smugly. A sort of cat and canary smile, as Sim remarked when she got up off the bed to switch on a light.
She and Terry both were very thoughtful after what Arden had said. Perhaps Arden was right. There was certainly something more than merely queer about the orchard, it was getting weird and uncanny.
“Do you think those sophs could have known?” asked Terry.
“I don’t,” was Sim’s opinion. “They’d never have sent us there if they had known what was going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” spoke Arden. “Those sophs——”
“Hark!” from Sim.
Footsteps in the corridor outside.
A knock on the door.
A little scream from Terry, a quickly hushed scream, however.
The door was opened suddenly. It was Toots Everett and her two familiars.
“Where are the apples, freshies?” Toots demanded.
“We haven’t got them,” Terry stated simply. “We—ah—we—dropped them.”
“Oh, you did! And you look at us and calmly tell us you haven’t the apples we sent you to get! Well, you’d better get them tonight. It would be just too bad if the dean had to campus you in your first week here.” Toots paused ominously and resumed. “For going over to the post office without permission.” It was a theatrical finish.
“Get those apples for us tonight!” commanded Jessica. “Slip out the back door about eight o’clock and you’ll manage it all right. None of the teachers will notice you then. Of course, you’ll have sense enough to take flashlights.”
“We haven’t any yet,” said Sim lamely. “We haven’t been to town, you know.” She and her two chums were wondering how the sophomore knew about the post office visit. Had the chaplain told them?
“No flashlights!” mocked Pip. “The poor dears! Then they’ll have to go in the dark.”
“Oh, no!” Terry cried out with a dramatic restraining gesture.
“Little freshie ’fraid-cats!” sneered Toots.
“Well,” remarked Jessica, “purely out of the goodness of my heart, and not because I like you, I’ll let you take my large flashlight. But don’t forget! We expect those apples before ‘lights-out’ tonight!”
With mocking smiles, the sophs withdrew to their room below.
“Oh, dear!” wailed Sim. “More trouble! I don’t want to go back to that orchard when it’s so dark!”
“I do and I don’t,” said Arden. “I want to find out something, but I’m a little scared.”
“If we all keep together and have a light, it shouldn’t take us long. I think I can find the tree we were near when—when——” Terry didn’t quite know how to finish.
Clang-clang! Clang! Clang-clang! It was the bell calling the students to supper: always a light meal. The “big feed,” as the girls called it, came in the middle of the day.
Wearily the three arose from the beds whereon they had again cast themselves after the visits of the sophomores, straightened themselves with pulls and twists, and joined their classmates in the dining hall. Their coming hazing task was uppermost in their minds, consequently they did not feel like talking much.
Terry was elected to get the light from Jessica while her chums waited in no little trepidation in the main corridor below, near a rear door out of which they had been told they might slip without being observed by those in authority.
“Did you get it?” whispered Sim, as Terry came lightly down the stairs.
“Sure! Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I was hoping you might not, and then we’d have a good excuse for not going,” Sim answered.
“Well, let’s get started,” suggested Arden.
They went out. The night was clear and beginning to get chilly. Sim knotted her bright scarf more tightly about her throat. Terry turned up the collar of her jacket, and Arden snuggled more closely into her long sweater.
At first, after walking away from the rim of light that filtered from the dormitory building, they could see nothing. But gradually their eyes became accustomed to the darkness and, without switching on the flashlight, they headed for Bordmust Hall.
For a few of their hesitant steps no one spoke. Then Terry turned on the flashlight, focusing its beams upon the ground while they walked slowly along in triangular formation, Sim and Arden forming the base as Terry with the light was the apex.
Nothing disturbed them. All was quiet and still and so absolutely silent that Terry remarked it was the “perfect state of nothingness.”
The dark orchard seemed miles away. But as they paused for Arden to tie her shoe, a faint rustling could be heard. Tired old apple trees were once more settling down for the long winter sleep after a summer of fruit producing.
