Smith College Stories Part 26

"Why, Peggy Putney, you dear old thing! When did you come? They say you're in the Hatfield--how did you get there?"

"Two ahead of me and they dropped out. Miss Roberts only just told me--"

Theodora had felt very lonesome and homesick just then--everybody but herself knew so many people! And then Virginia had happened along and jostled her and begged pardon, and they had fallen into a conversation on the relative merits of the Dewey and the Hatfield. Later they had studied Livy together and confided their difficulties to each other.

Virginia's mother was a Unitarian and her father was an Ethical Culturist, and her room-mate was a High Church Episcopalian and never ate meat in Lent! She thought Virginia would very probably be d.a.m.ned, if not in the next life, certainly in this, and she intimated as much.

Virginia thought it was very hard to live with somebody who disapproved of you so much.

Theodora had been brought up to be a neat, self-helpful little person, and her room-mate, Edith Bliss, had never even seen her bed made up and left her clothes in piles on the floor just as she stepped out of them. She was horribly homesick and wept quarts every Sunday afternoon, and confided to Theodora in moments of hysterical relaxation that she thought every girl owed it to herself to have soup and black coffee for dinner and that she was going to wire Papa to take her home immediately. Theo looked at her now, eagerly devouring a doubtful lobster concoction and openly congratulating herself on the olives at her left. She was fond of Frankfurters now, was Edith, and had recently alarmed the authorities by her ingenuous scheme for annexing a night-lunch cart and keeping it on the campus: it would have been so nice, she said regretfully, to slip out and get a Frankfurter between hours!

How pretty the Gym looked! The juniors had decorated it as well as they could at odd minutes, and they had lingered in a bunch as the cla.s.s came in to lean over the balcony and sing to them.

Theodora remembered how the Gym had looked the night of the soph.o.m.ore reception: all light and music and girls and a wonder of excitement.

She had never had an evening dress before, and her little square-necked organdie had been dearer to her than any other gown before or since. They played _Rastus on Parade_, and she had such nice partners and some of the girls were so lovely and had such white, beautiful shoulders--they seemed to count evening dress but a slight and ordinary thing. By junior year house-dances are wont to pall, and seniors have been known to make rabbits and read Kipling in preference; even among the freshmen Theodora had found some disillusioned souls who lamented the absence of men and found the soph.o.m.ore reception slow!

Across the table an odd, distinguished-looking girl, with a clever face and dark, short-sighted eyes, smiled at her, and Theo's thoughts flashed back to that great day when she first really loved the cla.s.s--the day of the Big Game. What a funny, snub-nosed little n.o.body Marietta Hinks had been then! But how she played! How she dodged and doubled and bounced the ball, and how they cheered her!

Oh, _here's_ to Mari_etta_, For we _shall_ not soon _forget_ her--

Well, well, how they had grown up! Now she was "Miss Root" to the little, dark-eyed girl in the back seat in chapel, who smiled so shyly at her when the seniors led out down the middle aisle. Theo was wearing her roses to-night, and as she scratched off a little note to thank her she had seemed to see herself, another little dark-eyed girl, sending anonymous roses to Ursula Wyckoff. Dear me! would anybody ever again combine such graces of mind and body as that ornament of Ninety-purple? She had gone on wheel-rides with Theo, and once she had asked her over to wait on the juniors at a spread--Theo had sat up and got her light reported in order to write home about it.

There are those, I understand, who disapprove strongly of this att.i.tude of Theodora's happy year: dogmatic young women who have not learned much about life and soured, middle-aged women who have forgotten. I am told that they would consider Theodora's adoration morbid and use long words about her--long words about a freshman! I have always been sorry for these unfortunate people: their chances for reconstructing Human Nature seem to me so relatively slight.

When Theo had gone home that summer with hands almost as well cared for as Ursula's, sleek, gathered-in locks, and a gratifying hold on the irregular verbs (Ursula spoke beautiful French), her mother had whimsically inquired if Miss Wyckoff could not be induced to remain in Northampton indefinitely and continue her unscheduled courses! But perhaps she was a morbid mother.

Her mother! The plates and flowers swam before Theodora's misted eyes, and the sight of Virginia--so kind that year--brought back somehow those waves of desolation that would come over her again and again, in lecture rooms, in her own dear room, at meals--all that clouded soph.o.m.ore year. It was just as her good fortune came through the mail to her--a room in the Nicest House--that her mother died, and rooms mattered little to Theo, then. There were kindly aunts and other children, and she was not needed at home; so it seemed best to go on, and she had come up the steps of the Nicest House, a little black-dressed figure, and into the arms of the Nicest Woman.

