CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
“Oh, dear, what if she shouldn’t meet me!” sighed Betty Wales for the hundredth time at least, as she gathered up her bags and umbrella, and followed the crowd of noisy, chattering girls off the train.
“So long, Mary. See you to-morrow.”
“Get a carriage, Nellie, that’s a dear. You’re so little you can always break through the crowd.”
“Hello, Susanna! Did you get on the campus too?”
“Thanks awfully, but I can’t to-night. My freshman cousin’s up, you know, and homesick and – ”
“Oh, girls, isn’t it fun to be back?”
It all sounded so jolly and familiar. Weren’t any of them freshmen? Did they guess that she was a freshman “and homesick”? Betty straightened proudly and resolved that they should not. If only the registrar had got father’s telegram. As she stood hesitating on the station platform, amazed at the wilderness of trunks and certain that no one could possibly find her until that shouting, rushing mob in front of her had dispersed, a pretty girl in immaculate white duck hurried up to her.
“Pardon me,” she said, reaching out a hand for Betty’s golf clubs, “but aren’t you a stranger here? Could I help you, perhaps, about getting your luggage up?”
Betty looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know,” she said. “Yes, I’m going to enter college, and my elder sister couldn’t get here until a later train. But father telegraphed the registrar to meet me. Do you know her? Could you point her out?”
The pretty girl’s lips curved into the faint suggestion of a smile. “Yes,” she said, “I know her–only too well for my peace of mind occasionally. But I’m afraid she hasn’t come to meet you. You see she’s very busy these first days–there are a great many of you freshman, all wanting different things. So she sends us down instead.”
“Oh, I see.” Betty’s face brightened. “Then if you would tell me how to get to Mrs. Chapin’s on Meriden Place.”
“Mrs. Chapin’s!” exclaimed the pretty girl. “That’s easy. Most of you want such outlandish streets. But that’s close to the campus, where I’m going myself. My time is just up, I’m happy to say. Give me your checks and your house number, and then we’ll take a car, unless you wouldn’t mind walking. It’s not far.”
On the way to Mrs. Chapin’s Betty learned that her new friend’s name was Dorothy King, that she was a junior and roomed in the Hilton House, that she went in for science, but was fond of music and was a member of the Glee Club; that she was back a day early for the express purpose of meeting freshmen at the trains. In return Betty explained how she had been obliged at the last moment to come east alone; how sister Nan, who was nine years older than she and five years out of college, was coming down from a house party at Kittery Point, but couldn’t get in till eight that night; and father had insisted that Betty be sure to arrive by daylight.
“Wales–Wales – ” repeated the pretty junior. “Why, your sister must have been the clever Miss Wales in ’9-, the one who wrote so well and all. She is? How fine! I’m sorry, but I leave you here. Mrs. Chapin’s is that big yellow house, the second on the left side–yes. I know you’ll like it there. And Miss Wales, you mustn’t mind if the sophomores get hold of that joke about your asking the registrar to meet you. I won’t tell, but it will be sure to leak out somehow. You see it’s really awfully funny. The registrar is almost as important as the president, and a lot more dignified and unapproachable, until you get to know her. She’ll think it too good to keep, and the sophomores will be sure to get hold of it and put it in the book of grinds for their reception–souvenirs they give you, you know. Now good-bye. May I call later? Thank you so much. Good-bye.”
Betty was blushing hotly as she climbed Mrs. Chapin’s steps. But her chagrin at having proved herself so “verdant” a freshman was tempered with elation at the junior’s cordiality. “Nan said I wasn’t to run into friendships,” she reflected. “But she must be nice. She knows the Clays. Oh, I hope she won’t forget to come!”
Betty Wales had come to college without any particular enthusiasm for it, though she was naturally an enthusiastic person. She loved Nan dearly, but didn’t approve of her scheme of life, and wasn’t at all prepared to like college just because Nan had. Being so much younger than her sister, she had never visited her at Harding, but she had met a good many of her friends; and comparing their stories of life at Harding with the experiences of one or two of her own mates who were at the boarding-school, she had decided that of two evils she should prefer college, because there seemed to be more freedom and variety about it. Being of a philosophical turn of mind, she was now determined to enjoy herself, if possible. She pinned her faith to a remark that her favorite among all Nan’s friends had made to her that summer. “Oh, you’ll like college, Betty,” she had said. “Not just as Nan or I did, of course. Every girl has her own reasons for liking college–but every nice girl likes it.”
