THE MASS-MEETING
“There!” said Jacquette, holding up a huge yellow chrysanthemum that
she had just finished. “Would anyone guess it was paper? That’s my
fiftieth, and I must go.”
A committee of Sigma Pi girls had met, that afternoon, in the sorority
rooms which were on the third floor of Blanche Gross’s house, to work
on the decorations for the annual dance.
“Aren’t they going to look lovely, nodding around among yards and
yards of blue ribbon!” Blanche exclaimed, twirling a duplicate of
Jacquette’s flower above her head. “Don’t go, Jacquette,” she added,
as a white-capped maid appeared with a tray. “There are signs of hot
chocolate on the horizon. Besides, we faithfuls may have to do more
than fifty apiece unless the rest of the girls come to time. We must
have a thousand chrysanthemums, you know, or it won’t make any show, at
all.”
“Oh, well, I can’t resist the chocolate,” Jacquette yielded, sitting
down again, “but I must skip, right after that. Truth is, there’s been
so much to do about the dance that I’ve scarcely looked at a lesson for
a week, and I simply must get in a little studying before my algebra
exam, to-morrow morning.”
“What a nuisance to have exams the week of the dance!” Mamie Coolidge
sympathised, as the chocolate was being handed around. “Oh, by the way,
Jacquette, what about your carriage for the dance? I heard your aunt
wouldn’t let you have one.”
“What! Going to a formal dance without a carriage?” cried Etta
Brainerd, in a scandalised tone. “Jacquette--you poor girl!”
Jacquette flushed. “Pity’s wasted, Etta,” she answered, rather curtly.
“I expect to have a carriage.”
“But since when?” Mamie persisted. “Flo Burton told me you couldn’t.”
“If you want the whole story, it’s this,” said Jacquette. “At first,
Aunt Sula didn’t like my asking a boy to take me to the dance, but when
she found it was the sorority way, she let me invite Bobs. Then, when
she found that he was expected to pay for a carriage, she did suggest
that I do without one. You see, she supposed, because we’re young, the
whole thing would be simple--early hours and all that. But when I told
her how it really was, she said she was going to hire the carriage for
me herself, and that I should invite Louise and Bud Banister to go in
it with Bobs and me. So I did.”
“And a lovely plan, I call it!” Louise chimed in. “You’d have laughed
to see the look of relief on Bud’s face when I told him! It isn’t so
easy for him to get money from his father, I guess. You know, girls,
it is a sort of hold-up, the way we invite the boys and expect them to
furnish carriages.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mamie objected, while she dropped another lump
of sugar in her chocolate. “They get a chance to come to a dance
that costs us nearly three hundred dollars. My mother thought that
was terribly extravagant until I told her how much worse some other
sororities are. Did you know the Omikron Gammas had to put up twenty
dollars apiece for their dance, besides the regular dues? I say it’s
pretty creditable to Sigma Pi, that we draw all our funds out of the
bank and give our dance without any extra taxing, when we may be
needing that money any time, to fight the Board of Education with!”
[Illustration: “_There are signs of hot chocolate on the horizon!_”]
Everybody, except Mamie, laughed. She was the spoiled child of Sigma
Pi, and when she lifted her doll face to make a remark it was always
the signal for indulgent smiles.
“I wouldn’t say that outside, Mame,” Blanche advised. “It might not
sound well to the school authorities.”
“It’s true, just the same. Didn’t Sigma Pi have to give a hundred
dollars to the inter-fraternal league, last year, when we got the
injunction to keep the Board from enforcing that rule against secret
societies? And if the Board makes any more silly old rules, the boys
say we’ll have to get a good lawyer, and fight the thing to a finish.”
“Just think,--what if they should ever succeed in shutting secret
societies out of high school, altogether!” Louise suggested.
“They never can. We’re too powerful for them,” Blanche said, decidedly.
“The only result would be that we’d have to work in the dark.”
“Well, in the meantime, yours truly is going home to study,” Jacquette
put in, setting down her cup. “’Twas superfine chocolate, Blanche,” she
added, as she stepped gingerly over the billows of tissue paper that
covered the floor.
“Wait for me, Jack,” called Louise. “I’ve made sixty chrysanthemums;
that’s ten more than my share, and I’m needed at home, myself. Mother
isn’t well to-day.”
“Pretty sorority spirit you girls show!” Etta grumbled, as she began
crimping yellow petals again. “You might stay and help the rest of us,
even if you did get yours done first.”
No one echoed Etta, but there was a subdued manner about the farewells
that seemed to give consent to her feeling, and, as the two girls
walked down the street together, Jacquette said:
“Louise, sometimes it seems as if I couldn’t do enough for Sigma Pi
to suit the girls. They call me a traitor every time I speak of having
to study, or to do anything at home, and, truly, I’m so rushed that I
can’t get time to mend my own stockings! There’s sorority business on
hand from morning till night.”
