Betty Wales, Freshman

“Yes,” put in Mary, “and we’ll make them all give us extra orders.”

“We will save out a dollar for you to live on till March,” said Betty.

“Oh no, I shall borrow of you,” retorted Mary, and then they all laughed and felt better.

On St. Valentine’s morning Betty posted a registered valentine. The verse read:–

“There are three of us and three of you,Though only one knows one,So pray accept this little giftAnd go and have some fun.”

But if the rhyme went haltingly and was not quite true either, as Betty pointed out, since Adelaide and Alice had contributed to the fund, and the whole house had bought absurd quantities of valentines because it was such a “worthy object” (“just as if I wasn’t a worthy object!” sighed Mary), there was nothing the matter with the “little gift,” which consisted of three crisp ten dollar bills.

“Oh, if they should feel hurt!” thought Betty anxiously, and dodged Emily Davis so successfully that until the day of the rally they did not meet.

That week was a tremendously exciting one. To begin with, on the twentieth the members of both the freshman basket-ball teams were announced. Rachel was a “home” on the regular team, and Katherine a guard on the “sub,” so the Chapin house fairly bubbled over with pride and pleasure in its double honors. Then on the morning of the twenty-second came the rally with its tumultuous display of class and college loyalty, its songs written especially for the occasion, its shrieks of triumph or derision (which no intrusive reporter should make bold to interpret or describe as “class yells,” since such masculine modes of expression are unknown at Harding), and its mock-heroic debate on the vital issue, “Did or did not George Washington cut down that cherry-tree?”

Every speaker was clever and amusing, but Emily Davis easily scored the hit of the morning. For whereas most freshmen are frightened and appear to disadvantage on such an occasion, she was perfectly calm and self-possessed, and made her points with exactly the same irresistible gaucherie and daring infusion of local color that had distinguished her performance at the class meeting. Besides, she was a “dark horse”; she did not belong to the leading set in her class, nor to any other set, for that matter, and this fact, together with the novel method of her election made her interesting to her essentially democratic audience. So when the judges–five popular members of the faculty–announced their decision in favor of the negative, otherwise the junior-freshman side of the debate, 19–’s enthusiasm knew no bounds, and led by the delighted B’s they carried their speaker twice round the gym on their shoulders–which is an honor likely to be remembered by its recipient for more reasons than one.

As the clans were scattering, it suddenly occurred to Betty that, if Emily did not guess anything, it would please her to be congratulated on the excellence of her debate; and if, as was more likely, she had guessed, there was little to be gained by postponing the dreaded interview. She chose a moment when Emily was standing by herself in one corner of the gymnasium. Emily did not wait for her to begin her speech of congratulation.

“Oh, Miss Wales,” she cried, “I’ve been to see you six times, and you are never there. It was lovely of you–lovely–but ought we to take it?”

“Yes, indeed. It belongs to you; honestly it does. Don’t ask me how, for it’s too long a story. Just take my word for it.”

“Well, but – ” began Emily doubtfully.

At that moment some one called, “Hurrah for 19–!” Betty caught up the cry and seizing Emily’s hand rushed her down the hall, toward a group of freshmen.

“Make a line and march,” cried somebody else, and presently a long line of 19– girls was winding in noisy lock-step down the hall, threading in and out between groups of upper-class girls and cheering and gaining recruits as it went.

“Hurrah for 19–!” cried Betty hoarsely.

“Take it for 19–,” she whispered to Emily, as the line stopped with a jerk that knocked their heads together.

“If you are sure – Thank you for 19–,” Emily whispered back.

“Here’s to 19–, drink her down!Here’s to 19–, drink her down!”

As the chorus rose and swelled Betty felt, as she never had before, what it meant to be a college girl at Harding.

As Betty was leaving the gymnasium she met Eleanor face to face in the hallway.

“Wasn’t it fun?” said Betty, shyly. Perhaps, now that the debate was over, Eleanor would be ready to make friends again.

“Patronizing the genius, do you mean?” asked Eleanor slowly. “I hope she didn’t buy that hideous salmon-pink waist with your money.”

“Oh, Eleanor, how did you ever find out?” cried Betty, deeply distressed. Only a few of the Chapin house girls knew anything about the disposition of the valentine money, and not even the rest of the firm had been told who had received it. So Betty had thought the secret perfectly safe.