Betty decided that she had already found two of her reasons: the pretty Miss King and Mrs. Chapin’s piazza, which was exceedingly attractive for a boarding-house. A girl was lounging in a hammock behind the vines, and another in a big piazza chair was reading aloud to her. “They must be old girls,” thought Betty, “to seem so much at home.” Then she remembered that Mrs. Chapin had said hers would probably be an “all freshman house,” and decided that they were friends from the same town.
Mrs. Chapin presently appeared, to show Betty to her room and explain that her roommate would not arrive till the next morning. Betty dressed and then sat down to study for her French examination, which came next day; but before she had finished deciding which couch she preferred or where they could possibly put two desks and a tea-table, the bell rang for dinner.
This bid fair to be a silent and dismal meal. All the girls had come except Betty’s roommate, and most of them, being freshmen, were in the depths of examinations and homesickness. But there was one shining exception, a very lively sophomore, who had waited till the last moment hoping to get an assignment on the campus, and then had come to Mrs. Chapin’s in the place of a freshman who had failed in her examinations.
“She had six, poor thing!” explained the sophomore to Betty, who sat beside her. “And just think! She’d had a riding horse and a mahogany desk with a secret drawer sent on from home. Wish I could inherit them along with her room. Now, my name is Mary Brooks. Tell me yours, and I’ll ask the girl on the other side and introduce you; and that will start the ball rolling.”
These energetic measures succeeded much better than Mrs. Chapin’s somewhat perfunctory remarks about the dry weather, and the whole table was soon talking busily. The two piazza girls proved to be sisters, Mary and Adelaide Rich, from Haddam, Connecticut. Betty decided that they were rather stupid and too inclined to stick together to be much fun. A tall, homely girl at the end of the table created a laugh by introducing herself as Miss Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee.
“The state is Illinois,” she added, “but that spoils the alliteration.”
“The what?” whispered Betty to the sophomore.
But Miss Brooks only laughed and said, “Wait till you’ve finished freshman English.”
Betty’s other neighbor was a pale, quiet little girl, with short hair and a drawl. Betty couldn’t decide whether she meant to be “snippy” or was only shy and offish. After she had said that her name was Roberta Lewis and her home Philadelphia, Betty inquired politely whether she expected to like college.
“I expect to detest it,” replied Miss Lewis slowly and distinctly, and spoke not another word during dinner. But though she ate busily and kept her eyes on her plate, Betty was sure that she heard all that was said, and would have liked to join in, only she didn’t know how.
The one really beautiful girl at the table was Miss Eleanor Watson. Her complexion was the daintiest pink and white, her black hair waved softly under the big hat which she had not stopped to take off, and her hazel eyes were plaintive one moment and sparkling the next, as her mood changed. She talked a good deal and very well, and it was hard to realize that she was only sixteen and a freshman. She had fitted for college at a big preparatory school in the east, and so, although she happened to be the only Denver girl in college, she had a great many friends in the upper classes and appeared to know quite as much about college customs as Miss Brooks. All this impressed Betty, who admired beauty and pretty clothes immensely. She resolved to have Eleanor Watson for a friend if she could, and was pleased when Miss Watson inquired how many examinations she had, and suggested that they would probably be in the same divisions, since their names both began with W.
The remaining girl at Mrs. Chapin’s table was not particularly striking. She had a great mass of golden brown hair, which she wore coiled loosely in her neck. Her keen grey eyes looked the world straight in the face, and her turned-up nose and the dimple in her chin gave her a merry, cheerful air. She did not talk much, and not at all about herself, but she gave the impression of being a thoroughly nice, bright, capable girl. Her name was Rachel Morrison.
After dinner Betty was starting up-stairs when Mary Brooks called her back. “Won’t you walk over to the campus with me, little girl?” she asked. “I have one or two errands. Oh no, you don’t need a hat. You never do here.”