All at once they were there! Right in the orchard. The stones on the ground seemed to hold back their unwilling feet. They stopped and listened. Terry switched on the light but its penetrating beam seemed only to make the surrounding darkness blacker.
“Come on, girls! We’re just at the first row of trees. The one we are looking for is farther along. I remember a funny-shaped one, like a rearing crocodile, next to it. But wait, Terry! I heard something moving!” Arden froze into motionless silence to listen.
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” Terry gently mocked. “We’re just wasting time by listening, and I’ve got a lot of French to do. Let’s get going!”
Sim and Terry walked on. Terry, having seen that the way, for some little distance ahead, was clear, turned off the flashlight. They did not want to attract any possible attention. Arden was following a little more slowly. They were beneath some gnarled trees now.
“Flash a gleam, Terry,” begged Sim. In the glow they looked at the leaf-strewn ground. “There’s not a single apple here! I don’t see how we found any this afternoon!” said Sim gloomily.
“Cheer up, old gal! I think this is the tree. That looks like a pretty good specimen.” Terry was examining an apple in the light of Terry’s torch. “Pick them up quickly. If they turn out not to be good, we’ll blame it on the darkness. Hold the bag, Arden. It was very smart of you to bring it.”
Quickly the two dropped apples into the paper bag held open by Arden. They were making what they thought was a good collection when Arden suddenly stopped them as she murmured:
“Listen! Did you hear that? Sounded like someone sneezing!”
They stood motionless and quiet in the frightening darkness.
“I heard—something,” Sim whispered.
“Well, whatever it was, it couldn’t have been very close,” declared Terry, taking charge of the situation. “If we hurry we can be out of here in another minute.”
With renewed energy they fell to their task once more. Arden discovered Sim’s pile of apples from the afternoon gathering and was putting them into the bag; they could not return to those sophs without filling their orders.
Suddenly the night’s silence was broken by a loud noise: a sound between a sneeze and a snort, as the girls afterward described it.
Then something like a black shadow tore past the frightened trio, moving with great speed and thudding feet, if that tearing scramble could have been made by feet. In her excitement Terry switched off the light. The darkness was at once made more dark.
“Oh! Help! Help! It’s—got me!” screamed Arden, in a voice filled with terror.
Some strange force seemed to fling her aside, her skirt being caught and twisted around her legs, twirling her like a human top. She tried to retain her balance but toppled over and fell heavily in a pile of leaves and apples, too frightened to know where she was.
“Arden!” cried Sim. “What happened? Where are you?”
“Are you hurt?” demanded Terry trying in vain to get her fingers on the elusive light switch. “Oh, Arden! Whatever—was it?”
“It—it just missed me!” panted Arden, struggling to her feet. “But whatever it was, it certainly tried to get me! Oh, for mercy’s sake, take those apples and let’s get out of here!”
“Show a light, Terry!” begged Sim. “Where are the apples?”
“I—I dropped the bag when that terrible thing rushed past me and was nearly entangled in my skirt,” Arden confessed. “Oh, this is awful!”
“Those sophs!” muttered Sim, “and these unlucky apples!”
“Beasts!” snapped Terry, who at last had the torch glowing again.
Then, never daring to look behind them, the three frightened freshmen, with Sim carrying the bag of apples, Terry focusing the torch on the uncertain way, and Arden almost in hysterical tears, ran out of the perilous orchard. This surely had been a terrifying encounter.
“But remember again,” breathed Sim when she felt strong enough to do so, “the apples are for—the sophs, but the—mystery—is ours!” Good little Sim!
“There!”
Sim flung the bag of apples with desperate aim straight at Jessica Darglan, who stood in surprised dismay near the doorway of her room.
“We’re back! We got the apples for you. But don’t ever ask us to go to that orchard again. It’s aterribleplace!” Arden almost shook her finger at Jessica.