“No one told me about your private affairs,” returned Eleanor significantly. “I guessed and I congratulate you. The genius will be a useful ally. She will get all the freaks’ votes for you, when – ”

“Eleanor Watson, come on if you’re coming,” called a voice from the foot of the stairs, and Eleanor marched blithely off, without finishing her sentence.

Betty stared after her with unseeing eyes. So that was it! She was to blame because Jean had told her of Eleanor’s predicament–told her against her wish. And now she was supposed to be trying to get votes.

“Votes for what, I wonder? How perfectly absurd!” said Betty to the brick wall she was facing. But the appropriate smile would not come, for the absurdity had cost her a friend whom she had loved dearly in spite of her faults.

CHAPTER XIV

A BEGINNING AND A SEQUEL

“I shan’t be here to dinner Sunday,” announced Helen Chase Adams with an odd little thrill of importance in her voice.

“Shan’t you?” responded her roommate absently. She was trying to decide which dress to wear to the Hilton House play. Her pink organdie was prettiest, but she really ought to save that for the Glee Club concert. And should she ask her cousin Jack Burgess up from Harvard for the concert, or would it be better to invite Mr. Parsons? These absorbing questions left her small attention to bestow on so comparatively commonplace a matter as an invitation out to Sunday dinner.

“I thought you might like to have some one in my place,” continued Helen, moving the pink organdie waist on to the same chair with the batiste skirt.

Betty came to herself with a start. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t see that I had taken up all the chairs. I was trying to decide what to wear to the dramatics.”

“And I was thinking what I’d wear Sunday,” said Helen.

It was so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one’s notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry look, and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the background played around the corners of her mouth.

“I’m glad she’s got over the blues,” thought Betty. “Why, where are you going?” she asked aloud.

“Oh, only to the Westcott House,” answered Helen with an assumption of unconcern. “Would you wear the blue silk waist or the brown dress?”

“Well, the Westcott is the swellest house on the campus, you know. When I go there I always put on my very best.”

“Yes, but which is my best?”

Betty considered a moment. “Why, of course they’re both pretty,” she began with kindly diplomacy, “but dresses are more the thing than waists. Still, the blue is very becoming. But I think–yes, I’m sure I’d wear the brown.”

“All right. If you change your mind before Sunday you can let me know.”

“Yes,” said Betty briefly. She was examining the batiste skirt to see if it would need pressing for the dramatics. After all, Jack was more fun, and probably Mr. Parsons was invited by this time anyhow–he knew lots of Harding girls. What was the name of Jack’s dormitory house? She would ask the Riches; they had a brother in the same one. So she strolled off to find the Riches, and incidentally to get the latest basket-ball news from Rachel and Katherine. At nine o’clock they turned her out; they were in training and supposed to be fast asleep by nine-thirty. When she opened her own door, Helen was still sitting idly in the wicker rocker, looking as if she would be perfectly content to stay there indefinitely with her pleasant thoughts for company.

Betty had quite lost interest in Helen lately; she had small patience with people who moped, and besides, between Eleanor and the valentine enterprise, her thoughts had been fully engrossed. But this new mood made her curious. “She acts as if she’d got a crush,” she decided. “She’s just the kind to have one, and probably her divinity has asked her to dinner, and she can’t put her mind on anything else. But who on earth could it be–in the Westcott House?”

She was on the point of inquiring, when Helen diverted her attention to something else. “I made a wonderful discovery to-day,” she said. “Theresa Reed and T. Reed are the same person.”

Betty laughed. “They might easily be,” she said. “I don’t see that it was so wonderful.”

“Why, I’ve known Theresa all this year–she was the one that asked me to go off with her house for Mountain Day. She’s the best friend I have here, but she never told me that she was specially interested in basket-ball and I never thought–well, I guess I never imagined that a dear friend of mine could be the celebrated T. Reed,” laughed Helen happily. “But all sorts of nice things are happening to me lately.”

“That’s good,” said Betty. “It seems to be just the opposite with me,” and she plunged into her note to Jack, which must be ready for the next morning’s post.

All that week Helen went about fairly wreathed in smiles. Her shyness seemed to have vanished suddenly. She joined gaily in the basket-ball gossip at the table, came out into the hall to frolic with the rest of the house at ten o’clock, and in general acted as a happy, well-conducted freshman should.

The Chapin house brought its amazement over the “dig’s” frivolity to Betty, but she had very little to tell them. “All I know is that she’s awfully pleased about being a friend of T. Reed’s. And oh yes–she’s invited out to dinner next Sunday. But of course there must be something else.”