So they wandered off bareheaded in the moonlight, which made the elm-shaded streets look prettier than ever. On the dusky campus girls strolled about in devoted pairs and sociable quartettes. On the piazza of one of the dwelling-houses somebody was singing a fascinating little Scotch ballad with a tinkling mandolin accompaniment.
“Must be Dorothy King,” said the sophomore. “I thought she wouldn’t come till eight. Most people don’t.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, “I know her!” And she related her adventure at the station.
“That’s so,” said Miss Brooks. “I’d forgotten. She’s awfully popular, you know, and very prominent,–belongs to no end of societies. But whatever the Young Women’s Christian Association wants of her she does. You know they appoint girls to meet freshmen and help them find boarding-places and so on. She’s evidently on that committee. Let’s stop and say hello to her.”
Betty, hanging behind, was amazed to see the commotion caused by Miss Brooks’s arrival. The song stopped abruptly, the mandolin slammed to the floor, and performers and audience fell as one woman upon the newcomer.
“Why, Mary Brooks! When did you come?”
“Did you get a room, honey?”
“Oh, Mary, where did you put on that lovely tan?”
“Mary, is Sarah coming back, do you know?”
“Hush up, girls, and let her tell us!”
It was like the station, only more so, and oh, it was nice–if you were in it. Mary answered some of their questions and then looked around for Betty. “I’ve lost a freshman,” she said, “Here, Miss Wales, come up and sit on the railing. She knows you, Dottie, and she wants to hear you sing. These others are some of the Hilton House, Miss Wales. Please consider yourselves introduced. Now, Dottie.”
So the little Scotch ballad began again. Presently some one else came up, there were more effusive greetings, and then another song or two, after which Miss King and “some of the Hilton House” declared that they simply must go and unpack. Betty, suddenly remembering her trunk and her sister, decided to let Miss Brooks do her other “errands” alone, and found her way back to Mrs. Chapin’s. Sure enough, Nan was sitting on the piazza.
“Hello, little sister,” she called gaily as Betty hurried up the walk. “Don’t say you’re sorry to be late. It’s the worst possible thing for little freshmen to mope round waiting for people, and I’m glad you had the sense not to. Your trunk’s come, but if you’re not too tired let’s go up and see Ethel Hale before we unpack it.”
Ethel Hale had spent a whole summer with Nan, and Betty beat her at tennis and called her Ethel, and she called Betty little sister, just as Nan did. But here she was a member of the faculty. “I shall never dare come near her after you leave,” said Betty. Just as she said it the door of the room opened–Nan had explained that it was a freshman trick to ring front door-bells–and Ethel rushed out and dragged them in.
“Miss Blaine and Miss Mills are here,” she said.
Betty gathered from the subsequent conversation that Miss Blaine and Miss Mills were also members of the faculty; and they were. But they had just come in from a horseback ride, and they sat in rather disheveled attitudes, eating taffy out of a paper bag, and their conversation was very amusing and perfectly intelligible, even to a freshman who had still an examination to pass.
“I didn’t suppose the faculty ever acted like that. Why, they’re just like other people,” declared Betty, as she tumbled into bed a little later.
“They’re exactly like other people,” returned Nan sagely, from the closet where she was hanging up skirts. “Just remember that and you’ll have a lot nicer time with them.”
So ended Betty’s first day at college. Nan finished unpacking, and then sat for a long time by the window. Betty loved Nan, but Nan in return worshiped Betty. They might call her the clever Miss Wales if they liked; she would gladly have given all her vaunted brains for the fascinating little ways that made Betty friends so quickly and for the power to take life in Betty’s free-and-easy fashion. “Oh, I hope she’ll like it!” she thought. “I hope she’ll be popular with the girls. I don’t want her to have to work so hard for all she gets. I wouldn’t exchange my course for hers, but I want hers to be the other kind.”
Betty was sound asleep.
CHAPTER II
BEGINNINGS
The next morning it poured.
“Of course,” said Eleanor Watson impressively at breakfast. “It always does the first day of college. They call it the freshman rain.”
