Читать книгу Betty Wales, Junior - Edith K. Dunton - Страница 8

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Quite by accident Roberta Lewis was the first person to whom Madeline confided the story of Georgia Ames. Roberta happened to pass through the hall just as Madeline came back from getting some corrected English themes, among them two of Georgia’s, with very flattering comments from Dr. Eaton; and finding the story too good to keep, she called Roberta in to share it. She could not have chosen a more appreciative confidante.

“I never heard anything so nice,” declared Roberta, eagerly. “How did you ever think of doing it?”

Madeline gave a characteristic shrug of indifference. “Oh, I just happened to.”

“And doesn’t any one else know about her?”

“No one else.”

“What a lovely secret to be in! Are you ever going to tell Dr. Eaton?”

“Perhaps I may some time, or I may let it run along until midyears. Of course he’s bound to find out then that there’s no such person, for he’ll have to send his lists to the registrar’s office and there’s no fooling Miss Stuart. I thought it might be amusing to keep quiet till then, and see how he’d take it.”

Roberta looked disappointed. “Then Georgia Ames can only live till midyears. Well,” she added, brightening, “there’s a lot of time left before that, and, since she can’t live long, you must make her live fast, Madeline. Why, I can think of hundreds of lovely things you might do with her!”

“I know it,” said Madeline. “She certainly has splendid possibilities. Don’t you remember our talk about second selves? But you see I’ve rather lost interest in her, because I’m so dreadfully busy. Betty was right about second selves being more bother than help. I really haven’t the leisure to manage Georgia.”

“Oh, dear, what a splendid time you must have!” sighed Roberta. “I can’t imagine being too busy to manage a second self.”

Madeline laughed. “Oh, I’m not so particularly lucky,” she said, “except in being born easily amused. That’s one of the advantages of being born in Bohemia. But I’m afraid I’m fickle. It’s always ‘the last the best’ with me, and just now ‘the last’ is mushrooms. I’m studying them with Miss Stevens,—the new botany assistant, you know,—and they’re fascinating, not to mention their being very good to eat. I’m going to give a mushroom party next week for ‘The Merry Hearts.’ I’d thought of turning Georgia over to them, too.”

“What fun!” laughed Roberta. “You mean you’re going to let her join and be one of us?”

Madeline nodded. “If Bob Parker doesn’t black-ball her. Bob’s rather exclusive.”

“Oh, but she’ll never black-ball Georgia,” declared Roberta, earnestly. “Such a distinguished—what class does she belong to, Madeline?”

Madeline considered. “Freshman, I should say, with a little work passed up, so as to account for her taking some upper-class studies. If she weren’t a freshman she’d seem like a nonentity, wouldn’t she, as she isn’t known at all yet?”

“And as a matter of fact,” laughed Roberta, “she’s as far as possible from being a nonentity. She’s the prod. who’s succeeded in exciting the wonderful Dr. Eaton. And in general she’s very literary.”

“Very,” agreed Madeline gravely. “In fact pen and paper are the very essence of her being.”

“Madeline,” asked Roberta after a little pause, “are you going to let ‘The Merry Hearts’ use Georgia themselves, or are you just going to tell them about her? Because I should like to use her once before you’ve told the others. I’ve thought of a lovely way, only, if Mary Brooks knew about her, it wouldn’t work.”

“Go ahead,” said Madeline briefly. “If I’ve invented something that can be used to tease Mary Brooks, I shall feel like a public benefactor. Georgia is yours till further notice.”

A day or two later Betty, Madeline, Katherine and Helen were in Roberta’s room eating fudge and discussing the forthcoming junior elections. Rachel Morrison was being discussed for class president, and the question before the house was: Should her friends push her now or should they advise keeping her for the greater honor of the senior presidency? It was a difficult question, and not half the pros and cons had been set forth when Mary Brooks knocked on the door.

“Roberta,” she said, surveying the assembly with stern disapproval, “are you having a fudge party?”

“This isn’t a party,” corrected Katherine. “It’s only a political meeting.”

“I see,” said Mary, appropriating the Morris chair and the fudge pan. “What’s up?”

The girls explained.

“Don’t save her,” advised Mary. “Don’t save any one. It’s dangerous. Just look at me; I’ve been saved for president—ever since freshman year. I wasn’t quite dignified enough then, and I wasn’t quite pretty enough for sophomore year. Junior year I didn’t want it, because chairman of the prom. committee is so much more fun; and now it’s decreed that I must manage the senior play.”

