GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE NEWSPAPER GIRL
"It was just this way," began Kathleen West, setting down her tea cup
and looking impressively from one girl to the other, "Long before I
graduated from high school I had made up my mind to go to college. Now
that I have passed my exams and have become a really truly freshman,
I'll tell you all about it."
Elfreda and Miriam were giving a tea party with Grace, Anne and Kathleen
West as their guests. It was a strictly informal tea and both hostesses
and guests sat on the floor in true Chinese fashion, kimono-clad and
comfortable. A week had passed since Kathleen's advent among them. She
had spent the greater part of that time either in study or in valiant
wrestling with the dreaded entrance examinations, but she had managed,
nevertheless, to drop into the girls' rooms at least once a day. In
spite of the almost unfavorable impression she had at first created, it
was impossible not to acknowledge that the newspaper girl possessed a
vividly interesting personality. As she sat wrapped in the folds of her
gray kimono, arms folded over her chest, she looked not unlike a
feminine Napoleon. Elfreda's quick eyes traced the resemblance.
"You look for all the world like Napoleon," she observed bluntly.
"Thank you," returned Kathleen with mock gratitude. "I can't imagine
Napoleon in a gray kimono at a tea party, but I feel imbued with a
certain amount of his ambition. By the way, would any of you like to
hear the rest of my story?" she asked impudently. "I'm rather fond of
telling it."
"Excuse me for interrupting," apologized Elfreda. "Go on, please."
"Where was I?" asked Kathleen. "Oh, yes, I remember. Well, as soon as I
had fully determined to go to college, I began to save every penny on
which I could honestly lay hands. I went without most of the school-girl
luxuries that count for so much just at that time. You girls know what I
mean. Mother and Father didn't wish me to go to college. They planned a
course in stenography and typewriting for me after I should finish high
school, and when I pleaded for college they were angry and disappointed.
They argued, too, that they couldn't possibly afford to send me there.
As soon as I saw that I was going to have trouble with them, I kept my
own counsel, but I was more determined than ever to do as I pleased. At
the beginning of the vacation before my senior year in high school I
went to the only daily paper in our town and asked for work. The editor,
who had known me since I was a baby, gave me a chance. Father and Mother
made no objection to that. They thought it was merely a whim on my part.
But it wasn't a whim, as they found out later, for I wrote stuff for the
paper during my senior year, too, and when I did graduate I turned the
house upside down by getting a position on a newspaper in a big city.
Father and Mother forgave me after awhile, but not until I had been at
work on the other paper for a year.
"At first I did society, then clubs, went back to society again, and at
last my opportunity came to do general reporting. I was the only woman
on the staff who had a chance to go after the big stories. I have been
doing that only the last two years, though.
"Naturally, I made more money on the paper than I would as a
stenographer. I saved it, too. It was ever so much harder to hang on to
it in the city. There were so many more ways to spend it. But I kept on
putting it away, and, now, by going back on the paper every summer, I
will have enough to see me through college."
"But why do you wish so much for a college education when you are
already successful as a newspaper woman?" asked Elfreda.
"Because I want to be an author, or an editor, or somebody of importance
in the literary world, and I need these four years at college. Besides,
it's a good thing to bear the college stamp if one expects always to be
before the public," was the prompt retort.
"Suppose you were to find afterward that you weren't going to be before
the public," said Elfreda almost mischievously.
"But I shall be," persisted Kathleen, setting her jaws with a little
snap. "I always accomplish whatever I set out to do. On the paper they
used to say, 'Kathleen would sacrifice her best friend if by doing it
she could scoop the other papers.'"
"What do you mean by 'scoop the other papers'?" queried Elfreda
interestedly.
"Why, to get ahead of them with a story," explained Kathleen. "Suppose I
found out an important piece of news that no one else knew. If I gave it
to my paper and it appeared in it before any other newspaper got hold of
it then that would be a scoop."
"Oh, yes, I see," returned Elfreda. "Then a scoop might be news about
anything."
"Exactly," nodded Kathleen. "The harder the news is to get, the better
story it makes. People won't tell one anything, and when one does find
out something startling, then there are always a few persons who make a
fuss and try to keep the story out of the paper. They generally have
such splendid excuses for not wanting a story published. I never paid
any attention to them, though. I turned in every story I ever ran down,"
she concluded, her small face setting in harsh lines.