“Let’s all go down to chapel together,” suggested Rachel Morrison.
“You’re going to order carriages, of course?” inquired Roberta Lewis stiffly.
“Hurrah! Another joke for the grind-book,” shrieked Mary Brooks. Then she noticed Roberta’s expression of abject terror. “Never mind, Miss Lewis,” she said kindly. “It’s really an honor to be in the grind-book, but I promise not to tell if you’d rather I wouldn’t. Won’t you show that you forgive me by coming down to college under my umbrella?”
“She can’t. She’s coming with me,” answered Nan promptly. “I demand the right to first choice.”
“Very well, I yield,” said Mary, “because when you go my sovereignty will be undisputed. You’ll have to hurry, children.”
So the little procession of rain-coats flapping out from under dripping umbrellas started briskly off to join the longer procession that was converging from every direction toward College Hall. Roberta and Nan were ahead under one umbrella, chatting like old friends.
“I suppose she doesn’t think we’re worth talking to,” said Rachel Morrison, who came next with Betty.
“Probably she’s one of the kind that’s always been around with grown people and isn’t used to girls,” suggested Betty.
“Perhaps,” agreed Rachel. “Anyhow, I can’t get a word out of her. She just sits by her window and reads magazines and looks bored to death when Katherine or I go in to speak to her. Isn’t Katherine jolly? I’m so glad I don’t room alone.”
“Are you?” asked Betty. “I can tell better after my roommate comes. Her name sounds quite nice. It’s Helen Chase Adams, and she lives somewhere up in New Hampshire. Did you ever see so many girls?”
There seemed to be no end to them. They jostled one another good-naturedly in the narrow halls, swarmed, chattering, up the stairs, and filled the chapel to overflowing. It was very exciting to see the whole college together. Even Roberta Lewis condescended to look interested when Mary Brooks showed her the faculty rows, and pointed out the college beauty, the captain of the sophomore basket-ball team, and other local celebrities.
“That’s evidently a freshman,” declared Eleanor Watson, who was in the row behind with Katherine and the Riches. “Doesn’t she look lost and unhappy?” And she pointed out a tall, near-sighted girl who was stalking dejectedly down the middle aisle.
A vivacious little brunette was sitting next Eleanor. “Pardon me,” she said sweetly, “but did you mean the girl who’s gone around to the side and is now being received with open arms by most of the faculty? She’s a senior, the brightest girl in the class, we think, and she’s sad because she’s lost her trunk and broken her glasses. You’re a freshman, I judge?”
“Thank you, yes,” gasped Eleanor with as much dignity as she could muster, and resolved to keep her guesses to herself in future.
The chapel service was short but very beautiful. The president’s kindly welcome to the entering class, “which bids fair to be the largest in the history of the institution,” completely upset the composure of some of the aforesaid class, and a good many moist handkerchiefs grew moister, and red eyes redder during the prayer. But on the whole the class of 190- conducted itself with commendable propriety and discretion on this its first official appearance in the college world.
“I’m glad I don’t have that French exam.,” said Katherine, as she and Betty picked out their umbrellas from a great, moist heap in the corner of the hall. “Come down with me and have a soda.”
Betty shook her head. “I can’t. Nan asked me to go with her and Eth–I mean Miss Hale, but I simply must study.” And she hurried off to begin.
At the entrance to the campus Eleanor Watson overtook her. “Let’s go home and study together,” she proposed. “I can’t see why they left this French till so late in the week, when everybody has it. What did you come to college for?” she asked abruptly.
Betty thought a minute. “Why, for the fun of it, I guess,” she said.
“So did I. I think we’ve stumbled into a pretty serious-minded crowd at Mrs. Chapin’s, don’t you?”
“I like Miss Morrison awfully well,” objected Betty, “and I shouldn’t call Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee serious-minded, but – ”
“Oh, perhaps not,” interrupted Eleanor. “Anyhow I know a lot of fine girls outside, and you must meet them. It’s very important to have a lot of friends up here. If you want to amount to anything, you can’t just stick with the girls in your own house.”