“And the ‘Argus,’” added Betty. “I shouldn’t think you’d been saved, Mary. I should think you’d been pretty thoroughly used up.”

“Well, put it as you like,” said Mary modestly. “I’ve done quite a bit of work in my time, I suppose. But your speaking of the ‘Argus,’ Betty, reminds me of something. Do any of you know a girl named Georgia Ames?”

“Never heard of her,” said Katherine promptly.

“Nor I,” added Betty.

“Nor I,” chimed in Helen, who prided herself on knowing everybody that no one else knew. “Which class is she?”

Mary shook her head. “I haven’t the least idea.”

Madeline was sitting on the couch between Roberta and Betty. At a violent nudge from Roberta she came out of a brown study and entered the conversation. “What did you say, Mary?” she asked.

Mary repeated her question.

“Oh, I know her,” said Madeline, with a fine assumption of indifference. “She’s a freshman, I believe.”

“Yes, she is,” chimed in Roberta, following Madeline’s lead. “I remember the name now.”

“But doesn’t she take some upper-class work, Roberta?” asked Madeline, elaborately avoiding Roberta’s eye. “I’m sure she’s in something with me.”

“English Essayists, isn’t it?” suggested Roberta cautiously.

“Oh, no, it can’t be that,” objected Betty. “I’m in your division, and I know every girl in the class. I should have noticed her.”

“Perhaps she cuts a lot,” suggested Mary. “They say Dr. Eaton never calls the roll.”

“She couldn’t do that with all the ten-minute tests,” argued Betty. “He doesn’t generally call the roll, but he’s liable to spring one of those tests any time, so it’s not safe to cut very much.”

“Georgia Ames doesn’t cut,” said Madeline decidedly, “and if she isn’t in ‘Essayists’ she must be in some other junior English course. Just the other day when I was getting back my themes I noticed two of hers in the junior box.”

“GEORGIA AMES DOESN’T CUT,” SAID MADELINE

“You did!” exclaimed Helen Adams eagerly. “How funny! Because I met you just as you were going off with your papers, and when I looked only mine and Betty’s were left in the pile.”

“Then probably I mixed them with some other class’s,” said Madeline coolly. “I’m awfully careless when I go to get papers. I’ll look them up and give them to her.”

“She’ll be more than glad to get them, I guess,” ventured Roberta, “because Professor Eaton puts such nice things on her work. I saw one of her ten-minute themes, and the comment was awfully flattering,—all about clever phrasing and original thought.”

“It was!” said Mary, sitting up suddenly and surrendering the fudge pan to Betty. “I’m so relieved! My department in the ‘Argus’ isn’t half made up for this month, and perhaps she’ll help me out.”

“How did you hear of her?” asked Helen curiously. She was very much interested in the workings of the “Argus,” board, though she would not have admitted it, even to Betty.

“Oh, I didn’t hear of her,” answered Mary. “She put a theme on the bulletin board for me. You know the grand new policy of the ‘Argus’ is to solicit as little material as possible, but to ask people to send things to us, instead. Have you seen our big new sign on the societies’ bulletin board? It was Miss Mills’s idea. She thought it would bring out a lot of new talent, and make the ‘Argus’ more representative and democratic. It’s a splendid theory, but about this time in the month, when the printer is clamoring for copy, we have to drop our theories and apply to the same old standbys. It’s queer how the people who want to write are generally just the people who can’t.”

“But apparently there are exceptions,” objected Betty. “Miss Ames—is that her name?—wants to write, or else she wouldn’t have sent you her theme; and she can write, or Dr. Eaton wouldn’t think so. I suppose you know that he’s awfully hard to suit.”

“Well, I hope I can use her kind contribution,” said Mary, rising. “The note she sent with it was rather silly, I thought.”

On her way to dinner Madeline overtook Mary on the stairs. “How was it?” she inquired.

“How was what?“ asked Mary.

“Georgia’s theme.”

“It was hopeless—perfectly hopeless,” declared Mary savagely. “How Dr. Eaton can see anything in her work is more than I can understand. Oh, dear, you know her, don’t you? I hope she isn’t a particular friend.”

“Oh, no,” laughed Madeline, “only a sort of protégée. Besides, what is the use of mincing matters? I hope you’ll tell her frankly what you think of her literary aspirations.”

“I’ve already written to her,” explained Mary, “and I’m afraid I wasn’t exactly frank. Don’t you think it’s easy to make a mistake in such matters, when you don’t know the girl? She might be timid and easily discouraged——”

“She isn’t,” put in Madeline.