“Perhaps she’s going to have a man up for the concert,” suggested Katherine flippantly.

“Are you?” inquired Mary Rich, and with that the regeneration of Helen was forgotten in the far more absorbing topic of the Glee Club concert.

Sunday came at last. “I’m not going to church, Betty,” said Helen shyly. “I want to have plenty of time to get dressed for dinner.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Betty carelessly. She had just received an absurd letter from Jack. He was coming “certain-sure”; he wanted to see her about a very serious matter, he said. “Incidentally” he should be delighted to go to the concert. There was a mysterious postscript too:–“How long since you got so fond of Bob Winchester?”

“I never heard of any such person. What do you suppose he means?” Betty asked Mary Brooks as they walked home from church together. Mary had also invited a Harvard man to the concert and Dorothy King had found them both seats, so they were feeling unusually friendly and sympathetic.

“I can’t imagine. Do let me see his letter,” begged Mary. “He must be no end of fun.”

“He’s a worse tease than you,” said Betty, knocking on her door.

“Come in,” called Helen Chase Adams eagerly. “Betty, would you please hook my collar, and would one of you see what time it really is? I don’t like to depend too much on my watch.”

“She’ll be at least ten minutes too early,” sighed Betty, when Helen had finally departed in a flutter of haste. “And see this room! But I oughtn’t to complain,” she added, beginning to clear up the dresser. “I’m always leaving it like this myself; but someway I don’t expect it of Helen.”

“Who asked her to dinner to-day?” inquired Mary Brooks. She had been sitting in a retired corner, vastly enjoying the unusual spectacle of Helen Adams in a frenzy of excitement.

“Why, I don’t know. I never thought to ask,” said Betty, straightening the couch pillows. “I only hope she’ll have as good a time as she expects.”

“Poor youngster!” said Mary. “Wish I’d asked Laurie to jolly her up a bit.”

It is to be presumed that these fears were groundless, since the bell was ringing for five o’clock vespers when Helen came back. Betty was sitting at her desk pretending to write letters, but really trying to decide whether she should say anything to Eleanor apropos of her remarks about Emily Davis, and if so, whether she should do it now. Mary Brooks curled up on Betty’s couch, dividing her attention between Jack Burgess’s picture and a new magazine.

“Had a good time, didn’t you?” she remarked sociably when Helen appeared.

“Oh, yes,” said Helen happily. “You see I don’t go out very often. Were you ever at the Westcott House for dinner?”

“Once,” chuckled Mary. “But I found they didn’t have ice-cream, because the matron doesn’t approve of buying things on Sunday; so I’ve turned them down ever since.”

Helen laughed merrily. “How funny! I never missed it!” There was a becoming flush on her cheeks, a pretty new confidence in her manner.

“Helen, who did you say asked you to the Westcott?” inquired Betty.

“I didn’t say, because you didn’t ask me,” returned Helen truthfully, “but it was Miss Mills.”

“Miss Mills!” repeated Mary. “Well, my child, I don’t wonder that you were rattled this noon, being invited around by the faculty. Gracious, what a compliment to a young freshman!”

“I should think so!” chimed in Betty eagerly.

In spite of her embarrassment Helen evidently enjoyed the sensation she was producing. “I thought it was awfully nice,” she said.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” demanded Mary. “Why, child, you must be a bright and shining shark in lit.”

Helen’s happy face clouded suddenly. “I’m not, am I, Betty?” she asked appealingly.

Betty laughed. “Why no, since you ask me. No, she isn’t, Mary. She sits on the back row with me and we don’t either of us say an extra word. It’s math, and Latin and Greek that Helen shines in.”

“Well, are you awfully devoted to Miss Mills?” pursued Mary. “Is that why she asked you?”

Helen shook her head. “I like her. She reads beautifully and sometimes she says very interesting things, doesn’t she, Betty?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” answered her roommate hastily.

“Well, I think she does, but I never told her I thought so. It couldn’t be that.”

“Then why did she ask you?” demanded Mary.

“I suppose because she wanted me,” said Helen happily. “I can’t think of any other reason. Isn’t it lovely?”

“Yes indeed,” agreed Mary. “It’s so grand that I’m going off this minute to tell everybody in the house about it. They’ll be dreadfully envious,” and she left the roommates alone.