“Oh, no,” said Betty meekly, awed by the display of worldly wisdom. “It will be lovely to meet your friends. Let’s study on the piazza. I’ll get my books.”
“Wait a minute,” said Eleanor quickly. “I want to tell you something. I have at least two conditions already, and if I don’t pass this French I don’t suppose I can possibly stay.”
“But you don’t act frightened a bit,” protested Betty in awestruck tones.
“I am,” returned Eleanor in a queer, husky voice. “I could never show my face again if I failed.” She brushed the tears out of her eyes. “Now go and get your books,” she said calmly, “and don’t ever mention the subject again. I had to tell somebody.”
Betty was back in a moment, looking as if she had seen a ghost. “She’s come,” she gasped, “and she’s crying like everything.”
“Who?” inquired Eleanor coolly.
“My roommate–Helen Chase Adams.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t say a word–just grabbed up my books and ran. Let’s study till Nan comes and then she’ll settle it.”
It was almost one o’clock before Nan appeared. She tossed a box of candy to the weary students, and gave a lively account of her morning, which had included a second breakfast, three strawberry-ices, a walk to the bridge, half a dozen calls on the campus, and a plunge in the swimming-tank.
“I didn’t dream I knew so many people here,” she said. “But now I’ve seen them all and they’ve promised to call on you, Betty, and I must go to-night.”
“Not unless she stops crying,” said Betty firmly, and told her story.
“Go up and ask her to come down-town with us and have a lunch at Holmes’s,” suggested Nan.
“Oh you come too,” begged Betty, and Nan, amused at the distress of her usually self-reliant sister, obediently led the way up-stairs.
“Come in,” called a tremulous voice.
Helen Chase Adams had stopped crying, at least temporarily, and was sitting in a pale and forlorn heap on one of the beds. She jumped up when she saw her visitors. “I thought it was the man with my trunk,” she said. “Is one of you my roommate? Which one?”
“What a nice speech, Miss Adams!” said Nan heartily. “I’ve been hoping ever since I came that somebody would take me for a freshman. But this is Betty, who’s to room with you. Now will you come down-town to lunch with us?”
Betty was very quiet on the way down-town. Her roommate was a bitter disappointment. She had imagined a pretty girl like Eleanor Watson, or a jolly one like Katherine and Rachel; and here was this homely little thing with an awkward walk, a piping voice, and short skirts. “She’ll just spoil everything,” thought Betty resentfully, “and it’s a mean, hateful shame.” Over the creamed chicken, which Nan ordered because it was Holmes’s “specialty,” just as strawberry-ice was Cuyler’s, the situation began to look a little more cheerful. Helen Chase Adams would certainly be an obliging roommate.
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of touching the room till you get back from your French,” she said eagerly. “Won’t it be fun to fix it? Have you a lot of pretty things? I haven’t much, I’m afraid. Oh, no, I don’t care a bit which bed I have.” Her shy, appealing manner and her evident desire to please would have disarmed a far more critical person than Betty, who, in spite of her love of “fine feathers” and a sort of superficial snobbishness, was at heart absolutely unworldly, and who took a naive interest in all badly dressed people because it was such fun to “plan them over.” She applied this process immediately to her roommate.
“Her hat’s on crooked,” she reflected, “and her pug’s in just the wrong place. Her shirt-waist needs pulling down in front and she sticks her head out when she talks. Otherwise she’d be rather cute. I hope she’s the kind that will take suggestions without getting mad.” And she hurried off to her French in a very amiable frame of mind.
Helen Chase Adams thanked Nan shyly for the luncheon, escaped from the terrors of a tête-à-tête with an unfamiliar grown-up on the plea of having to unpack, and curled up on the couch that Betty had not chosen, to think it over. The day had been full of surprises, but Betty was the culmination. Why had she come to college? She was distinctly pretty, she dressed well, and evidently liked what pretty girls call “a good time.” In Helen Chase Adams’s limited experience all pretty girls were stupid. The idea of seeing crowds of them in the college chapel, much less of rooming with one, had never entered her head. A college was a place for students. Would Miss Wales pass her examination? Would she learn her lessons? What would it be like to live with her day in and day out? Helen could not imagine–but she did not feel in the least like crying.
