Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus Part 1

Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus.

by Jessie Graham Flower.

CHAPTER I

A MIDSUMMER PILGRIMAGE

"Overton, at last!" exclaimed Grace Harlowe, as, regardless of possible cinders and stern railroad injunctions, she leaned far out of the car window to obtain a first eager glimpse of her destination.

It was midsummer, and the quiet, little town of Overton drowsed gently, not to awaken until the sounds of girl laughter and the pa.s.sing of light feet through its sleepy streets roused it to the realization that it was Overton College that made its hum-drum existence worth while.

"Oh, Mrs. Gray, you can't imagine how happy I feel!" went on Grace, her eyes eloquent with emotion. "Next to home, I love Overton better than any other place on earth. I'm so glad we are going to stay at Wayne Hall, and that Mrs. Elwood is to meet us."

A long shrill whistle, a creaking and groaning of protesting iron wheels, the stentorian cry of "Overton! Overton!" and then a sudden jarring stop. Grace reached to the rack overhead for Mrs. Gray's small leather bag, allowing the dainty little old lady to precede her down the aisle which was practically clear. Apparently they were the only Overton pa.s.sengers in that car. She stood still on the top step of the train until Mrs. Gray had been safely landed on the platform by the smiling porter, then, disdaining his helping hand, ran down the steps with a joyful skip that caused her companion to say indulgently, "You'll never grow up, Grace, and I'm glad of it. I can't become reconciled to the fact that Nora and Jessica are brides-to-be and that Anne's art is making her terribly serious. It's a joy to my old age to see you frisk about as happily as you did when you were a little thing in short white skirts with two long braids of fair hair hanging down your back."

"I don't really feel a bit older than I did then," confessed Grace.

"Sometimes I'm almost ashamed of my enthusiasm. It seems as though nice things are always happening to me, and this summer pilgrimage of just we two is the nicest of all."

They were walking slowly across the deserted platform now, and Grace was keeping a sharp look-out on all sides for the short, comfortable figure of Mrs. Elwood.

"There she is!" Grace hurried forward, her hands outstretched. The next instant they were held in Mrs. Elwood's welcoming grasp, while she kissed Grace's soft cheek.

"My dear, dear girl!" she exclaimed, a suspicious moisture in her kindly blue eyes. "It does seem good to see you again. I'm very glad to welcome you to Overton, Mrs. Gray," she turned to shake hands with the donor of Harlowe House, "and delighted to know that you are going to stay with me instead of going to the Tourraine. Miss Harlowe's old room is ready for her, and I'm going to put you in the room Miss Nesbit and Miss Briggs used to have."

"You'll be haunted by the kimono-clad shades of Miriam and Elfreda drinking tea and eating cakes at unseemly hours of the night," laughed Grace.

"How are all my girls?" asked Mrs. Elwood. "I don't know what I shall do without them this year. You will have to come and see me often and tell me all about them, Miss Harlowe. Now let me see. There ought to be a taxicab just the other side of the station. Yes, there it is."

The driver touched his cap smilingly to Grace as they climbed into the automobile, "It does look good to see you here again, miss," he said respectfully.

"Thank you. I'm glad to see you again." Grace beamed whole-heartedly upon him. How many times he had carried her to and from the station. It was he who had driven the car on that memorable day when Ruth Denton had gone to the station to meet her father. Grace's eyes grew dreamy as they pa.s.sed through the familiar streets. How much had happened since the time when she had entered Oakdale High School as a freshman with college in the far and hidden future.

To her many friends "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School," "Grace Harlowe's Soph.o.m.ore Year at High School,"

"Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School," and "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" are now familiar records.

Equally well known to these friends is the story of her freshman year at Overton, as set forth in "Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College."

Accompanied by her friends, Miriam Nesbit and Anne Pierson, Grace began her freshman year at Overton College under a cloud which rose from her ready defense of J. Elfreda Briggs, a disgruntled student who had made enemies of two soph.o.m.ores, and whose first days at college were made very unpleasant by them. J. Elfreda's subsequent casting aside of her friendship and her tardy realization of Grace's worth brought about a happy ending of their freshman year.

