Molly Brown's Junior Days Part 33

demanded Judy, who had no liking for Minerva.

"No, but she has learned better now. Anyhow, Judy, I want to try an experiment. Do you remember the allegory of the sun and the wind and the man wrapped in his cloak? The wind made a wager with the sun that he could make the man take off his cloak, and he blew and blew with all his might, and the more he blew the closer the man wrapped his coat about him. Then the wind gave up and the sun came out and tried his method of just shining very brightly and cheerfully, and presently the man was so hot he took off his coat."

Judy laughed.

"Meaning, I suppose, that we have been trying the human gale method instead of the merry little sunshine way. All right, Molly, dearest, bring on your Minerva and I'll be as gentle as a May morning. But don't let the Gemini come, because we could never carry it through if they were present."

It was agreed that the three friends, Molly, Nance and Judy, should entertain the vain little freshman at an exclusive party all to themselves. Other persons were advised to keep away.

"Hands off," exclaimed Judy. "Stay away from our premises this evening, ladies, because we are going to try an experiment with explosives, and it might be dangerous."

It was unfortunate that, on the very evening that Minerva Higgins had arranged to go to the three friends, somebody played a practical joke on her and she was in an extremely bad humor. Although she had regained her two medals, she was always losing things and crying her losses up and down the corridor. She usually found the articles mislaid in her own room, but she had a suspicious nature and was generally on the lookout for thefts. That afternoon she had rushed into the corridor crying:

"My water pitcher has been stolen from me. I will not have people going into my room and taking my things."

"As if anybody wanted her old water pitcher," remarked Margaret, in a tone of disgust.

Edith Williams smiled mysteriously.

Presently Minerva and the matron, much bored, pa.s.sed the door.

"Come on, let's go and see the fun," suggested Edith.

"How do you know there will be any fun?" demanded Margaret.

"There's likely to be."

They strolled slowly up the corridor, and as they pa.s.sed the door the matron was saying:

"Really, Miss Higgins, I must request you not to raise any more false alarms like this. There is your water pitcher."

She pointed to the chandelier where the pitcher had been hoisted on a piece of cord. A good many other girls had gathered about Minerva's door, and a ripple of laughter swept along the hall.

"Edith, did you play that joke?" asked Margaret later.

"Judy was a party to it, and Katherine and several others," answered Edith evasively. "We thought it high time to put an end to burglar alarms. Minerva Higgins has come to be a public nuisance."

Margaret smiled. Her dignity would never allow her to enter into what she called "rowdy jokes." However, it did not mar her enjoyment of the story about them afterward.

But it was an angry, sullen Minerva who presented herself at the door of No. 5, Quadrangle, that evening at eight o'clock. She had left off her medals and she had not worn the indigo blue. Judy was relieved at this, but Molly and Nance considered it a bad sign.

The first half-hour of the reparation party dragged slowly.

"We've piped for Minerva and she will not dance; we've mourned for her and she will not mourn. It's a hopeless case," Judy remarked in an aside to Nance.

But Molly had formed a resolution and she was determined to carry it through.

"Behind that Chinese wall of vanity, Minerva has a little soul hidden somewhere and I'm going to reach it to-night if I have to blast with dynamite," she thought.

Nance was stirring fudge on the chafing dish and Judy was occupying herself strumming chords on the piano. Molly led Minerva to the divan and sat down beside her.

"Are you glad you came to college, Minerva?" she asked, wondering what in the world to talk about.

"No," answered the other emphatically. "I detest college. Except that the studies are higher, I think Mill Town High School is better run. I don't like college girls, either. They are all conceited sn.o.bs."

"Perhaps you will like it better when you are a soph.o.m.ore and have more liberty," suggested Molly. "The first year one can't look forward to much pleasure. But a freshman is always under inspection, you see. If she accepts the situation without complaining and is nice and obliging and modest, it's like so much treasure laid by for her the next year when she finds how popular she is with the other girls."

"It's not like that in Mill Town. A freshman is just as good as anybody else," snapped Minerva.

Judy, overhearing this statement, blinked at Nance, who smiled furtively and went on stirring fudge.

Molly still persisted with the patience of one who looks for certain success.

"The most interesting part of being a freshman," she continued, "is that a girl begins to find out about herself, and by the time she's a soph.o.m.ore she knows what she really wants."

"Oh, but I knew perfectly well what I wanted before I came," interrupted Minerva in a lofty tone, "I want to study the dead languages."

"But there is something you want more than that," broke in Molly. "You want to be popular."

Minerva gave her a suspicious glance, but Molly was beaming kindly upon her with all the warmth of her affectionate nature.

"How do you know that?" she demanded in a somewhat softened tone.

"It was not hard to guess. You said you were disappointed with the girls here because they seemed to be sn.o.bs. Now if you hadn't minded it very much, you never would have mentioned it. Don't you think the girls are just a little afraid of you? You see, they had heard you were the brightest girl in your school and when they saw all the medals and you talked to them on such deep subjects, they were scared off. They thought, perhaps, you wouldn't care for them because they didn't know enough. After all, people's feeling toward you is just a reflection of what you feel toward them. If you are interested and admire and love them, they are pretty sure to feel the same toward you. You see, I know you can be just as nice and human and everyday as the rest of us--"

Molly laid her hand on Minerva's--"but the others haven't had a chance yet to find out."

Minerva's stiff figure relaxed a little and she leaned against Molly confidingly.

"I do want to be liked," she whispered. "All my life I've wanted it more than anything in the world. But even at Mill Town the girls were afraid of me, just as you say they are here. I might as well own up, as you have guessed it already."

"But it's only a question of time now before you make lots of friends,"

said Molly, "You are so clever that you'll find out how to make them like you."

"But how?"

"Well," said Molly, "I think people who are sympathetic and who listen more than they talk generally have a good many friends. I'm afraid I've talked more than I listened this evening," she added, pinching Minerva's cheek.

"But you've talked about me," answered Minerva. Suddenly her face turned very red and her eyes filled with tears. "I shall not wear the medals any more," she whispered unsteadily. "And--there is something I want to confess. I--I waited for you that night you were on the lake, and I sent an unsigned note to Miss Walker the next day to get even with you because you wouldn't let me go walking with you."

Judy, at the piano, was singing a vociferous medley, and Nance was joining in.

"That's all right," whispered Molly. "It was much better for her to know because we would have been misrepresented always unless someone had told her, and we couldn't exactly tell her ourselves. But I think it's awfully nice of you to confess, Minerva. Now, we shall be better friends than ever."

The two girls kissed each other. The cloak of vanity had slipped off and the smartest-girl-in-Mill-Town-High-School became her real natural self.

Until a quarter before ten the four girls laughed and talked pleasantly together, while the convivial fudge plate was pa.s.sed from one to the other. But never once did Mill Town High School or comparative philology come into the conversation.

When at last the evening was at an end and Minerva had departed, Nance and Judy led Molly gravely to the divan.