Just as the dinner-bell rang, Betty appeared, looking rather tired and pale. “Nan’s gone,” she announced. “She found she couldn’t make connections except by leaving at half past five, so she met me down at the college. And just at the last minute she gave me the money to buy a chafing-dish. Wasn’t that lovely? I know I should have cried and made a goose of myself, but after tha–I beg your pardon–I haven’t any sense.” She stopped in confusion.
But Helen only laughed. “Go on,” she said. “I don’t mind now. I don’t believe I’m going to be homesick any more, and if I am I’ll do my best not to cry.”
How the rest of that first week flew! Next day the freshman class list was read, and fortunately it included all the girls at Mrs. Chapin’s. Then there were electives to choose, complicated schedules to see through, first recitations to find, books to buy or rent, rooms to arrange, and all sorts of bewildering odds and ends to attend to. Saturday came before any one was ready for it, bringing in its wake the freshman frolic, a jolly, informal dance in the gymnasium, at which the whole college appears, tagged with its name, and tries to get accustomed to the size of the entering class, preparatory to becoming acquainted with parts of it later on. To Betty’s great delight Dorothy King met her in the hall of the Administration Building the day before and asked permission to take her to the frolic. At the gymnasium Miss King turned her over to a bewildering succession of partners, who asked her the stereotyped questions about liking college, having a pleasant boarding-place, and so on, tried more or less effectively to lead her through the crowd to the rather erratic music of one piano, and assured her that the freshman frolic was not at all like the other college dances. They all seemed very pleasant, but Betty felt sure she should never know them again. Nevertheless she enjoyed it all immensely and was almost sorry when the frolic was over and they adjourned to Dorothy’s pretty single room in the Hilton House, where a few other upper-class girls had been invited to bring their freshmen for refreshments.
“Wasn’t it fun?” said Betty to a fluffy-haired, dainty little girl who sat next her on Dorothy’s couch.
“I don’t think I should call it exactly fun,” said the girl critically.
“Oh, I like meeting new people, and getting into a crowd of girls, and trying to dance with them,” explained Betty.
“Yes, I liked it too,” said the girl. She had an odd trick of lingering over the word she wished to distinguish. “I liked it because it was so queer. Everything’s queer here, particularly roommates. Do you have one?”
Betty nodded. “Well, mine never made up her bed in her life before, and first she thought she couldn’t, but her mother told her to take hold and see what a Madison could do with a bed–they’re awfully proud of their old family–so she did; but it looks dreadfully messy yet, and it makes her late for chapel every single morning. Is yours anything like that?”
Betty laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “She’s very orderly. Won’t you come and see us?”
The little freshman promised. By that time the “plowed field” was ready–an obliging friend had stayed at home from the frolic to give it an early start–and they ate the creamy brown squares of candy with a marshmallow stuffed into each, and praised the cook and her wares until a bell rang and everybody jumped up and began saying good-bye at once except Betty, who had to be enlightened by the campus girls as to the dire meaning of the twenty-minutes-to-ten bell.
“Don’t you keep the ten o’clock rule?” asked the fluffy-haired freshman curiously.
“Oh, yes,” said Betty. “Why, we couldn’t come to college if we didn’t, could we?” And she wondered why some of the girls laughed.
“I’ve had a beautiful time,” she said, when Miss King, who had come part way home with her, explained that she must turn back. “I hope that when I’m a junior I can do half as much for some little freshman as you have for me.”
“That’s a nice way to put it, Miss Wales,” said Dorothy. “But don’t wait till you’re a junior to begin.”
As Betty ran home, she reflected that she had not seen Helen dancing that evening. “Oh, Helen,” she called, as she dashed into the room, “wasn’t it fun? How many minutes before our light goes out? Do you know how to dance?”
Helen hesitated. “I–well–I know how, but I can’t do it in a crowd. It’s ten minutes of ten.”
“Teach you before the sophomore reception,” said Betty laconically, throwing a slipper into the closet with one hand and pulling out hairpins with the other. “What a pity that to-morrow’s Sunday. We shall have to wait a whole day to begin.”