“I know; all you can do is to hang on to your own judgment and not
let the girls put too much on you. They count on the freshmen being
flattered at the chance of doing most of the work, you know. There goes
Quis around that corner, Jacquette. By the way, I was glad to see you
were on speaking terms with him, this morning.”
“Yes; we had to make it up after a fashion. But, oh, how angry he is
with Clarence Mullen!”
“I don’t wonder at that.”
“No; I don’t. He’s afraid people may think he knew what Clarence was
going to do; so he’s making his disapproval as public as he can. Of
course he won’t let Clarence into Beta Sig, now, and he’d like to have
him expelled from school, but Mr. Branch takes the ground that Clarence
is less to blame than the big boys that talked all this feeling into
him. If that’s so, I’m partly responsible, too; he overheard me talking
to Bobs about it, and that influenced him, you see.”
“But that’s no excuse for what he did!”
“No; Mr. Branch doesn’t excuse him, but he says Clarence is so
much younger, and so easily influenced that he’s like one of these
anarchists that get all inflamed by speeches they’ve heard and things
they’ve read, and imagine they’re doing a heroic act when they go and
shoot the President. You ought to have heard him lecture the Beta
Sig fellows in the talk he gave yesterday. He says Clarence actually
expected they would applaud him, and that it reflects great discredit
on them.”
“Well, there’s something in that, isn’t there? But, if I were Clarence
I’d sooner be expelled than come back to Marston and face the feeling
there is.”
“He’s not coming back. His father is going to send him to military
school. Louise, did you know that Bobs went to Mr. Branch and told him
that, as far as he was concerned, he hoped Clarence would get another
chance?”
“No! What did Quis think of that?”
“Oh, Quis doesn’t like anything Bobs does! Here he’s won his emblem,
but he says it’s no thanks to Bobs; that he never would have got it if
Bobs hadn’t been locked up. I wish you’d talk to him. He’s so jealous
of my liking any boy outside of his frat! This morning he accused me
of getting the girls to give our dance on the same night the Beta Sigs
have theirs, so that he’d be tied up for that evening and I could feel
free to ask Bobs!”
“Foolishness!”
“He doesn’t know it’s foolishness, though. Louise--” Jacquette lowered
her voice as if she knew she were uttering heresy--“with Quis acting
this way, and the Sigma Pi girls calling me disloyal every time I look
at an old friend like Margaret Howland--I sometimes wish there were no
such thing as a fraternity or sorority in school!”
Louise turned and looked at the tired, flushed face.
“That’s a mood, honey,” she answered, sagely. “I’ve had it, myself, but
it comes back to this, every time. As long as there are sororities, we
want to be in them. How would you like to go to a dance and be told
that, because you were a non-sorority girl, you must stay in one end of
the hall and not dance beyond a certain imaginary line on the floor?”
“They wouldn’t do it!”
“In some schools they do. Not here, because non-sorority girls
aren’t invited. Do you know what would happen if you had asked a
non-fraternity fellow to the dance? You’d dance with him and not
another soul, all the evening. ’Tisn’t fair, of course, but we can’t
reform the world all at once, so you’d better comfort yourself thinking
how lovely you’re going to look in that new gown. You’ll be in sorority
colours, won’t you?--your hair the gold and your dress the blue.”
Jacquette smiled through her mood at the thought. “I can hardly wait
for Friday,” she confessed, as they parted at the corner. “But Louise,
you try to talk a little sense into Quis for me, won’t you? Perhaps
he’ll listen to you; he thinks you’re the whole thing.”
“You mean he used to think so, before a certain Miss Willard came
to town!” was the mischievous answer. “Yes, I’ll do what I can.
Good-night.”
The week moved slowly along, and the Friday of the Sigma Pi dance
had come. That morning, in every classroom at Marston, appeared the
blackboard announcement that a mass-meeting would be held in the
Assembly room, directly after school, for the presentation of football
emblems to the team.
Marston Assembly Hall was shaped like a great low half-dome, and ceiled
everywhere with varnished yellow pine. Seats lined the curved sides of
the room, running down in steep tiers which left only a narrow floor
space in front, and, from windows behind these seats, that afternoon,
the sunlight streamed down into the faces of twelve self-conscious
heroes who sat in a stiff row of chairs--their backs against the yellow
wall--facing the audience.
Above their heads, plastered all over the one straight side of the
room, hung the purple, red, blue, gold, and white banners which had
been won by Marston in former victories, and on the piano, which stood
wedged in between the front row of seats and the wall, rose a stack
of suit-boxes, each containing, as everyone knew, a handsome dark blue
sweater, with the white letters “M. H.” emblazoned on its front.
