Beatrice Leigh at College Part 10

Martha was waiting for the elevator. She turned around and gazed at us without saying a word. She is considerably like Robbie Belle in her exasperating power of silence, but neither of them does it on purpose.

Unfortunately just then a senior behind her turned around too and said, "n.o.body catches anybody here. This is a college, not a boarding school."

Now such a remark as that was distinctly unkind, not so much because either Lila or I had ever been to a boarding school, for we hadn't, as because we wished we had. We had devoured all the stories about them and envied the girls in them. We had hoped that we would find some of the same kind of fun at college itself.

Lila blushed, and I could not think of any repartee that would be appropriate, especially as Martha was staring so hard at the gla.s.s of sugar. I had noticed all the fall that she was an odd child about candy.

She never would touch a mouthful of any that we made--and we made it pretty often--maybe four times a week. She always just shook her head and said she'd rather not.

It was a relief to hear the elevator come rattling up from the first floor. The dining-room is on the second, you see, though I don't know that this fact has any bearing on the story; still it may supply local color or realism or something like that. Well, we entered the elevator, and there stood a junior in the corner. This junior chanced to be an editor of the college magazine which had offered a ten dollar prize for the best short story handed in before October twentieth. She glanced at us and then stared hard at Martha till we had pa.s.sed the third floor, and at the fourth she walked out behind us and spoke to Martha. She said, "Miss Reed, I think I am not premature in congratulating you upon the story which you submitted in the contest. You will receive official notice of your victory before very long." And then she smiled the nicest sweetest smile at sight of Martha's face. It was like a burst of sunshine--anybody would have smiled. I hugged her--Martha, not the junior, because I am not well acquainted with her, you understand--but I wanted to hug everybody. Lila squeezed Martha so hard that she squeaked out loud.

"Oh," sighed the little freshman almost to herself, "now I can send mother a birthday present."

Wasn't that dear of her to think of giving it away first thing! Of course some girls would have thought of having a spread to celebrate and invite in all the crowd; but Martha was only a freshman and probably had no college spirit as yet. Her remark seemed to remind Lila of something, for she quite jumped and exclaimed, "Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone.

Why didn't you poke up my memory?"

"And I owe her ninety cents," said I.

The little freshman walked on with her hands clasped high up over her necktie. "Will they give me the prize soon?" she asked softly, "because the birthday is Thursday, and to-day is Monday, and it takes two days to get there."

Lila looked at me and I looked at Lila. "We can sc.r.a.pe it together somehow," she said. Then she touched Martha on the shoulder. "Do you want to buy it to-morrow?" she inquired, "because if you do, you shall. We'll manage it somehow. We'll pay you what we owe, and then you can buy a present even if the prize doesn't arrive in time."

"Oh, thank you!" It was strange to see how voluble happiness was making the child. "Will you really? I've wanted and wanted, but I couldn't ask.

I've got an engagement down town to try on my gymnasium suit to-morrow afternoon and I shall be so glad. I can mail it then."

"All right," said I, "we'll get it for you."

Then we forgot all about it till noon the next day. That was election day and full of excitement, even if we hadn't been late to breakfast, because the fudges kept us awake the night before. Martha had gone into her room early to study. Though she had closed the door I am afraid the girls made a lot of noise; and she woke up with a headache. Of course Berta and I and the others had a right to cut late if we wanted to do so, but we didn't mean to keep anybody from working.

Martha returned from breakfast just as I was catching together a tiny hole in my stocking above the shoe. It wasn't really my stocking, for I had lost mine by sending them unmarked to the laundry, and so I had borrowed these from Martha. They were her finest best ones, I believe, and very nice, though her clothes generally seemed shabby. This morning she told us to hurry down please, because the maid was feeling miserable.

We did hurry and tried not to complain of the cold cocoa or the tough steak, though it is certainly the maid's duty to get fresh hot things no matter how late the girls are. She couldn't find our favorite crescent rolls in the pantry or down-stairs in the bakery or anywhere. Before we were through eating, the other maids had cleared away their breakfast dishes and had their tables all set for luncheon. Our maid was naturally slow, I suspect.

After breakfast we had barely time to smooth the counterpanes over sheets and blankets that lay in wrinkles. They looked pretty well on top, but honestly I was relieved to have Martha and her big eyes out of the way.

Though we s.n.a.t.c.hed our books and ran through the corridors we were two minutes tardy in reaching the Latin room. The instructor was so irritable that she laid down her book and the whole cla.s.s waited while Lila and I tiptoed to our seats in the middle of the last row.