It seemed to her that there was never a room so cheerful, nor pictures so lovely, nor a fire so red, nor tea and bread and b.u.t.ter so good, nor a smile so comfortable as the Nicest Woman's. Mademoiselle and Fraulein and Miss Roberts were sweet and kind, and the girls did all they could, but it was to the Nicest Woman that one came when conditions and warnings were in the air or one's head ached or one had eaten too much fudge or been annoyed by somebody's banjo practice.

When the seniors of the Nicest House were eating and laughing there at night, it was a gay room--the Nicest Woman's; but it was very dim and quiet in the dusk, when Theodora slipped in by herself with reddened lids, and sat on the couch, and they talked of things that started to be sad but somehow always turned out cheerful; for when it was about the children and Will at Yale little jokes were sure to come up, and when Theo wondered if perhaps she hadn't been careless about writing home, and if Mother had gotten more letters in the spring, maybe--the conversation always changed, and she found herself feeling so glad and thankful that she'd gone right home in June and not visited at Virginia's.

Virginia had gone into Phi Kappa that winter, and Theo had been so proud of her. She was in the first five, and as she really hadn't expected it at all it was quite exciting. Adelaide Carew went in too, and though she went about with the seniors a great deal and called most of her cla.s.s "Miss," she was much more generally liked than in her freshman year, and Virginia had got to know her better and better.

Through her Theo had seen more of Adelaide, and she had been amazed to find out how really kind-hearted and human she was beneath her unapproachable ways.

But then, you never could tell--girls were so queer! Only last night, when they were walking about under the lanterns after the concert, she and Virginia and Adelaide, with two of the junior ushers, and the juniors, sophisticated young people, had cynically suggested that perhaps they'd better take themselves away in order that the three might seek out their Ivy and bedew it with their final tears, Adelaide had coughed a little huskily and suggested that perhaps when they'd planted their own Ivy they wouldn't be feeling so gay! They had stared at her blankly, hesitated, decided that coming from such a source it must have been an extraordinarily acute sarcasm, and gone away giggling, leaving Theo to wonder and Adelaide to flush and talk very hard about Bar Harbor and the comfort of a big room all to yourself once more.

Such a strange room-mate as Theo had had that year--she seemed fated to room with girls who had never made up their beds. This one had lived freshman year with friends in the town, and had had everything done for her, and when Theo asked her one day if campus life was wearing on her, she had turned two stormy gray eyes on her and burst out, "Oh, no, Theodora, but I am so _deadly_ tired of picking up my night-gown every _single_ morning, I think I shall _die_!"

On one historic occasion, early in the year, Theo had happened to make up her bed for her, and upon her pleased recognition of the fresh linen it had come out that she had been for some weeks accustomed to change her upper sheet and leave the under one undisturbed on the bed--it had seemed more logical, she said, and how was she to know?

They had teased her about it till the Nicest Woman interfered and fined every girl who mentioned it, and they bought _Sentimental Tommy_ with the money, and read it evenings in the Nicest Woman's room after supper.

Well, well, they'd sit about her fire no more, as the poem said that somebody wrote to go with the silver tea-ball the seniors gave her when she served them their last tea. They'd come in no more after Alpha and Phi Kapp to tell her all about it--how nice she had been when Theo got into Alpha! That was junior year and they took her to Boyden's for supper, and her bowl and pitcher were full of violets for days. Everybody seemed so glad, and Martha Sutton had pinned her own pin on Theo's red blouse. Kathie Sewall had taken her over--n.o.body dreamed that Kathie would be senior president then--and what a hand-shaking there had been! And such a funny, clever play, with butlers and burglars and lady's-maids--it was ill.u.s.trative of American literature, she learned later, but it was not a pedantic ill.u.s.tration.

Theodora loved plays, and she had delighted in her very humble part in the House play. She was a little house-maid, and said only, "Yes, madam," and "No, madam," and, "Oh, sir, how can you--a poor girl like me!" but she had a great American Beauty and two bunches of violets, and she sent the programme home. Next to its basket-ball decorations she remembered the Gym arranged for a play, with the running-track turned into boxes and the girls prettier than ever against the screens and pillows. She had been chairman of the stage-setting committee, and the _Monthly_ had especially commended the boudoir scene.

