Читать книгу Betty Wales, Freshman - Dunton Edith Kellogg - Страница 6

Betty was cross and “just a tiny speck homesick,” so she confided to the green lizard. Nothing interesting had happened since she could remember, and it had rained steadily for four days. Mr. Parsons, who played right tackle on the Winsted team, had written that he was laid up with a lame shoulder, which, greatly to his regret, would prevent his taking Betty to his fraternity dance. Helen was toiling on a “lit.” paper with a zealous industry which got her up at distressingly early hours in the morning, and was “enough to mad a saint,” according to her exasperated roommate, whose own brief effusion on the same subject had been hastily composed in one evening and lay neatly copied in her desk, ready to be handed in at the proper time. Moreover, “gym” had begun and Betty had had the misfortune to be assigned to a class that came right in the middle of the afternoon.

“It’s a shame,” she grumbled, fishing out her fountain pen which had fallen off her desk and rolled under the bureau. “I shall change my lit. to afternoon–that’s only two afternoons spoiled instead of four–and then tell Miss Andrews that I have a conflict. Haven’t you finished that everlasting paper?”

“No,” said Helen meekly. “I’m sorry that I’m so slow. I’ll go out if you want to have the girls in here.”

“Oh no,” called Betty savagely, dashing out into the hall. Eleanor’s door was ornamented with a large sign which read, “Busy. Don’t disturb.” But the door was half-way open, and in the dusky room, lighted, as Eleanor liked to have it, by candles in old-fashioned brass sticks, Eleanor sat on a pile of cushions in the corner, strumming softly on her guitar.

“Come in,” she called. “I put that up in case I wanted to study later. Finished your lit. paper?”

Betty nodded. “It’s awfully short.”

“I’m going to do mine to-night–that and a little matter of Livy and French and–let me see–Bible–no, elocution.”

“Can you?” asked Betty admiringly.

“I’m not sure till I’ve tried. I’ve been meditating asking your roommate to do the paper. Would you?”

“No,” said Betty so emphatically that Eleanor stopped playing and looked at her curiously.

“Why not? Do you think it’s wrong to exchange her industry for my dollars?”

Betty considered. She still admired Eleanor, but she had learned her limitations. Her beauty wove a spell about all that she did, and she was very clever and phenomenally quick when she cared to apply herself. But she cared so seldom, roused herself only when she could gain prestige, when there was something to manipulate, to manage. And apparently she was not even to be trusted. Still, what was the use of quarreling with her about honor and fair play? To Betty in her present mood it seemed a mere waste of time and energy.

“Well, for one reason,” she said at last, “Helen hasn’t her own paper done yet, and for another I don’t think she writes as well as you probably do;” and she rose to go.

“That was a joke, Bettina,” Eleanor called after her. “I am truly going to work now–this very instant. Come back at ten and have black coffee with me.”

Betty went on without answering to Rachel’s room. “Come in,” chorused three cheerful voices.

“No, go get your lit. paper first. We’re reading choice selections,” added Katherine.

“She means she is,” corrected Rachel, handing Betty a pillow. “You look cross, Betty.”

“I am,” said Betty savagely, recounting a few of her woes. “What can we do? I came to be amused.”

“In a Miracle play of this type – ” began Katherine, and stopped to dodge a pillow. “But it is amusing, Betty.”

“I’m afraid it will amuse Miss Mills, if the rest is anything like what you read,” said Rachel with a reminiscent smile. “What are you doing, Roberta?”

“Writing home,” drawled Roberta, without looking up from her paper.

“Well, you needn’t shake your fountain pen over me, if you are,” said Katherine. “I also owe my honored parents a letter, but I’ve about made up my mind never to write to them again. Listen to this, will you.” She rummaged in her desk for a minute. “Here it is.

