WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FROLIC
“Hello, Jewel,” Leslie calmly greeted after a quick glance at the
freshman’s anger-dark features.
Without answering the angry girl dashed across the room to her couch
bed, flinging herself upon it. Her doubled fists began beating an
enraged tattoo upon the pillows, to which her slippered feet kicked
themselves in time upon the couch cover. “Oh, oh, oh!” she repeatedly
ejaculated in rage-thickened tones. “I’ll never forgive her! Oh, oh,
oh!”
The trio of silent spectators to the freshman’s gust of anger could not
but exchange significant glances. Into the mind of each had sprung the
question: “Had the blow, which Leslie had anticipated, fallen already?”
“Let us go into my room,” Leila proposed tactfully, rising from her
chair as she spoke.
“We’ll wait for you there, Leslie.” Marjorie was already following Leila
to the door.
“Go ahead.” Leslie’s dark brows raised themselves in indicative despair.
“I’ll join you presently.”
“I’m wondering if the prophecy has come true so soon,” were Leila’s
first words as they shut themselves into her room. “Sit down, Beauty,
and be at home.” Abruptly she dropped into a chair and burst into
laughter.
“Never think that I am making a mock of misfortune,” she said presently,
a mirthful quiver in her tones. “I’m still thinking of the amazing
bounce that midget made into the room. It might well have been that of a
circus performer. She little knows the honor in store for her. It seems
I have found a star for my play ‘The Leprachaun’ and that without the
trouble of seeking.”
“You are a funny old dear, Leila Harper,” Marjorie, girl-like, could not
do other than laugh with Leila. “Something harrowing must have happened
to Miss Ogden at the frolic to send her away from it in such a tempest.
It’s early yet.” Her eyes sought the clock on Leila’s dressing-table.
“Only twenty-five minutes to ten. The beauty contest must just have
begun. She’s awfully tiny, isn’t she?” she again reverted to the subject
of Miss Ogden, “at least two inches shorter than Vera. She’s pretty, I
think.”
“She has the prettiness of a child when she is good-natured,” Leila
said, “but, oh, my stars, what a temper! Until tonight she has shown
nothing of it to Leslie, Vera and me. Vera will not be long in coming
now. She promised to slip away from the gym as soon as the contest was
over. Grant that before then Leslie will have calmed the storm and
reduced the whirlwind to order,” she finished with dry humor.
It was Vera, however, who appeared in the room ahead of Leslie. She
dropped into a chair with exaggerated weariness and a long, sighing:
“_Such_ a time as there has been tonight, over at the gym. Truly, girls,
it was dreadful! Where’s Leslie?” Vera’s quick glance in the direction
of Leslie’s room conveyed an inkling of the reason of Leslie’s absence.
“Yes; she is in Fifteen with Miss Ogden,” Leila interpreted the glance,
and answered. “Now, for goodness’ sake, Midget, are we to know what it
is all about?”
“You are; and this is the tale. There was a _positive tongue_ battle in
the gym tonight, just before the beginning of the beauty contest. It
looked for a minute as though there might be some actual hand-to-hand
fighting done.” Vera gave a faint little chuckle. “The trouble started
as the result of an accident to Miss Norris’s gown. During the last
fox-trot before the beginning of the beauty walk, Miss Norris was
standing near the punch bowl corner, drinking lemonade. The floor of the
gym was as slippery as glass. The sophs had put too much wax on it, and
there’d been a lot of slipping and sliding done. The girls were having a
lot of fun because of it. Miss Ogden and a tall soph, whose name I don’t
know yet, were doing a very frisky variation of the trot. The punch bowl
was one of those thin lovely tinted glass affairs and stood on a stand
the sophs had fixed up and draped with the class colors. Miss Ogden and
the soph were going it full speed. In the first place, the stand had
been set too far from the wall. Just as the two girls came close to it,
Miss Ogden’s feet slipped and the pair crashed into the stand. Over went
stand and punch bowl, _simply deluging_ Miss Norris with lemonade.”
Vera’s hands went up in horrified recollection of the scene.
“Was ever anything more unfortunate?” Leila turned to Marjorie.
“_Dreadfully_,” Marjorie agreed. She found herself suddenly sympathizing
with the small, rage-swept figure she had seen for a moment in Leslie’s
room.