Were they ready for the toasts so soon? Where had the time gone? she thought, as Virginia, with solemn pomp, called upon Miss Farwell to respond to "Our Team." Dear old Grace--she stammered a little when she was excited, and she was not the most fluent of speakers, but they cheered her to the echo. "Team! Team! Team!" they called, and the teams, freshman and soph.o.m.ore, Regulars and Subs, had to stand on their chairs and be sung to. As Theo balanced on a tottering seat, she caught sight of a crowd of girls moving toward the Gym, and as they sat down a shout from below greeted them:

Oh, _here's_ to Ninety-_yellow_, And her _praise_ we'll ever _tell_--_oh_, Drink her _down_, drink her _down_, drink her _down_, down, _down_!

A cheerful, aimless creature at the bottom of one of the great tables, whose one faculty was for improvised doggerel, instructed her neighbors rapidly, and they sent back a tuneful courtesy:

Oh, _here's_ the Junior _Ushers_, And I _tell_ you they are _rushers_!

Theodora had "ushed," in cla.s.sical phrase, in her day, and the bustle of last year, so much more exciting somehow than this one, came back to her. Her little, white-ribboned stick was packed now--in fact, everything was packed: she was going away for good! Some one else would lounge on the window-seat in her room in the Nicest House, and light the cunning fire....

Who was this? Oh, this was Sallie Wilkes Emory, responding to "The Faculty." Kitty Louisa, whose soul knew not reverence, had attached to this toast the pregnant motto, _That we may go forward with Faculties unimpaired_, an excerpt from one of the President's best-known chapel prayers, and Sallie was developing the theme in what she a.s.sured them was a very connotative manner. Theo saw them pa.s.s in review before her, those devoted educators, from her dazed freshman Livy to her despairing senior Philosophy--_that_ was over, at least! Theodora was not of a technically philosophical temperament. Sallie was quoting liberally from a recent famous essay of her own: _The Moral Law, or the End-Aim of Human Action According to Kant_, apropos of which she had remarked to the commendatory professor that she was glad if _somebody_ understood it! Sallie was a great girl--how grand she had been in the play! Theo had been in the mob herself, having first tried for every part, and had enjoyed every minute of it, from the first rehearsal to the last dab of make-up. She had been an attendant and hadn't an idea how pretty she looked, nor how many people spoke of her and called her graceful.

It may have been because Theo had so few ideas about herself that she had so many friends. And how many she had! She took great pride in them, those fine, strong, good-looking girls that hailed her from all directions, and always wanted a dance or a row or a skating afternoon with her. She wondered if anybody so ordinary--for Theo knew she wasn't clever--ever had so many jolly good friends. There was the Mandolin Club, now--all friends of hers. She got on late in junior year and played in the spring concert. Her father came up and said he'd never seen such a pretty house in his life--packed from orchestra circle to balcony with fluffy girls alternated with dapper, black-coated youths. He gave Theo such a darling white gown for it, all ruffled with white ribbon, and she had her picture taken in it, holding the mandolin, and sent it to him in a big white vellum frame covered with yellow chrysanthemums, with "Smith" scrawled in yellow across one corner. He kept it on his desk and was tremendously proud when his friends asked about it.

Here were the cla.s.s histories. Theodora thought she listened, but though she laughed with the rest and applauded the grinds, it was her own history that she was reading as face after face recalled to her some joke or mistake or good luck. Not that it was sad--oh, dear, no!

If any member of the cla.s.s of Ninety-yellow dared to be sad that night there was a fine, and more than that, the studied coldness of the cla.s.s directed toward her: it was an orgy, not an obsequy, as Virginia elegantly put it. Just as the junior history, which is always the best for some unexplained reason--perhaps because of the Prom--was finished, there was a loud knock, and a big bunch of yellow roses from the cla.s.s that was having a decennial supper somewhere was brought in by a useful soph.o.m.ore. They clapped it and sent some one back to thank them--a point of etiquette that some self-centred cla.s.ses have been known to omit--and then they remembered that Ninety-green was supping at its first reunion in the Old Gym, and sent over some of the table flowers to them. Virginia motioned to Theo, and proud of the mission and blushing a little at the eyes that turned to her as she went, she took them over. They clapped and sang to her:

Oh, _here's_ to _Theodora_, And we're _very_ glad we _sor_ her!

Martha Sutton waved to her and the toast-mistress thanked her for the cla.s.s, and she went back--alone, because, being an older cla.s.s, Ninety-green didn't need a delegate. On the way, two juniors met her, and they condoled with her cheerfully: "How do you feel, Theo dear?

Isn't it kind of dreadful? Do you keep thinking it's the last time?