Suddenly, the boys and girls, who were not only packed into seats but
standing on every available inch in the room, began to cheer. Tippie
McGee, the “Marston Mascot,” a red-headed little gamin from nobody knew
where, who was always on hand for the Marston games, had been perched
on a chair by the piano, and Bud Banister, as manager of the team, was
announcing,
“An original song, composed for the occasion by our mascot, Tippie,
without whom we probably never could have beaten Webster. The school
will please join in the second singing.”
All along the low step in front of the first tier of seats--only a few
feet from the football heroes, whom they faced--sat the smiling Sigma
Pi girls, and it was into their eyes that Tippie looked as he began
singing shrilly, to the tune of “The Good Old Summer-time”:
“In the good old football time!
In the good old football time!
Strolling down by Marston field,
You’ll see us buck the line!
Our captain kicks a goal from field,
And that’s a very good sign
That Marston’s got the championship
In the good old football time!”
That was all, but Patti in her palmiest days might have envied Tippie
the warmth of his reception. Shrieks, whistles, applause with hands and
feet, cries of “Good! Good for Tippie!” choked the air, and it was long
before the crowd could calm itself to join uproariously in the second
singing.
Once started, though, it could not stop. The second singing was
followed by a third--the third by a fourth! Then--the presentation.
“Captain Robin Sidney Drake,” was the first name called. Bobs, arrayed
in his best black suit, stepped forward amid a tremendous burst of
cheering, and listened uncomfortably to Mr. Branch’s eulogy on his
captainship of the Marston eleven. But when the box containing the
precious sweater was handed to him, his face beamed. Clasping it
tenderly, as one holds a baby, he stood smiling down at it for a minute
before he lifted his blue eyes to the principal’s face. Then his lips
parted, and everyone leaned forward to listen.
“It’s a--pretty big box!” said Bobs, and no eloquence could have
pleased his adoring schoolmates better. They screamed with mirth, they
laughed until they cried, they hooted with glee, they hurrahed for
Bobs. Not until he swung around and faced them with a determined air of
getting ready for a speech, did they subside. Then Bobs, still hugging
the big box, threw back his head and addressed the galleries which did
not exist.
“Thank you!” he said. Just that, not another word, but his eyes
deserted the imaginary galleries, and, with his own merry smile, he
looked straight into the faces of the boys and girls who loved him.
After that, he sat down. Cheer? Of course they cheered! What if he
couldn’t make a speech? He was--Bobs.
At last Bud’s voice was heard announcing “the popular song entitled,
‘Old M. H.’” Then Tippie, standing on the chair by the old piano, which
was tinkling out the tune of “Tammany,” led off,
“Hold Hem Haitch!
Hold Hem Haitch!
Beat our captain if you can!
We’ll defend him to a man!
Hold Hem Haitch!” etc.
The more enthusiastic Tippie grew, the more he aspirated his vowels,
always, and to-day the school, seeking an outlet for pent-up feelings,
seized on his.
“Hold Hem Haitch!
Hold Hem Haitch!”
they all shouted together, and not one more fervently than Jacquette,
who, from the row of Sigma Pi girls, smiled straight into Bobs’s face,
as she sang
“Beat our captain if you can!
We’ll defend him to a man!”
Then, suddenly, she felt Quis looking coldly at her, and, in spite of
all she could do, her voice weakened and her eyes fell. A cloud had
come over her gladness.
The meeting went on. One after another, the members of the team stood
up, received their sweaters, acknowledged them properly, were duly
cheered, and sat down. Marquis was last, the only substitute to win an
“M. H.” that year, and his little speech of appreciation, as Mr. Branch
handed him the box, was perfectly turned. Jacquette was proud of his
appearance, but she felt, through and through, the contrast between his
reception and the one given to Bobs.
Marquis was admired; Bobs was loved. As the mass-meeting broke up, with
the boys all crowding around their captain, she realised, with a sense
of girlish elation, that she--Jacquette Willard--was going to her first
dance, that night, with the hero of Marston High!
From that moment until the evening was done, she forgot Marquis’s
displeasure and lived in a fairy tale. Her feet scarcely staid on the
floor while she dressed for the dance. The filmy blue gown, the white
slippers, the long white gloves, even the sparkle of her own eyes and
the glint of gold in her hair, as she saw herself in the mirror--all
seemed new and bewitching.
“Tia! Tia! Am I really that girl in the glass, or is she a dream?” she
cried, the roses deepening in her cheeks, as she caught her little aunt
in her arms, just before she started. Then she found herself leaning
back against the cushions of the carriage, and she turned a wondering
glance on Louise, who sat beside her uttering commonplaces to Bobs and
Ned, as if this were everyday life. After all, a girl needed to have
grown up in Brookdale, Jacquette reflected, to understand the thrill of
grandeur she had felt when that carriage door slammed.
She had the same thought again, a little later, when they all stepped
out into the carpeted, covered way that led from the carriage to the
entrance of the Lakeside Club. And, while she was thinking it, she
entered into a fairyland of lights, of music, of gaiety, of excitement.