“It was an accident. The majority of the girls at the frolic would have
accepted it as such, without being peeved, if it had happened to any one
of them. Miss Norris was furious over it. It was too bad, of course. She
had on a perfectly ducky white satin frock. She really looked beautiful
in it, though I think her beauty is of a cold, arrogant type. She is
evidently high-tempered, and she lost control of her temper. She fairly
screamed out at Miss Ogden: ‘_You’ve ruined my dress, you rough,
ill-bred little bounder._’ This, while Miss Ogden was apologizing to her
for the accident, and half crying. The beauty line had just begun to
form. A good many of the girls fell out of line, mostly the freshies,
and hurried over to the wreck. The punch bowl was smashed to smithereens
and the stand lay in a big puddle of lemonade. The silk draping was
soaked with it. The judges’ platform wasn’t more than a dozen feet away
from the smash so we could hear a part of what was being said by the two
girls.
“I felt sorry for Miss Ogden. She tried to keep her temper, even after
Miss Norris had spoken so insultingly to her. She merely clenched her
hands and repeated: ‘I’m more sorry than I can say, Miss Norris; I’m
more than ready to pay for your damaged gown. I know it’s imported, but
I’ll be glad to—’ Miss Norris answered in the most hateful way,
‘_You_—You show your ill-breeding in suggesting such a thing. You are
simply impossible.’
“Miss Ogden couldn’t stand that so she blazed out: ‘_You_ didn’t seem to
regard me as impossible when you asked me to electioneer for you. _You_,
not _I_, are ill-bred!’ Miss Norris positively shrieked, ‘_How dare you
insult me?_ You know you haven’t spoken truthfully.’ Six or seven of
Miss Norris’s crowd joined in then, and they all turned upon Miss Ogden.
Then there began such a chorus of gabbling, I couldn’t distinguish much
that was being said. Some of Miss Ogden’s friends joined the fuss and
began to defend _her_. She was in the middle of the crowd, wild with
rage, telling them all what she thought of them. The whole fuss hardly
occupied more than five minutes’ time. Miss Elgin, the soph president,
hurried over to me and said: ‘Come and help me stop this fuss, _please_,
Miss Mason. It’s disgraceful!’ I told her to come up on the platform and
order the beauty line to reform instantly, saying that, otherwise, the
contest would be declared off.”
Vera laughed softly. “You should have seen the mob break up. Five
minutes later the line was strolling around the gym, as decorously as
could be. I don’t know what became of either Miss Norris, or Miss Ogden.
Neither was in the beauty line, naturally. Most of Miss Norris’s crowd
were. It sounds uncharitable, but I’m convinced that Miss Norris hoped
to win in the contest. She wouldn’t have, though, even if her gown
hadn’t been damaged. Miss Burke, a dormitory freshie, won it. She was
the most beautiful girl in the line. The dorms gave her a great
send-off. I beat it for the Hall the moment after Doris delivered the
adjuration to Beauty, but I could still hear the girls cheering until I
was half way across the campus.”
“Miss Ogden is in her room. Leslie is with her,” Leila informed Vera.
“She came in in a fine flurry. We fled, knowing we had best leave her to
Leslie.”
“She has my sympathy. It was not only ill-bred, but also unkind in Miss
Norris to make such a scene because of an accident,” was Vera’s slightly
contemptuous opinion. “If this fuss had occurred before the class
election she would never have won the presidential vote.”
“She’s made a bad start at Hamilton,” Marjorie said soberly. “She’s
taken the wrong road, and no one but herself can put her on the right
one again. If only she could be made to see it.”
“It is like you, Beauty, to mourn over the ill-doer, and for that we
have loved you. Leslie is what she is today because you believed she had
a better self. It is yet too young in the college year to say what
beneficial changes may come, if any, to Miss Norris. If she has a better
self,” Leila’s tone had become sceptical, “I am afraid she will be put
to considerable trouble to find it. I know I shall take no pains to
point it out to her.”
“Shall you ask her to be in Henry the Fifth after what happened
tonight?” Marjorie inquired half mischievously.
“_Now_ you _are_ asking me something.” Leila’s wide smile broke out. “I
might be doing better were I to ask her to play ‘Kate’ in ‘The Taming of
the Shrew.’”
The entrance of Leslie into the room turned the attention of the three
girls in her direction.
“What happened at the gym, Vera?” she asked as she drew a chair forward
and joined the group.
“Then she hasn’t yet come out of it?” Vera opened questioning blue eyes.