With all the campaign excitement of course we had let our work get crowded out, and the other girls appeared to be in the same fix. When the most dazzling star in the cla.s.s flunked on a grammatical reference, the instructor bit her lip and sent the question flying up one row and down another as fast as the students could shake their heads. As it came leaping nearer and nearer to us, Lila remembered a college story about a girl sliding from her place and kneeling behind the seat in front till the question had pa.s.sed on over the vacant spot. Lila was so agitated that she forgot how conspicuous we had been in entering late. She slipped out of her seat and hid like the girl in the story. Then fell an awful stillness. The question stopped right there, hovering over the empty place. Everybody waited. The instructor set her mouth in grimmer lines, and waited, her eyes glued to the spot from where Lila had vanished.

Those in front turned around to look. Lila knelt there waiting and waiting for the question to be pa.s.sed on to me. I shook my head as vigorously as I dared, but n.o.body paid any attention. Lila waited and waited; the instructor waited; everybody waited and waited, till Lila's knees ached so that she lifted her face and peeked. She peeked straight into those grim waiting eyes on the platform.

Then the instructor said, "Miss Allan?" with the usual dreadful interrogative inflection, and Lila shook her head. She slid back into her seat with her cheeks as red as fire.

The minute we escaped into the hall at the end of the recitation, the girls gathered around us and giggled and teased Lila till she almost broke down and cried before them all. There is a lot of difference between playing jokes on another person and appearing ridiculous yourself. The first few weeks of the year we had teased Martha by telling her it was etiquette for freshmen to rise when addressed by soph.o.m.ores and stuff like that. The little thing was so unsophisticated that we made up yards and yards of stories about the dangers of going walking alone or being out after dusk. One student really did have her purse s.n.a.t.c.hed last year, and a senior saw a masked robber in the pines, and once a maid caught a glimpse of a face outside her window, and actually one evening six of us beheld with our own eyes a man jump through the hedge.

On this particular morning I had no time to waste, for my tutor in mathematics had warned me that she intended to charge me for the hour for which I had engaged her, no matter whether I arrived on the scene or not.

That struck me as queer and rather mean, because on some days I did not feel like going, and I failed to see why I should pay her for tutoring that I had not received. She said that her time was valuable and an hour squandered in waiting for a delinquent pupil was so much loss. I guess it was a loss to me too.

While I was flying around, trying to find my notes and pen, I heard a gulp and a sob from Martha's bedroom, and popped in to find her with her head buried in the pillow. The little idiot was crying because she had flunked in English.

"Oh, but English is so easy to bluff in!" I exclaimed, "almost any string of words will do if the teacher asks for a discussion of a tendency or of nature or vocabulary or poetic form or something. Didn't you make a try at some sort of an answer?"

"I said I didn't know," sobbed Martha, "and I didn't. My thoughts were all mixed up and I couldn't remember a line."

"You goosie!" I was disgusted. "If I said I didn't know at every opportunity where I could say it truthfully, how long do you think I would be allowed to stay in this inst.i.tution of learning? When I don't know a fact, I use fancy. It is the greatest fun to catch a hint and elaborate it into a brilliant recitation without a jot of knowledge to back it up. It takes brains to do it. You've got to learn to bluff, and then get along without studying."

The little freshman raised her heavy eyes, all reddened about the lids.

"Oh, but that isn't honest," she said.

"Not honest?" For an instant I was actually alarmed. Once when I myself was a freshman I nearly lost my faith in human nature because a senior whom I admired did something that looked dishonest. But sending valentines to yourself in order to win a prize is different from bluffing. So I said, "Nonsense!" and was just hurrying out of the door when she called in a quivery voice: "P-please, may I borrow a sheet of theme paper? Mine's all gone and I can't buy--I mean, it's due to-night."

"Help yourself," I answered, "there's a heap of it that I carried away from the last German test. Right hand drawer of the desk."

"No, no! I can't take that. Haven't you any that you bought with your own money? I'll pay it back. That paper--they gave it to you--didn't they give it to you just for the test?"

I stopped and walked over to feel of her head and tell her that she ought to see the doctor or take a nap or something. Then I gave her three sheets of the paper and told her not to be silly. I don't know whether she used it or not. At luncheon she appeared with her fingers inky and her hat on.

Berta said, "Whither, my child?"

She answered, "Down town." And then she looked at Lila with such anxious eyes that I jumped and clapped my hands together in contrition.

"Lila, we've forgotten to get that money for her!"

Martha turned her face toward me and sat gazing like a little dog. We asked all the girls at the table for contributions, but they were nearly penniless. I said, "Are you in a hurry, Martha?" And she said she had to be there at two o'clock. So we told her to hurry on, and we would get the money somewhere and meet her on the corner of Main and Market Streets at quarter past four sharp. She said, "Honest?" And I answered, "Yes, trust me. We'll be there, and I'll stand treat for soda water, if I can sc.r.a.pe up any extra pennies. You run along and pick out your present."