“‘My dear daughter’–he only begins that way when he’s fussed. I always know how he’s feeling when I see whether it’s ‘daughter’ or ‘K.’ ‘My dear daughter:–Your interesting letter of the 12th inst. was received and I enclose a check, which I hope will last for some weeks.’ (“I’m sorry to say it’s nearly gone already,” interpolated Katherine.) “‘Your mother and I enjoyed the account of the dance you attended in the gymnasium, of the candy pull which Mrs. Chapin so kindly arranged for her roomers, and the game of hockey that ended so disastrously for one of your friends. We are glad that you attended the Morality play of “Everyman,” though we are at a loss to know what you mean by the “peanut gallery.” However it occurs to us that with your afternoon gymnasium class, your recitations, which, as I understand it, fully engage your mornings, and all these diversions in one week, you could have spent but little time in the study of your lessons. Do not forget that these years should be devoted to a serious preparation for the multifarious duties of life, and do not neglect the rich opportunities which I am proud to be able to give you. The Wetherbees have – ’ Oh well, the rest of it is just Kankakee news,” said Katherine, folding the letter and putting it back in her desk. “But isn’t that first bit lovely? Why, I racked my brain till it ached, positively ached, thinking of interesting things to say in that letter, and now because I didn’t mention that I’d worked three solid hours on my German every day that week and stood in line at the library for an hour to get hold of Bryce’s American Commonwealth, I receive this pathetic appeal to my better self.”

“How poetic you’re getting,” laughed Betty. “Do you know it’s awfully funny, but I got a letter something like that too. Only mine was from Nan, and it just said she hoped I was remembering to avoid low grades and conditions, as they were a great bother. She said she wanted me to have a good time, but as there would be even more to do when I got on the campus, I ought not to fall into the habit of neglecting my work this year.”

“Mine was from Aunt Susan,” chimed in Rachel. “She said she didn’t see when I could do any studying except late at night, and she hoped I wasn’t being so foolish as to undermine my health and ruin my complexion for the sake of a few girlish pleasures. Isn’t that nice–girlish pleasures? She put in a five dollar bill, though I couldn’t see why she should, considering her sentiments.”

Roberta put the cap on to her fountain pen and propped it carefully against an adjacent pillow. “I’ve just answered mine,” she said, sorting the sheets in her lap with a satisfied smile.

“Did you get one, too? What did you say?” demanded Betty.

“The whole truth,” replied Roberta languidly. “It took eight pages and I hope he’ll enjoy it.”

“I say,” cried Katherine excitedly. “That’s a great idea. Let’s try it.”

“And read them to one another afterward,” added Rachel. “They might be more entertaining than your lit. paper.”

“May I borrow some paper?” asked Betty. “I’m hoping Helen will finish to-night if I let her alone.”

Roberta helped herself to a book from the shelves and an apple from the table, and the rest settled themselves to their epistolary labors. Except for the scratching of Betty’s pen, and an occasional exclamation of pleasure or perplexity from one of the scribes, the room was perfectly still. Betty had just asked for an envelope and Katherine was numbering her pages when Mary Brooks knocked at the door.

“What on earth are you girls doing?” she inquired blandly, selecting the biggest apple in the dish and appropriating the Morris chair, which Katherine had temporarily vacated. “I haven’t heard a sound in here since nine o’clock. I began to think that Helen had come in and blown out the gas again by mistake and you were all asphyxiated.”

Everybody laughed at the remembrance of a recent occasion when Helen had absent-mindedly blown out the gas while Betty was saying her prayers.

“It wasn’t so funny at the time,” said Betty ruefully. “Suppose she’d gone to sleep without remembering. We’ve been writing home, Mary,” she said, turning to the newcomer, “and now we’re going to read the letters, and we’ve got to hurry, for it’s almost ten. Roberta, you begin.”

“Oh no,” said Roberta, looking distressed.

“I wish somebody would tell me what this is all about first,” put in Mary. Rachel explained, while Katherine and Betty persuaded Roberta to read her letter.

“It isn’t fair,” she protested, “when I wrote a real letter and you others were just doing it for fun.”

“Go on, Roberta!” commanded Mary, and Roberta in sheer desperation seized her letter and began to read.

“Dear Papa:–I have been studying hard all the evening and it is now nearly bedtime, but I can at least begin a letter to you. To-day has been the fourth rainy day in succession and we have thoroughly appreciated the splendid opportunity for uninterrupted work. Yesterday morning–I think enough has happened in these two days to fill my letter–I was up at seven as usual. I stuck a selection from Browning into my mirror, as it was the basis of our elocution lesson, and nearly learned it while I dressed. Before chapel I completed my geometry preparation. This was fortunate, as I was called on to recite, the sixth proposition in book third being my assignment. The next hour I had no recitation, so I went to the library to do some reference work for my English class. Ten girls were already waiting for the same volume of the Century Dictionary that I wanted, so I couldn’t get hold of it till nearly the end of the hour. I spent the intervening time on the Browning. I had Livy the next hour and was called on to translate. As I had spent several hours on the lesson the day before, I could do so. After the elocution recitation I went home to lunch. At quarter before two I began studying my history. At quarter before four I started for the gymnasium. At five I went to a tea which one of the girls was giving for her mother, so I felt obliged to go. I stayed only half an hour and cannot remember how I spent the half hour till dinner, so I presume it was wasted. I am afraid I am too much given to describing such unimportant pauses in the day’s occupation and magnifying their length and the frivolous pleasure which we thoughtlessly derive from them.

