Jane Allen: Center Part 13

"We shall have to call you the girl of many names," Jane said with a bright smile. "But what is movable is curable, we say in English, so perhaps some day you will have a name so famous--"

"Oh, la, la, la!" and Helen ran off to the beckoning throng of freshmen, which included d.i.c.k and Weasie. She had thus acquired more freedom in a few hours on the campus than many would have gained in days, under more formal circ.u.mstances.

Small wonder seniors commented favorably on the "Jane Allen Plan," as the new arrangements had been styled. That Jane had suffered tortures on her own initiation no one guessed, but that she was instrumental in saving others embarra.s.sment was too obvious to disregard. As was expected, many of the old cla.s.s failed to return. The close of the World's War had spent its baneful influence on many homes, where happy school girls were suddenly thrust into premature womanhood, and where girls, hitherto closely guarded from the most trivial hardship, now occupied the boys' places, and willingly offered st.u.r.dy young arms to prop crushed parents under the blows dealt by Humanizing Fate.

But Marian Seaton-she whom Jane and Judith and their faction, had struggled so valiantly to subdue-she was back-like the proverbial bad penny.

Her hair was no longer any relation to yellow, but glowed a rich golden brown like early chestnuts. How do the heads stand the changes! And her white skin, pale to the edge of chemistry, was now pale in spots and tinted in detail. Her deep uncertain eyes, now blue and then yellow, movie eyes, as Meta Noon called them, were surely changing tone. Every experimenter knows hair dye afflicts the blood in color changes, affecting the eyes disastrously. Also, but it seems unkind to suggest such a catastrophe, hair-dye has an immediate action on the sight.

Cicily Weldon could not tell time last year after one trip to New York when her hair was "fixed up!"

"Oh, how do you do, Jane?" lisped the same Marian, coming up the path as Jane was hurrying down. "Wasn't it perfectly wonderful?"

"Delightful," replied Jane with a show of good nature she intended to make infectious. "Did you have a pleasant summer?"

"Yes, and no. I was on at Camp Hillton helping mamma with some war work left unfinished. I met some lovely non-coms."

"Oh, at Camp Hillton! Only the sick are there, are they not?"

"Not all really very sick," replied Marian. "Some are merely ailing.

But of course, they had been wounded," she felt patriotically obliged to qualify.

"Poor fellows," sighed Jane.

"Awfully jolly chaps," replied Marian.

Even at this early date Jane and Marian disagreed-and about wounded soldiers!

"Dazzling little foreigner our-Nellie," too sweetly remarked Marian.

"Hasn't she the loveliest accent?"

"Do you think so?" almost gasped Jane. There! In spite of all precautions that word "foreigner." What was there so perfectly fiendish about Marian Seaton? Why should she always sing out the falsetto?

"Oh, yes, I was wondering what was her province?" she persisted.

But Jane was now hurrying down the path, scattering recalcitrant dishes as she went.

Plague that old Marian Seaton and her sneers!

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Janie," called out Dozia Dalton, otherwise Theodosia.

"How's the Wild and Wooly?"

"Almost ready to shear," replied Jane, in as jovial a tone as Dozia had betrayed. "There are whiskers on the moon, and the sun has a pompadour.

How's little Beantown?"

"Browning nicely, thank you!" in an invisible pun. "I had a pan just before I left."

Good old Dozia, always ready for a lark. No doubt she did have what might be taken for a "panning" previous to leaving home if she perpetrated any of her famous jokes physically. Dozia was regarded "an awful joker" and she usually preferred the ill.u.s.trated brand of funnies.

"Welcome to our city," yelled Minette Brocton. "Someone said you had made your debut-saw you in New York."

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Nettie," called back Jane. She liked Minette, and wondered if she had seen the "housekeepers" while that squad was on duty in New York.

"What are squashes fetching to-day? And have you any very nice La France onions?" asked Minette in a tone full of good humor. "I wonder, Jane, you did not buy a pushcart."

"Oh, Nettie Brocton! Don't you dare tell me you saw us in New York and never came to see us," reproached Jane.

"Couldn't find you. All I could ever see distinctly were brown paper bundles."

"Oh, Nettie, really, did you see me in New York?" Jane was coaxing now.

"No, but a friend of mine did. There now, not one more sc.r.a.p of information will I give you. But I love your little friend Nellie."

"I am so glad, Nettie. We need you in our ranks. Spread the call for team play. This will surely be an eventful year."

CHAPTER XIII-STIRRING THE DEPTHS

"She won't run!"

"Of course she will. Who asked her?"

"I didn't ask her, but I heard her say emphatically that she would not.

And you know Jane Allen."

"But we must have her. And we have to get very busy before the freshmen have a chance to go over our heads. I have been lobbying ever since the four thirty, and I have seen all the old girls, and lots of new ones.

This is so important, Gloria. You know what a big year we have planned."

"Yes, Judy, I do know. All the more reason why we should have Jane. But she can't or won't forget her freshman experience. She declared it showed a prejudice that would react on the club if we chose her. That is why she refuses."

Gloria Gude and Judith Stearns were in conclave. It was the day before cla.s.s election and not a single head could be seen anywhere either in or out of college. They ran in pairs, and from that up to tens but no singles. Everyone was scouting and rooting secretly for her candidate, and not a few sashes were inadvertently exchanged in the wild pulls and grabs, desperately made to get votes that might be pa.s.sing by in chapel or through recitation halls. Dozia Dalton had thus acquired Molly Linott's black velvet long ding-dong belt, and Nettie Brocton lost her embroidered Chinese ribbon somewhere going from two ten, to three fifteen.

"If I get any more souvenirs I shall have to have an auction," Judith remarked, to Gloria. "Someone just pegged a perfectly good powder puff at me to get my attention. Now, who uses that scent?"

"Oh, Judy, let's be serious. What shall we do if Jane will not run?"

"Take her," declared Judith, practical for once.

"But how?"

"That is for us to decide. We are the executive committee. Let's get under cover."

The brisk October morning pinched their cheeks giving glow but not imparting warmth. It was chilly even for college girls-quite cold for mere folks.

"Come over to the wigwam. There we can talk unmolested, as Cleo would say. We must make her editor this year, by the way," digressed Gloria.