Helen pulled off her best gloves carefully, and laid them neatly away, then she put up her hat and coat and sat down in her favorite wicker chair. “I guess I left the room in a dreadful muss this noon,” she said apologetically. “I guess I acted silly and excited, but you see–I said I hadn’t been out often–this is the very first time I’ve been invited out to a meal since I came to Harding.”

“Really?” said Betty, thinking guiltily of her own multitude of invitations.

“Yes, I hoped you hadn’t any of you noticed it. I hate to be pitied. Now you can just like me.”

“Just like you?” repeated Betty vaguely.

“Yes. Don’t you see? I’m not left out any more.” She hesitated, then went on rapidly. “You see I had a lovely time at first, at the sophomore reception and the frolic and all, but it stopped and–this was a good while coming, and I got discouraged. Wasn’t it silly? I–oh, it’s all right now. I wouldn’t change places with anybody.” She began to rock violently. Betty had noticed that Helen rocked when other girls sang or danced jigs.

“But I thought–we all thought,” began Betty, “that you had decided you preferred to study–that you didn’t care for our sort of fun. You haven’t seemed to lately.”

“Not since it came over me why you girls here in the house were nice to me when nobody else was except Theresa,” explained Helen with appalling frankness. “You were sorry for me. I thought it out the day after you gave me the violets. Before I came to Harding,” she went on, “I did think that college was just to study. It’s funny how you change your mind after you get here–how you begin to see that it’s a lot bigger than you thought. And it’s queer how little you care about doing well in class when you haven’t anything else to care about.” She gave a little sigh, then got up suddenly. “I almost forgot; I have a message for Adelaide. And by the way, Betty, I saw your Miss Hale; she and somebody else were just going in to see Miss Mills when I left.”

She had scarcely gone when Mary sauntered back as if by accident. “Well, have you found out?” she asked. “As a student of psychology I’m vastly interested in this situation.”

“Found out what?” asked Betty unsmilingly.

“Why Miss Mills asked her, and why she is so pleased.”

“I suppose Miss Mills asked her because she was sorry for her,” answered Betty slowly, “and Helen is pleased because she doesn’t know it. Mary, she’s been awfully lonely.”

“Too bad,” commented Mary. Unhappiness always made her feel awkward.

“But she says this makes up to her for everything,” added Betty.

“Oh, I’ve noticed that life is a pretty even thing in the end,” returned Mary, relieved that there was no present call on her sympathies, “but I must confess I don’t see how one dinner invitation, even if it is from – ”

Just then Helen tapped on the door.

Down in Miss Mills’s room they were discussing much the same point.

“It’s a shame for you to waste your Sundays over these children,” said Miss Hale.

Miss Mills stopped her tea-making to dissent. “It isn’t wasted if she cared. She was so still that I couldn’t be sure, but judging from the length of time she stayed – ”

“She was smiling all over her face when we met her,” interrupted Miss Meredith. “Who is she, anyway?”

“Oh, just nobody in particular,” laughed Miss Mills, “just a forlorn little freshman named Adams.”

“But I don’t quite see how – ” began Miss Hale.

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” said Miss Mills easily. “You were president of your class when you were a freshman. I was nobody in particular, and I know what it’s like.”

“But why not leave it to her friends to hearten her up?”

“Apparently she hasn’t any, or if she has, they’re as out of things as she is.”

“Well, to the other girls then.”

“When girls are happy they are cruel,” said Miss Mills briefly, “or perhaps they’re only careless.”

Betty, after a week’s consideration, put the matter even more specifically. “I tried to make her over because I wanted a different kind of roommate,” she said, “and we all let her see that we were sorry for her. Miss Mills made her feel as if – ”

“She had her dance card full and was splitting her waltzes,” supplied Mary, who was just back from an afternoon at Winsted.

“Exactly like that,” agreed Betty, laughing. “I wish I’d done it,” she added wistfully.

“You kept her going till her chance came,” said Mary. “She owes a lot to you, and she knows it.”

“Don’t,” protested Betty, flushing. “I tell you, I was only thinking of myself when I tried to fix her up, and then after a while I got tired of her and let her alone. I was horrid, but she’s forgiven me and we’re real friends now.”

“Well, we can’t do but so much apiece,” said Mary practically. “And I’ve noticed that ‘jam,’ as your valentine girl called it, is a mighty hard thing to give to people who really need it.”