And then, do you know, in spite of all that and our promise to meet her, we forgot every bit about it till half-past four! You see, it was election day, and we were frightfully busy. After the fifth hour recitation we hurried into the ragged blue overalls that we had worn in one of the torchlight parades. Lila punched up the crown of an old felt alpine hat, and I battered my last summer's sailor till it looked disreputable enough. Then we rushed over to the gymnasium to join our gang of wardheelers.

We found the judges sitting at bare tables with their lists before them and wooden booths along the walls. And then--oh, I can't do justice to the fun we had! Some of us hung around outside and tried to scare away opposing voters by telling how the judges might make them sing scales or slide down ropes or wipe off their smiles on the carpets or chant the laundry list or write their names in ink with their noses, if they should be challenged. We actually succeeded in frightening away several timid freshmen. The rest of the gang pretended to stuff ballot-boxes and buy votes, just as we had read in the papers.

Berta, Lila and I voted while wearing our overalls. Then we dashed back to our rooms and dressed in our ordinary clothes and attempted to vote a second time. Such fun! The judges recognized us and refused to accept our ballots. Such an uproar as we raised! The other wardheelers stormed to the rescue; the lists were scattered, and the tables overturned. Of course it was only a joke, and most of us were too weak from laughing to clear away the disorder in time for the polls to close promptly.

And then we happened to remember Martha.

There it was half-past four and it would certainly be five before we could get ready and catch the car and reach the corner of Main and Market. So we let it go and decided that she would be tired of waiting by that time and start for home, and we might most likely miss her anyhow, even if we should collect the money and try to keep the engagement. And besides that we were having such a picnic telling about the turmoil at the polls that we hated to waste a minute away from the scene. Berta had a splendid idea about dressing up as policemen and borrowing the express wagon belonging to the janitor's grandson, and then tearing over to the gym as if we had been summoned to arrest the hoodlums and take them to jail in the patrol. It was so late, however, that we had to give this plan up and get ready for dinner. It was a dreadful disappointment.

Martha hadn't come yet. It was half-past five and dark, and then it was quarter of six, and then it was six, and we went down to dinner, but she hadn't come yet. And then it was half-past six, and we went down the avenue to the Lodge to watch the car unload, but no Martha. We danced in parlor J for a while, and then we went to chapel at seven, but she hadn't come yet. And then we walked down to the Lodge again and watched three cars stop and turn around the curve, one after another, but she wasn't in any of them. And then we went back to tell Mrs. Howard, the lady princ.i.p.al, about it. And she was awfully anxious and asked all sorts of questions about Martha, and what kind of a girl she was, and if she had any money with her, or any friends in town, or any peculiar habits about running away from her friends, or any trouble lately or anything.

Then she began to telephone and went to see Prexie, and Lila and I wandered out to the stairs above the bulletin board where the students were waiting to hear the election returns. Between the successive telegrams the girls clapped and laughed and stamped and hissed at speeches by the seniors and juniors, or else they sang patriotic songs.

When Miss Benton, president of the Students' a.s.sociation, the greatest honor in the college course, and she is the finest senior in the cla.s.s too--was urged upon a chair to make a speech, Lila almost pushed me through the banisters in her excitement. She has admired Miss Benton ever since the first day when it rained, and we were so terribly homesick, and she smiled at us in the corridor.

"Hush!" whispered Lila, "listen! Isn't she beautiful!"

"Ouch!" said I, "she isn't beautiful, she's downright plain with her hair smoothed back that way." But I said it pretty low, because that staircase banked with girls was no place for distinctly enunciated personalities.

It was a humorous speech, for one reason of Miss Benton's popularity is her fun under a dignified manner. In the middle of the cheering after she had finished, the messenger girl appeared with a new bulletin. Somebody read it aloud so that we could all hear. It reported the victory of the corrupt party machine in an important city. n.o.body spoke. There was just the faint sound of a big sighing oh-h-h! and then a hush.

The next thing I knew, Miss Benton and some other seniors were coming up the stairs, and the girls were moving this way and that to open a path for them. Lila crowded closer to me so as to make way. A junior on the step below reached up her hand and stopped Miss Benton as she was pa.s.sing.

"Do wait for the next telegram, Mary," she said, "perhaps that will be more encouraging. The country as a whole seems to be going right."

Miss Benton dropped down beside her with an awfully discouraged sort of a sigh. "You don't live there, and I do," she said. "You do not know how the reform party has worked with soul and strength to defeat that boss.

Something is terribly wrong with the citizens and their standards of honesty. How could they? How could they?"