Goodness--I should!" One of them threw a sympathetic arm over her shoulder and looked at the moon, but Theo grinned a little and said that she was tired as a dog and that if there was one place in the world she wanted it was her room At Home. And as the juniors gaped at this matter-of-fact att.i.tude, Theodora added, pausing at the Gym door, "Of course I've had a perfectly grand time here, and all that, but I've been here four years and that's about long enough, you know. And they want me, of course, and--I want to come! I think it gets a little--well, toward the end, you know--"

But Theo was tired, and so are seniors all, and until three or four generations of them have learned how to do it easily, so will they be.

They were doing stunts upstairs: Clara Sheldon had seen Cissie Loftus who had seen Maggie Cline who sang _Just tell them that you saw me_, and Clara, who was the most tailor-made and conventional creature imaginable to the outward eye, was forced by those from whose farther-reaching scrutiny she was never free, to imitate the imitator at all social functions that admitted song. She used stiff, absurd gestures and a breathy contralto that never palled upon her friends.

Cynthia Lovering danced her graceful little Spanish dance for them, and Leslie Guerineau told them her best darkey story in her own delicious Southern drawl. And then there was a murmur that grew to a voice that swelled into a shout as they drummed on the table and called, "_We_ want _Dutton_! _We_ want _Dutton_! _We_ want _Dutton_, _Dutton_, _Dutton_!"

She said no; that she'd had a toast; that they knew all her stunts by heart--but they hammered on her name with the regularity of a machine till she got up at last with a sigh and, "Well, what do you want?"

They wanted a temperance lecture, and she drooped her head to one side, and with an ineffably sickly smile and a flat nasal drawl she told them "haow she'd been a-driving 'raound your _graounds_, and they're _reel_ pleasantly situated, _too_, dears, and your _President_, such a nice, _gentlemanly_ man, accompanied me, and pointed aout to me your _beeyutiful_ homes and I said to him, 'Oh, what a _beeyutiful_ thought it is that all these _hundreds_ of young souls are a-drinking _water_, nothing but _water_, all the time and every day!'"

She was going to teach in a stuffy little school in the wilds of Maine, and Ethel Eaton, who had been taught in that school, was going to travel abroad for a year--it was a strange shuffle.

What, was it half-past eleven? Impossible! But somebody had started up their great song that had been their pet one since freshman year, and they were shouting it till the Gym rang:

_Hurrah!_ _hurrah!_ the _yellow_ is on _top_, _Hurrah!_ _hurrah!_ the _purple_ cannot _drop_; _We_ are Ninety-_yellow_ and our _fame_ shall never _stop_, _'Rah_, 'rah, _'rah_, for the _seniors!_

They sang all the verses, and then the watchman and the superintendent of buildings, waiting like sleuth-hounds to prevent any demonstration from without, gritted their teeth and dashed furiously down the wrong stairs as Ninety-green, who had softly a.s.sembled at the back of the Gym, having come from different directions, burst into the traditional tribute:

Oh, _here's_ to Ninety-_yellow_, And her _fame_ we'll ever _tell_--_oh_!

"'Ere, 'ere! stop that now! Miss Sutton, it ain't allowed--will you please to go 'ome quietly! No, they ain't a-comin' h'out till you go--'e says they ain't!"

"Oh, come now! We aren't students any more! We can do what we like--"

"Oh, come on, girls! Don't make a fuss; we don't want to stay, anyhow!"

They sang themselves away, and the cla.s.s upstairs looked around the tables and thought things, for it was time to go. And here I am afraid I shall lose whatever friends I may have gained for Theodora, for it is necessary to state that none of those comprehensive, solemn moments of farewell, known to us all to be the property of departing seniors, came to her. She was conscious of a little vague excitement, but all the last days had been more or less exciting--generally less--and her mind was occupied with irrelevant details. Had Uncle Ed remembered to change at Hartford? Had Aunt Kate packed her black evening dress?

Would the post-office forward that note to the little freshman? Could she get Virginia up in time for the 9.15? Had she lost the slip with the Nicest Woman's address on it? And had she given Marietta that senior picture yet?

There had been one moment when her throat had contracted and her eyelids had crinkled: it was that very evening, when Annie, the cook, had beckoned to her in the hall of the Nicest House, and said: "There's three o' them little cakes on a plate on your table, Miss The'dora. I shan't be bakin' 'em agin, an' I know you do be terrible fond of 'em!"

"Thank you, Annie," she had said, and shaken her hand warmly. Annie had cooked fifteen years in the Nicest House, and what she and her mistress didn't know about girls you could put in a salt-spoon. It wasn't every girl that Annie liked, either.

Grace was getting up, and they stood a moment irresolutely by the chairs.