“Well, anyhow she may not be a good judge of her own work, and may have sent me the worst when she meant to send the best. So I just told her that her contribution didn’t exactly meet our needs. It was poetry, Madeline. Fancy a ‘Song of Sleep’ by a freshman! I said I was sorry, but we had a lot of verse on hand (we have, you know, but it’s all Marion Lustig’s, and we can’t run her in every single month), and I advised her to try prose next time. I said I thought it would suit her style better, and that I hoped to hear from her again soon.”

“Very sweet,” said Madeline, “but I have an idea that Georgia may see through it.”

“Oh, no, she won’t,” declared Mary. “You have no idea how easy it is to take people in, especially freshmen. By the way, Madeline, where does Miss Ames live?”

Madeline hesitated. “Why, I really don’t know,” she said. “Where do freshmen live this year? She’s in one of the big off-campus houses, I suppose. You’d better ask Roberta.”

But Roberta hadn’t the least idea where Miss Ames lived. “I know her awfully well,” she said, “because she’s about the best friend of a friend of mine; but I haven’t got around to call yet. Perhaps I could find out for you, Mary.”

“Oh, it’s no matter,” Mary assured her. “I can just put the bundle on the bulletin board with her class on it; but I thought it would look friendly and interested to put on the address.”

“Georgia wouldn’t care a bit about that,” declared Roberta. “She never notices little things. She’s rather dense, I think.”

“You do?” interposed Madeline indignantly. “Now I’ve found her quite the reverse,—and very interesting,—the little I’ve seen of her.”

“Well, she can’t write,” said Mary with decision, and being extremely near-sighted she missed the rapturous exchange of glances that passed between the two conspirators.

A week later “The Merry Hearts” were in Betty’s room, celebrating Rachel’s election to the class presidency. They had taken Mary’s advice and decided to let senior year shift for itself. Mary had sent word that she couldn’t get around until late in the evening. Her own sketch department in the “Argus” was made up, but the literary editor still needed a “semi-heavy” (which is the Harding editors’ slang for a light essay); and, in return for many similar favors, Mary had joined her in a house-to-house canvas for an available argumentative or a Carlyle paper. It was nine o’clock when she arrived at the presidential spread.

“Did you find it?” asked Betty, taking her wraps.

Mary nodded. “Such as it is. I wanted to give up and use a story, but Nora said it wouldn’t do at all; every exchange from Boston to San Francisco would have an article about the frothy foam that the Harding ‘Argus’ was printing. Roberta, you know you can write. Why don’t you do us some essays? They are a lot easier to write than stories. You just have to look up your subject and think of a clever beginning and a few sketchy sentences that Dr. Eaton would call suggestive because they don’t mean anything in particular. I can’t see why more of the literary crowd doesn’t go in for essays.”

“You ought to have recommended essays to Georgia Ames,” said Madeline, with a polite smile in Roberta’s direction. Roberta had told her a day or two before that Georgia had “tried prose,” but she had not heard the result of the second venture.

“Recommended essays to Georgia Ames!” repeated Mary wearily. “No, Madeline, I don’t believe she could even do an essay. I ought to have taken your advice and told her plainly that she couldn’t write.”

“Has she bobbed up again?” asked Katherine.

“Yes, with a story—novelette you might call it, for it’s desperately long. I brought it with me, so that Madeline and Roberta can see what atrocities their clever young friend is guilty of.”

Sudden terror froze Roberta into speechless immobility, and she sank helplessly back against the couch pillows, while Madeline, shrieking with glee, demanded the whereabouts of the manuscript, and drew it triumphantly from Mary’s ulster pocket.

“Why not read it aloud?” asked Katherine. “It isn’t time to eat yet, and we’ve congratulated Rachel until she’s tired.”

“Great idea!” assented Babe. “I love footless stories. Bob always reads me the ones she writes.”

“Does Bob write stories?” cried Katherine. “I say, Bob——”

“You wretch,” cried Bob, falling upon her accuser with the violence born of much basket-ball practice. “Footless stories indeed! You’ll never hear another.”

In the heat of the fray it was some time before “The Merry Hearts” discovered that a double battle was going on in their midst. While Bob pummeled Babe, Roberta was frantically trying to wrench Georgia’s story from Madeline’s firm grasp.

“What in the world are you doing, Roberta?” demanded Mary. “You can read it to us, if you’d rather. I know Madeline’s voice is bad.”

“I think it’s a shame,” cried Roberta hotly, blushing and making strange gestures in Madeline’s direction.