“I think you sophs are going a little too far in this hazing business.” Terry spoke firmly. “We tried to be good sports about it, but we might have been hurt or killed—or something! Well, anyhow, here’s your lamp, and you have the apples. Come on, girls!” she finished a little lamely, but a little defiantly as well.
The three frightened freshmen wearily climbed the last flight of stairs to their room. Never had the sight of those three beds in a row seemed so pleasant, so reassuring.
Terry decided to let her French go until morning. Arden and Sim thanked their lucky stars they could go to bed with easy consciences. They had nothing to prepare.
“But, Arden, what was it?” asked Sim as she began to undress.
“You haven’t given us any idea,” added Terry.
“For the simple reason that I can’t,” was the answer made after a moment of thought. “It was all so sudden—and terrible—a rushing black shape—something getting tangled in my skirt—twirling me down and—and—around——”
“Whoosing, snorting, and sneezing like some giant of an old man with a bad cold,” finished Sim.
“Yes,” Arden assented, glad to have been helped out.
“The orchard,” murmured Terry. “Could it have been—a snake?”
“You’re thinking of the Garden of Eden and Eve’s apple, I guess,” laughed Sim.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about it!” begged Arden. “Maybe it was—the wind.”
“You know it wasn’t,” said Sim calmly.
“It may have been—for all Iknow,” Arden said. “I’m going to bed and try to forget it. College life should make girls brave.”
The others followed her example but sleep was long in coming. Adventures like the peril in the orchard called for pulling covers over one’s head, Arden remarked, and she did exactly that. Darling sleep came at last.
In the morning, at breakfast, the trio guardedly whispered to a few of their friends something of what had happened, but the real secret they kept to themselves. There were murmurs of wonder amid promises, exacted and given, of silence. But the talk spread. The idea of three freshmen—etc.—etc.—!
It was two days later, though, before an effect was produced. Then the whole college was called to General Assembly, and the three in room 513 realized to what an extent gossip had traveled.
“Any stories which you may have heard about queer things happening in the old orchard must be taken, well—conservatively, at least.” It was the dean speaking to the college students, who for once were all vitally interested in her discourse. “There is not much danger of our upper class students taking these things seriously. But in a college of this size, stories travel with remarkable speed. It would not be to the credit of Cedar Ridge to have such rumors spread on the outside. So we shall say no more about it, except to remark that, apparently, our sophomores this year are doing a very good job of hazing. It is to be hoped they will remember where hazing ends and bullying begins.” The dean’s usually austere manner suddenly melted into a kindly interest.
“She must have heard something,” Arden whispered to Sim. “Do you notice she doesn’t say exactly what happened?”
“It’s my guess,” whispered Sim, “she doesn’tknowexactly what.”
The three girls were sitting together in the large assembly hall.
“Foxy old thing!” Terry spoke out of the corner of her mouth at Arden. “I’d like to hear just how much she actually knows.”
The dean had finished with the matter of the orchard. She swept her glance over the faces raised expectantly to hers as she broached a new and not unwelcome subject.
“The Sophomore Tea Dance will be held this year earlier than usual; in New York, at the Hotel Chancellor. The committee, of which Jessica Darglan, Margaret Everett, and Priscilla MacGovern are the active heads, ask your support in their undertaking.” A murmur of approval greeted this announcement. “They have voted to give any funds they may raise to the college treasury for the reconditioning of the swimming pool. I wish them every success.” This was a real pronouncement.
Then, gathering herself together and teetering on her toes as if, Terry said, she was getting ready to jump, the dean dismissed her students.
“Wouldn’t you just know they’d do something like that!” Arden was speaking, as the three chums sauntered toward their classes in Bordmust Hall. “Stealing our plan!”
“But we didn’t announce it, Arden,” Terry remarked. “That is, if you mean we are to try for the thousand dollars reward for information about that missing Harry Pangborn.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“But we haven’t done anything,” suggested Sim. “Really, you know, Arden——”
“Why didn’t they give us a chance? I just know we can solve that mystery if we have time. I’m sure of it!”