In "Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College" the four girls set out to find the rainbow side of their soph.o.m.ore year. How each girl found it, but in an entirely different manner, how Grace lived up to her resolve to choose only the highest in college, and how the famous Semper Fidelis Club came into existence, made the soph.o.m.ore year in college memorable.

"Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College" told of what befell the four friends as juniors. The advent of Kathleen West, a newspaper girl, into college was the first link in a chain of petty difficulties with which Grace was obliged to contend as a junior. The carnival given by the Semper Fidelis Club in which the Alice in Wonderland Circus was enacted, the important part which Jean, the old hunter of Oakdale fame, played in one Overton girl's life, the message Emma Dean forgot to deliver, and countless other absorbing incidents served to fill their junior year with ceaseless interest.

"Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College" found Grace and her friends on the homeward stretch with commencement at the end of their college trail. The record of Grace's senior year was filled with happenings grave and gay. It ended in a blaze of honor and glory, and it was on Commencement day that she made her decision to return to Overton and look after Harlowe House, lately completed and endowed by Mrs. Gray in honor of her young friends and dedicated to the use of poor girls who were making valiant efforts to obtain an education.

It was in reference to Harlowe House, her future home, that Grace and Mrs. Gray had made this midsummer pilgrimage, as Grace had laughingly styled it, to Overton. As their car glided through the shady streets of the dignified college town Grace wondered if it were really eight years since her freshman days in Oakdale High School. It certainly couldn't be four years since Mabel Ashe had conducted her and Anne and Miriam to the Tourraine on that first eventful afternoon. She remembered just how beautiful Mabel had looked in her white linen frock, with her white embroidered parasol tilted over one shoulder, an effective frame for her lovely face and wavy, golden-brown hair.

"Dreaming, Grace?" Mrs. Gray's voice dispelled the vision. "I can't blame you. I suppose this ride brings up hosts of memories."

Grace nodded. She could not trust her voice to answer. A sudden mist filled her eyes, a silent tribute to those whose feet had once kept pace with hers through these beloved ways. Commencement had scattered them broadcast. She, alone, was coming back again to take up life at the college. How she would miss them all. The dry irresistible humor of Emma Dean, the st.u.r.dy independence of J. Elfreda Briggs, the daintiness of Arline Thayer and the steadfast loyalty of Ruth Denton. Last of all there were Anne and Miriam. Anne, her devoted little comrade of years, and Miriam, whose faith and good fellowship had never failed her.

A sob rose in Grace's throat, but she quickly stifled it. After all she was about to begin the work she herself had chosen. She had known when she announced her determination to take charge of Harlowe House that things could never be quite the same. It would be selfish, indeed, in her to break down and cry when Mrs. Gray had come to Overton solely to help her select the furniture and plan for the opening of Harlowe House in September.

Grace pulled herself together and, resolutely putting her own sense of loss behind her, said steadily: "I couldn't help thinking of the girls for a minute. It made me want to cry, but I've set my face to the future now, and I'm sure that my new work is going to bring me as much happiness here as I had during the other dear four years. When I think of how splendid it was in you to give Harlowe House to Overton, I feel as though there isn't any sacrifice too great for me to make to insure its success, and I hope that my coming back to Overton Campus to do my work is going to mean a thousand times more to me next June than it does now."

CHAPTER II

A WELCOME GUEST

The summer sun, streaming intimately in at the window of her room, and touching her hair with warm, awakening fingers, caused Grace to open her eyes before six o'clock the next morning. She lay looking about her, unable for the moment to remember where she was. Then she laughed and reaching for her kimono, which hung folded across the footboard of the bed, slipped it on, and, thrusting her feet into her bedroom slippers, went to the window.