“In the evening – Oh it all goes on like that,” cried Roberta. “Just dull and stuffy and true to the facts. Some one else read.”

“It’s convincing,” chuckled Mary. “Now Katherine.”

Katherine’s letter was an absurd mixture of sense and nonsense, in which she proved that she studied at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Rachel’s was a sensible explanation of just how much time, or rather how little, a spread, a dance or a basket-ball game takes.

“That’s what they don’t understand,” she said, “and they don’t know either how fast we can go from one thing to another up here. Why, energy is in the air!”

Betty’s letter, like her literature paper, was extremely short. “I couldn’t think of much to say, if I told the truth,” she explained, blushing. “I don’t suppose I do study as much as I ought.”

Mary had listened with an air of respectful attention to all the letters. When the last one was finished she rose hastily. “I must go back,” she said. “I have a theme to write. I only dropped in to ask if that famous spread wasn’t coming off soon.”

“Oh, yes,” said Betty. “Let’s have it next week Wednesday. Is anything else going on then? I’ll ask Eleanor and you see the Riches and Helen.”

A few days later Mary appeared at the lunch table fairly bursting with importance. “Well,” she said, beaming around the table. “What do you suppose has happened now? Really, Mrs. Chapin, you ought to be proud of us. We began to be famous before college opened – ”

“What?” interrupted Eleanor.

“Is it possible you didn’t know that?” inquired Mary. “Well, it’s true nevertheless. And we were the heroines of Mountain Day, and now we’re famous again.”

“How?” demanded the table in a chorus.

Mary smiled enigmatically. “This time it is a literary sensation,” she said.

“Is it Helen’s paper?” hazarded Betty.

“Mine, of course,” said Katherine. “Strange Miss Mills didn’t mention it this morning when I met her at Cuyler’s.”

Mary waited until it was quiet again. “If you’ve quite finished guessing,” she said, “I’ll tell you. You remember the evening when I found four of you in Rachel and Katherine’s room writing deceitful letters to your fond parents. Well, I had been racking my brains for weeks for a pleasing and original theme subject. You know you are supposed to spend two hours a week on this theme course, and I had spent two hours for four weeks in just thinking what to write. I’m not sure whether that counts at all and I didn’t like to ask–it would have been so conspicuous. So I was in despair when I chanced upon your happy gathering and was saved. Miss Raymond read it in class to-day,” concluded Mary triumphantly.

“You didn’t put us into it–our letters!” gasped Roberta.

“Indeed I did,” said Mary. “I put them all in, as nearly as I could remember them, and Miss Raymond read it in class, and made all sorts of clever comments about college customs and ideals and so on. I felt guilty, because I never had anything read before, and of course I didn’t exactly write this because the letters were the main part of it. So after class I waited for Miss Raymond and explained how it was. She laughed and said that she was glad I had an eye for good material and that she supposed all authors made more or less use of their acquaintance, and when I went off she actually asked me to come and see her. My junior friends are hoping it will pull me into a society and I’m hoping it will avert a condition.”

“Where is the theme?” asked Eleanor. “Won’t you read it to us?”

“It’s–why, I forgot the very best part of the whole story. Sallie Hill has it for the ‘Argus.’ She’s the literary editor, you know, and she wants it for the next number. So you see you are famous.

“Why don’t some of you elect this work?” asked Mary, when the excitement had somewhat subsided. “It’s open to freshmen, and it’s really great fun.”

“I thought you said that you spent eight hours and were in despair – ” began Eleanor.

“So I was,” said Mary. “I declare I’d forgotten that. Well, anyhow I’m sure I shan’t have any trouble now. I think I’ve learned how to go at it. Why, do you know, girls, I have an idea already. Not for a theme–something else. It concerns all of you–or most of you anyway.”

“I should think you’d made enough use of us for the present,” said Betty. “Why don’t you try to make a few sophomores famous?”

“Oh it doesn’t concern you that way. You are to – Oh wait till I get it started,” said Mary vaguely; and absolutely refused to be more explicit.