"But didn't that make some of the people about whom the stories were
written very unhappy?" asked Miriam pointedly.
"I suppose so," answered Kathleen. "But I never stopped to bother about
them. I had to think of myself and of my paper."
"How long have you known Mabel Ashe?" asked Grace, abruptly changing the
subject. Something in the cold indifference of Kathleen's voice jarred
on her.
"Just since she appeared on the paper," returned Kathleen unconcernedly.
"She is very pretty, isn't she? But prettiness alone doesn't count for
much on a newspaper. Can she make good? That is the question. She
imagines that journalism is her vocation, but I am afraid she is going
to be sadly disillusioned. She seems to be a clever girl, though."
"Clever," repeated Grace with peculiar emphasis. "She is the cleverest
girl we know. While she was at Overton, she was the life of the college.
Everyone loved her. I can't begin to tell you how much we miss her."
"It's very nice to be missed, I am sure," said Kathleen hastily,
retreating from what appeared to be dangerous ground. "I hope I shall be
eulogized when I have graduated from Overton."
"That will depend largely on your behavior as a freshman," drawled
Elfreda.
"What do you mean?" asked Kathleen sharply. "I thought freshmen were of
the least importance in college."
"So they are to the other classes," returned Elfreda. "They are of the
greatest importance to themselves, however, and if they make false
starts during their freshman year it is likely to handicap them through
the other three."
"Much obliged for the information," declared Kathleen flippantly. "I'll
try not to make any false starts. Good gracious! It is half-past ten. I
had no idea it was so late. I've had a lovely time at your tea party.
I'm going to send out invitations for a social gathering before long."
She rose lazily to her feet, and carefully set her cup on the table. "I
suppose Miss Ainslee will be sound asleep," she remarked, yawning.
"Lighting the gas will awaken her and she will be cross. She goes to bed
with the chickens."
"Don't light it, then," suggested Grace. "You can see to undress with
the blind up. There is full moon to-night."
"Why shouldn't I light it?" asked Kathleen. "Half of the room is mine. I
wouldn't grumble if the case were reversed. She will soon grow used to
the light. I intend occasionally to read or study after hours. Don't
tell me it is against the rules. I know it. But circumstances, etc. I'll
see you to-morrow. I wish I were a junior. The freshmen I have met so
far are regular babies. I'm going to study hard next summer and see if I
can't pass up the sophomore year. There is nothing like having a modest
ambition, you know."
With this satirical comment the newspaper girl nodded a pert good night
and left the room.
No one spoke after she had gone.
"I must go to bed," said Grace, breaking the significant silence that
had fallen on the quartette. "Come, Anne, it's twenty minutes to eleven.
Good night, girls."
"What do you think of Miss West, Anne?" asked Grace a little later as
they were preparing to retire.
"I don't like to say," returned Anne slowly. "She's remarkably
bright--" Anne paused. Her eyes met Grace's.
"I know," nodded Grace understandingly. "We will try to keep a starboard
eye on her. She is going to find college very different from being a
newspaper woman." Grace smiled faintly. The word "woman," as applied to
Kathleen West, seemed wholly amusing.
"I don't think she showed particularly good taste in speaking as she did
of Mabel Ashe," criticized Anne, a moment later. "I didn't intend to say
that, but I might as well be perfectly frank with you, Grace."
"I was sorry she spoke as she did, too," agreed Grace. She did not add
that the newspaper girl's half slighting remarks about Mabel Ashe still
rankled in her loyal soul. It was chiefly to please Mabel that she and
her friends had hospitably received this stranger into their midst,
prepared to do whatever lay within their power to make her feel at home
with them. And she had dared to speak almost disparagingly of the girl
who was beloved by every student in Overton who knew her. In spite of
her resolution to keep a "starboard eye" on the freshman, Grace felt
infinitely more like leaving the ungrateful freshman to shift for
herself.
"Well, what about her?" Elfreda asked bluntly of Miriam, as she piled
the tea cups one inside the other.
"What about who?" returned Miriam tantalizingly.
"You know very well" declared Elfreda; "but, if I must be explicit, what
do you think of Miss West now?"
"What do you think?" counter-questioned Miriam.
"I think she has more to learn than I had when I came here," said
Elfreda speculatively, "and unless I am very much mistaken it will take
her longer to learn it."