"Dear old Overton Hall," she murmured, her eyes fixed lovingly on the stately gray tower of the building that she had come to regard as a close friend. Again she found herself overwhelmed by a tide of reminiscences. How many times she and Anne had stood at the self-same window, arm in arm, gazing out at the self-same sights. She could see the very seat at the foot of the big tree where she had sat the day Emma Dean had poked her head about the big syringa bush and mournfully handed her the letter from Ruth Denton's father which had been buried in the pocket of Emma's coat for so many weeks. She smiled as she recalled the ludicrously penitent expression with which Emma had delivered the letter. There were the library steps on which Arline Thayer had sat and cried so disconsolately because she could not go home for Christmas.

Once more she saw a strange procession winding its way across the campus headed by a walking, chattering scarecrow, Emma Dean again in her famous representation of "Never Too Late to Mend," which had been one of the great features of the Famous Fiction dance.

Then she saw four girls, with their shining heads bared to the sun, strolling across the campus, talking earnestly of what the future held for them. And still again she saw them in caps and gowns marching toward the Gate of Commencement. It was only a little time since they had pa.s.sed through that gateway, yet how long it seemed.

Suddenly her look of abstraction changed to one of startled interest.

Running to the door she threw it open and listened intently. She heard Mrs. Elwood's voice raised in pleased surprise, then, could she believe her ears? she heard another never-to-be-forgotten voice say, "I could see that there was some one awake and stirring."

With a joyous cry of "J. Elfreda, where, oh, where did you come from?" a lithe, blue-robed figure raced down the stairs and wrapped both arms tightly about a plump young woman, in a tailored coat suit, who returned the warm embrace with interest.

"Oh, Grace, I can't tell you how glad I am to see you again!" exclaimed J. Elfreda Briggs fervently. "I never was so glad in all my life as when I found out you were here. The letter was forwarded to me at the beach.

We're at Wildwood for the summer. Maybe I didn't pick up my things in a hurry. To use slang, which you know I can't resist using occasionally, I hot-footed it for the station the minute Ma said I could come."

"Which letter do you mean, Elfreda?" asked Grace in a puzzled tone.

"Why the one from Mrs. Gray, of course," returned Elfreda. "Isn't she here?"

"Yes, but--"

"Grace! Elfreda!" called Mrs. Gray from the head of the stairs, "come up here, children."

"Come on." Grace seized Elfreda's heavy suit case and started up the stairs. Elfreda followed with alacrity. "Now," laughed Grace, as she stepped into Mrs. Gray's room, "I demand an explanation." She laid her hands lightly upon the old lady's shoulders, smiling down at her, then bent and kissed her cheek.

"This is certainly a happy meeting," declared Elfreda, as she embraced Mrs. Gray, who rose to greet her.

"I'm so glad you could come, my dear. I knew that Grace would miss her friends dreadfully when she came back here. Anne and Miriam are both away, and Nora and Jessica are too deep in the mysteries of hope chests and wedding finery to be dragged off on even the most delightful of midsummer pilgrimages. But my greatest reason for asking you to come was because I believed you were the very person Grace needed to make her happy here. You see it will take at least two weeks to set things to rights and she must have inspiring company. I hope everything has arrived safely. Suppose we hurry through with our breakfast and go over to Harlowe House at once. Mrs. Elwood tells me that she informed the caretaker yesterday of our coming. We shall be obliged to stop at his house for the key."

"Oh, Elfreda, I'm so sorry that you weren't with us in New York," was Grace's regretful cry. "We stayed with the Southards, Mrs. Gray, Anne, Miriam and I. Anne, Miss Southard and Mr. Southard left New York City for California last week. Mr. Southard and Anne are to appear as joint stars in film productions of 'As You Like It,' 'Hamlet,' 'King Lear' and possibly other Shakespearian plays. It is their first experience in posing before the camera. Anne sent you her love. She will write you as soon as she is settled."

"Dear little Anne," smiled Elfreda, her eyes growing tender.

"I hope she'll be back in time for the girls' weddings. Nora and Jessica say positively that they won't be married without her." Grace looked anxious.