“Have you decided yet,” asked Terry, “where you think you saw the original of that reward-poster picture?”
“Not yet,” Arden had ruefully to admit. “But I shall. And now those sophs——”
“Well, more power to them if they can raise the money for the swimming pool, I say,” spoke Sim philosophically.
“Never shall I forget, scared as I was, the expression on the face of Jessica as we flung the apples at her! It was almost worth the fright we had,” Terry ventured, to change the subject.
“I know what we can do, though, to get a little even with them,” suggested Arden. “We won’t tell, no matter how much they ask, just what happened.”
“All right, Arden, we’ll do that. Now, don’t let’s talk any more about it. I’m tired of the word orchard. I’d much rather talk about the tea dance,” Sim returned, arranging her books more comfortably. “Do you think we can go?”
“Of course! Why not?” asked Terry.
“Well—boys, you know. We couldn’t get any of our own friends from home to come this far for us,” Sim decided.
“You’ve been thinking about this dance, have you, Sim? Now, I never would have thought that!” laughed Arden.
“Of course I have! I like dances. I’ve been thinking about this one to such an extent that when I saw the notice on the bulletin board I asked Mary Todd what about it, and she and Ethel Anderson and Jane Randall have already written to their three brothers——”
“Oh, my! Has each one three brothers who are eligible for tea dances?” gasped Terry.
“No—one each,” went on Sim, laughing. “What do you expect? Anyhow, that’s how much I’ve been thinking about it!”
“That’s quite a lot of thinking,” Terry remarked, “for you, my little one! I might say that perhaps you took a great deal for granted, but if it works out all right, I’ll be just as glad as you are. Did you have the sisters send their brothers our pictures? That one of you in the school play, Sim, dressed as an old man, is good.”
“Don’t be silly! Of course I didn’t. Anyhow, as long as we pay for the bids, those boys ought to be glad to go. They don’t have to dance with us all afternoon.”
“Oh, stop, you two! Do let it go, as long as Sim has engineered it this far. It will be fun, very likely. Russ Albono’s orchestra is grand, and we all have new dresses. There are more important things to consider,” Arden decided. “We must get our hair and nails done and see about a room in the hotel. I’ve never been there, have you? Think of going to a real college tea dance in a big New York hotel!”
“I was there once on my birthday,” Sim remarked. “My loving parents took me to dinner and the theater. We stayed at the hotel a whole week-end. I loved it!” She sighed, remembering.
“I hope you’ll find it as wonderful this time,” remarked Terry.
“Let us hope so,” murmured Arden.
“Mrs. Malvern is to be the official chaperon. You must report to her before the dance and after it is over, as you leave,” announced Sim. “I should think she might be pretty tired of answering the phone calls of the girls to her room when they notify her.”
“Really, Sim, how did you find out so much?” asked Arden.
“I asked here and there,” Sim admitted. “I also found out that we are to go to New York the afternoon of the dance, which is on Saturday. We don’t have to be back here at college until nine that night.”
“Quite a bit of liberty—for Cedar Ridge,” commented Terry.
“Oh, dear! Here we are at Bordmust, and we’ll have to separate just when the talk is getting exciting!” exclaimed Arden. “But as soon as you two can, come back to 513, and we’ll complete our arrangements, will you?” she begged as they reached the grim building.
“Yes,” nodded Sim and Terry.
Groups of students on the steps were discussing the dean’s talk, the coming tea dance, and the ever intruding lessons, which, dance or not, must be endured.
Suddenly Sim saw Mary Todd.
“Have you heard anything, Mary?” she asked.
“No, it’s too soon. Give them a few more days,” called back Mary.
“Don’t be so anxious, Sim,” advised Arden. “You’d think we just couldn’t wait to find out about those boys.”