“What’s a shame?” asked Betty in perplexity.

“Why—why—reading my—reading Georgia’s story aloud and—laughing at it.” Roberta looked ready to cry.

“I think so too,” declared Betty, uncomprehending but sympathetic. “How she would feel if she knew! Truly, Mary, I don’t wonder that people don’t contribute to the ‘Argus,’ if you editors show their themes around like this.”

“You’re right, Betty,” said Mary soberly, looking really troubled and reaching for the manuscript. “It was very thoughtless of me to consent to such a thing, and I’m heartily ashamed. Girls, will you please promise not to mention this to any one? And Betty, this isn’t the way the editors treat the unsolicited contributions. Nora Carleton is lovely about them, trying to see good in them all, going to call on some of the girls, and asking Miss Mills and Miss Raymond to try to give them a start. Oh, it’s not the ‘Argus’ editors who act this way; it’s just horrid, thoughtless me.” Mary’s rare fit of contrition had taken a serious hold upon her.

But Madeline had suffered too much from Mary to have any mercy upon her now.

“Don’t be sentimental, Mary,” she said, “and give me back that paper. I won’t read it aloud—honor bright.”

Mary shook her head. “No, and”—her voice quivered—“I don’t think you ought to have asked, Madeline.”

“Don’t you?” asked Madeline coolly. “Well, I presume I haven’t a very high code of honor, but, leaving that aside for the moment, I know Georgia, and I’m sure that she’d be pleased and proud to have one of her stories read aloud at a select gathering of juniors like this. And as for my seeing it, I’ve seen every word that Georgia has written this year excepting this story and the poem she sent you before.”

“Well then,” began Mary, obviously weakened by Madeline’s calm argument, “I suppose there wouldn’t be any great harm in your reading it. But you’d better wait and let her show it to you herself.”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Roberta, finding her voice again. She would almost as soon have had her story read aloud as subjected to Madeline’s cool, merciless laughter. “I think the meanest thing of all is to show a girl’s best friends how silly she is,” concluded Roberta fiercely.

“Roberta,” said Madeline with mock solemnity, “aren’t you forgetting what Georgia owes to me?”

Roberta’s sense of justice was very strong. She hesitated an instant, then submitted to the propriety of Madeline’s claim. “Yes, Madeline,” she said, “I forgot. I know—that is, it’s all right for Madeline to see it, Mary. I shouldn’t say so if I weren’t sure.”

Madeline retired triumphantly to a corner with the manuscript, of which she meant to read just enough to tease Roberta about later; and Betty, who felt that the presidential spread was being too much engrossed with the affairs of an obscure freshman, turned the thoughts of “The Merry Hearts” into safer channels.

But Mary’s pensive melancholy persisted, in spite of Katherine’s raillery and Roberta’s kindly attentions. Mary took much satisfaction in being what she called “a scholar and a gentleman.” She was very proud of her place on the “Argus” board, and even prouder of the consideration paid her by her “little friends,” as she dubbed the rest of “The Merry Hearts.” Now she felt that she had forfeited their respect, and at the same time played false to the trust which an “Argus” editorship involved. She did no justice to the creamy marsh-mallow fudge, took no part in the gay banter that gives the Harding spread its peculiar charm. And Roberta watched her with growing compunction. Mary was her idol. She had meant to win her point, but she had never contemplated hurting Mary’s feelings. She stood it as long as she could, then strolled casually over to Madeline’s corner, and the two held a whispered conference.

Madeline listened, laughed, and swept the story into a neat pile. With it in one hand and arm in arm with Roberta, she advanced to Mary’s seat.

“Allow me,” she said with a low bow, “to present you with this rejected manuscript (which, by the way, Roberta, is stunningly good in spots), and also with a busted bubble, namely, Roberta Lewis’s literary career.”

“Yes,” put in Roberta eagerly. “Now I hope you’ll stop telling me to write. That’s my story, and the ‘Song of Sleep’ was mine too.”

“Really!” Mary’s surprise fairly overwhelmed her. “I—I can’t believe it.”

“So it wasn’t any matter about your offering to let us read it. That is, I mean I deserved to have you,” added Roberta, cheerfully intent on making her sacrifice complete.

“Here Roberta, be careful,” cried Madeline. “You’re letting her off too easily. Come on, girls, and help me to rub it in.”

“The Merry Hearts” did not cease to “rub it in” on all occasions, convenient or otherwise, as long as Mary stayed at Harding College.