“Oh, she has, to the extent of saying there was a scrap at the gym, and
that she hates Miss Norris. That’s the part she keeps on emphasizing to
me. She’s so sore over whatever happened tonight at the gym that she
can’t see straight. She promised to spill the news to me tomorrow. I
didn’t stop to quiz her about it. I thought you’d know, perhaps.”
Vera recounted briefly what she had already told Leila and Marjorie.
“_Good night_,” was Leslie’s slangily forceful reception of Vera’s
account of the evening’s accident. “No wonder the kid is sore. Some one
ought to send Miss Norris a book of etiquette for social occasions with
a few choice paragraphs underlined. Leave it to Muriel to do it, if she
were here. I wonder if Miss Norris is worse than I used to be?” she
pondered aloud. “I believe she _is_. I doubt if, in the same
circumstances, I’d have raised a commotion in public about getting a
lemonade shower-bath. Of course, it was the beauty contest that started
her going. She’ll never forgive Jewel Marie for being the means of
snapping her out of it. The kid says she hates Miss Norris. It looks as
though internal war might ramp and rage at Wayland Hall, unless someone
with scads of nerve should rise in her might, and put the kibosh on it.”
“You’ve always said _you_ had more nerve than anybody else, Leslie,”
Marjorie laughed, yet there was a gleam of earnestness in her brown
eyes.
“Yep; I know it. I was just thinking about that myself.” Leslie’s eyes
met Marjorie’s in a glance of slow significance.
“While you and Beauty find a plan to make the Hall a safe place for two
timid old ladies like Midget and me to live in, I shall brew you a cup
of tea, and Midget must lay the plates and bring out the cakes.”
Leila and Vera immediately began to busy themselves with the preparation
of a spread, leaving Marjorie and Leslie to the discussion which had
seemingly narrowed down to they two.
“This crowd of Miss Norris’s are doing their level best to upset the
democratic peace of Wayland Hall,” Leslie said emphatically. “They can’t
possibly win in the long run, but they can keep things here disagreeably
stirred up, perhaps all year, unless their activities are nipped in the
bud. Last year Muriel’s show turned the tide in my favor when Miss
Ferguson and Dulcie Vale tried to down me. There was a greater number of
girls in the Orchid Club, too. There are twelve of these freshies. One
may safely count Mildred Ferguson in with them. Thirteen disturbers to
vanquish. Go to it Cairns II. That’s how I feel about it. That’s what
Peter the Great would say, if I told _him_ my troubles.”
“You have the same determined spirit I can imagine Brooke Hamilton as
having had,” Marjorie reached out, laying a warmly sympathetic hand upon
one of Leslie’s. “If I were still living at the Hall as a P. G., you
know I would fight shoulder to shoulder with you. But I’m not far away
from you. Remember, if you need my help in any way, it shall be yours.”
“You certainly have some imagination.” Leslie indulged in one of her
oddly silent laughs. “Thank you for the Brooke Hamilton bouquet, and
I’ll know where to come running, if things begin to speed up too much
for me.”
“Do you believe these freshies are interested in Hamilton as their Alma
Mater?” Marjorie put the question after a meditative silence.
“No; not even a little bit. They’re of the present-moment flapper type,
indifferent to everything but their own pleasure. They spend their
recreation hours mostly in their cars. They’re not the sort to respond
to friendly advances. They’ve been fairly pleasant with the other
freshies here. Now that freshie class election is over—” Leslie’s shrug
was indicative of her meaning.
“You and Leila are both so clever, Leslie, and you two practically
control campus dramatics. If only you could win these girls over by
offering them parts in the plays to be given at the Playhouse this
winter. It might make them feel more in touch with Hamilton, and awaken
in them a new spirit of college interest.” Marjorie’s suggestion rang
with her own boundless enthusiasm toward Hamilton.
“Something like that,” Leslie nodded. “Frankly, Marjorie, that New York
freshie crowd bores me silly. So does Jewel Marie, at times. But she’s
of the people, all democrat underneath her ridiculous idea of caste. I
can see where I’m going to run into trouble if I don’t watch my step
while trying to win over a bunch of girls that she’s down on. Just the
same, Mrs. Macy,” Leslie purposely took on Jerry’s matter-of-fact tone,
“_it will have to be done. Yes siree; it will have to be done_, and it’s
up to Cairns II to tackle it, _and get away with it_.”
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