“Well, Iamanxious. If they don’t take us, I don’t know how we’ll get there.” Sim sighed, certainly a little downcast.
“Don’t worry. We’ll go all right, and probably make a big hit, too!” Terry was climbing the steps now. “I’ll think it out in Latin class. I do some of my best thinking there.”
“See you later!” Arden waved a hand, laughing. “I’m due at math, worse luck!” and she hurried into the building.
Terry and Sim followed. They were already lost in daydreams of music, laughter, lights, and gayety: the prospective coming dance.
“Say, listen, Sim,” exclaimed Terry suddenly, taking hold of Sim’s arm to assure attention.
“What is it, darling?” joked Sim. “Got a better idea for our dance boy supply?”
“No, nothing about that. But you know our Tom who got that mysterious blow the other night?”
“Do I?”
“Well, I heard him telling one of the gardeners about it, and he was laughing it off.”
“Well, what’s wrong about that?” demanded Sim.
“Sounded flooey to me. He said he merely tripped over a tree stump and another stump cut his head.”
“Maybe he did,” Sim casually answered.
“And maybe hedidn’t,” retorted Terry significantly.
Class matters went all too slowly between the time of the tea dance announcement and the affair itself. Lessons were slighted with bold abandon as the girls made their preparations, their universal excuse being:
“We can make it up later.”
At last it was the day. Soon after noon the college buildings began emptying rapidly, and excited students, carrying overnight bags, hurried to the little station for the New York trains.
It was great fun going in to the city. The seniors and juniors were, of course, literally “on their own,” but the lower-class girls were chaperoned by the ever-watchful Mrs. Malvern.
The train was crowded, but Arden and her friends, after some tactful pushing, managed to get seats together.
“It was fine of Mary Todd to help us get the boys to go to the dance with. And it wasn’t so hard in her own case, for she lives so near New York. None of the boys we know could travel so far for a tea dance.” Terry was chattering excitedly.
“Yes, it was nice,” Sim agreed. “I was certainly relieved when I heard they could come. If Mother lets me have a house party at Christmas, we could invite them.”
“Do you mean the boys or the girls?” asked Arden.
“I mean the boys,” supplied Sim.
“How perfectly grand!” exclaimed Terry.
“Of course, we haven’t seen the boys yet,” continued Arden. “So perhaps we had better wait until we do.”
“And of course, I haven’t asked Mother about the party yet, either. It was just an idea,” Sim concluded.
“Oh—Sim!” was all Arden and Terry could say to that admission, and presently they lapsed into silence while the train clicked on.
The ride to New York from Cedar Ridge was hardly long enough, and it seemed no time at all before the various groups of girls were alighting from the variously colored taxis in front of the Chancellor Hotel.
Then up to their rooms in the gorgeous bird-cage elevators, to unpack their dresses and give last-minute touches to hair, hands, and complexions.
“Sim looks simply darling!” observed Arden in an aside to Terry. “As long as she is small and child-like, I think she’s wise in making the most of it.”
“Yes, she does look sweet,” agreed Terry. “And you look nice, too, Arden. I like that color on you. Your hair has a dandy wave. I think that was a good beauty shop, don’t you?”
“Very good,” assented Arden. “And to complete the circle, Terry, you look—wonderful!”
“Thanks!”
Sim was so busy preening herself before a large glass set in the closet door that she took no part in the conversation until, all at once, she seemed satisfied with her appearance and, turning to her chums, remarked:
“Your dress is just perfect, Arden—blue is surelyyourcolor. And green is yours, Terry: you look sweet. And I think we all three are credits to Cedar Ridge. But let’s go down. It’s late, and we have to find Mary and meet the boys. They must have been waiting a long time.”
So they left their room after many last-minute touches, and with some temerity descended to the ballroom. Already lights were casting soft glows over the tapestry-hung walls. The orchestra was playing a lively tune, and several couples were dancing in the stately Louis XIV room. Smartly dressed girls and good-looking boys were laughing and talking together in little knots, their eager anticipation being distinctly felt if not actually heard.