Nevertheless the gift had been managed in Helen’s case; she had gotten her start at last. Miss Mills’s tactful little attention had furnished her with the hope and courage that she lacked, had given her back the self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had wounded. Whatever the girls might think, she knew she was “somebody” now, and she would go ahead and prove it. She could, too–she no longer doubted her possession of the college girl’s one talent that Betty had laughed about. For there was Theresa Reed, her friend down the street. She was homely and awkward, she wore dowdy clothes and wore them badly, she was slow and plodding; but there was one thing that she could do, and the girls admired her for it and had instantly made a place for her. Helen was glad of a second proof that those things did not matter vitally. She set herself happily to work to study T. Reed’s methods, and she began to look forward to the freshman-sophomore game as eagerly as did Betty or Katherine.

But before the game there was the concert. Jack Burgess, having missed his connections, arrived in Harding exactly twenty-seven minutes before it began. As they drove to the theatre he inquired if Betty had received all three of his telegrams.

“Yes,” laughed Betty, “but I got the last one first. The other two were evidently delayed. You’ve kept me guessing, I can tell you.”

“Glad of that,” said Jack cheerfully, as he helped her out of the carriage. “That’s what you’ve kept me doing for just about a month. But I’ve manfully suppressed my curiosity and concealed the wounds in my bleeding heart until I could make inquiries in person.”

“What in the world do you mean, Jack?” asked Betty carelessly. Jack was such a tease.

Just then they were caught in the crowd that filled the lobby of the theatre, and conversation became impossible as they hurried through it and into the theatre itself.

“Checks, please,” said a businesslike little usher in pink chiffon, and Jack and Betty followed her down the aisle. The theatre was already nearly full, and it looked like a great flower garden, for the girls all wore light evening gowns, for which the black coats of the men made a most effective background; while the odor of violets and roses from the great bunches that many of the girls carried strengthened the illusion.

“Jove, but this is a pretty thing!” murmured Jack, who had never been in Harding before. “Is this all college?”

“Yes,” said Betty proudly, “except the men, of course. And don’t they all look lovely?”

“Who–the men?” asked Jack. Then he gave a sudden start. “Bob Winchester, by all that’s wonderful!”

“Who is he?” said Betty idly. “Another Harvard man? Jack”–with sudden interest, as she recognized the name–“what did you mean by that postscript?”

“Good bluff!” said Jack in his most tantalizing drawl.

“Jack Burgess, I expect you to talk sense the rest of the time you’re here,” remonstrated Betty impatiently.

“Well, I will on one condition. Tell me why you sent it to him.”

“Sent what to whom?” demanded Betty.

“Oh come,” coaxed Jack. “You know what I mean. Why did you send Bob that valentine? It almost crushed me, I can tell you, when I hadn’t even heard from you for months.”

Betty was staring at him blankly, “Why did I send ‘Bob’ that valentine? Who please tell me is ‘Bob’?”

“Robert M. Winchester, Harvard, 19–. Eats at my club. Is sitting at the present moment on the other side of the aisle, two rows up and over by the boxes. You’ll know him by his pretty blush. He’s rattled–he didn’t think I’d see him.”

“Well?” said Betty.

“Well?” repeated Jack.

“I never saw Mr. Robert M. Winchester before,” declared Betty with dignity, “and of course I didn’t send him any valentine. What are you driving at, Jack Burgess?”

Jack smiled benignly down at her. “But I saw it,” he insisted. “Do you think I don’t know your handwriting? The verses weren’t yours, unless they turn out spring poets amazingly fast up here, but the writing was, except that on the envelope, and the Cupids were. The design was the same as the one on the picture frame you gave me last winter. Beginning to remember?” he inquired with an exasperating chuckle.

“No,” said Betty severely. Then a light broke over her face. “Oh yes, of course, I made that. Oh Jack Burgess, how perfectly rich!”

“Don’t think so myself, but Bobbie will. You see I told him that I could put up a good guess who sent him that valentine, and that I’d find out for sure when I came up. But evidently he couldn’t wait, so he’s made his sister ask him up too, in the hope of happening on the valentine lady, I suppose. Know his sister?”

“No,” said Betty, who was almost speechless with laughter. “Oh, Jack, listen!” and she told the story of the valentine firm. “Probably his sister bought it and sent it to him,” she finished. “Or anyway some girl did. Jack, he’s looking this way again. Did you tell him I sent it?”