“Have you seen Mary Todd anywhere?” Sim had a chance to ask Helen Burns, a classmate, who was apparently waiting for someone at the door of the ballroom.
“Oh, hello, Sim!” Helen greeted. “You look lovely! Yes, I saw Mary and Jane and Ethel and a whole lot of boys over there in that small room.” She pointed toward a sort of alcove off the dancing space.
“Oh, gosh, Arden!” Sim’s poise was leaving her. “What shall we do now? Wait! There’s Mary. I see her!”
“Why, let’s go over and speak to her, of course,” suggested Arden. “Your nerve seems to be deserting you, Sim. You got us into this very nicely, but you don’t seem so brave about it just now.”
“You lead the way, Arden, and we’ll follow,” Terry said, smoothing her bright hair. “I’ve never been in a situation just like this before. I feel almost as frightened as though I were in the orchard!”
“Hey there! No orchards tonight, girlie,” cautioned Arden. “Come on, children! We’ll get the introductions over with, and the rest will be easy.” Arden started toward Mary who was chatting with several young men.
Then Mary looked up, saw Arden coming toward her, followed by Sim and Terry, and went halfway to meet the trio. So it wasn’t so difficult, after all, to cross to the small room where the boys were waiting.
“Arden,” said Mary formally, “may I present my brother Jim? This is Arden Blake, Jim. I’ve told you about her.”
“How do you do?” greeted Jim. “Mary wrote me all about your adventure.”
Arden was wondering just what Mary had referred to, but there was no time to ask, for the others were now being presented, Sim and Terry taking their turns. Sim was now her vivacious self, and Terry had lost all her nervousness. Could one boy have brought them such reassurance?
Then Ethel Anderson’s brother Ed, a tall, good-looking boy, asked Sim to dance, and soon she was humming “Tea for Two” as though they were old friends. Yes, boys did inspire confidence just like that.
Terry was dancing with Dick Randall, talking and laughing as they whirled about the big, beautiful room. It truly was exciting.
Next Arden and Mary Todd’s brother Jim joined the dancers. Arden unconsciously made a pretty picture as she looked up smiling at the handsome boy. She was thinking how easily the introductions had gone off after all and how glad she was to be there. Then, as the music stopped, she glanced about her inquiringly.
“There are not as many here as I thought there would be,” she remarked. “I wonder if the sophomores will clear expenses and make something for repairing the swimming pool?”
“You sound almost as if you wished they wouldn’t,” observed Jim, somewhat curiously.
“It isn’t that, exactly,” went on Arden. “But, you see, I had sort of planned on raising the money for the pool myself—with the help of Sim and Terry. I suppose it doesn’t matter, though, if they havemorethan they need, just as long as they don’t haveless.”
“You talk like Alice in Wonderland and you remind me of her, too,” laughed Jim. “But that’s rather a tall order, isn’t it? Trying to raise such a large sum by yourselves—just you girls?”
“About a thousand dollars,” admitted Arden. “I know it sounds awfully conceited, but back at school, in the post office——”
Arden was interrupted by Ed Anderson coming to claim her for a dance. “I’ll tell you some other time,” she explained gayly to Jim, and to her waiting partner she smiled a little coquettishly as she put up her arms in the correct position as he danced away with her. No thought of ugly orchards now; even college could be forgotten with that rapturous music. Arden was a pretty dancer.
The rest of the afternoon dissolved into a lovely kaleidoscope of color, music, and lights. The three sophomore hazers of the trio from 513, headed by Toots Everett, managed the affair extremely well as far as the social end of it was concerned. Arden and her chums had occasional glimpses of “the apple trio,” as they were sometimes thought of, surreptitiously regarding them and the good-looking boys with whom the freshmen danced so often.