THE MISFIT FRESHMAN
Yes, they were back in college and work was waiting. This thought
invaded confused brains and stood out like a corporal of the guard,
shouting orders into lazy ears on Wellington campus next morning.
Jane Allen threw first one slipper and then another at Judith
Stearns' bed across the room from her own. But still Judith's hand
ignored the hair brush on the chair at her elbow.
"Judy," called Jane, "the warning bell has warned. Turn down the
corner on that dream and wake up." Each word of this climbed a note
in tone until the last was almost a shout. Then Judith's hand moved
to Jane's slipper on her own (Judith's) forget-me-nots, the little
floral pieces that adorned a very dainty garment with the embroidery
on Judith's chest--arms and neck ignored in the pattern.
"What say?" she muttered sleepily.
"Up," answered Jane. "Ever hear that little word before?"
"Yep, pony riding," drawled Judith. "Up, up, one, two, three, go!"
and at this Judith sprang up with such vigor and volume (in point of
scope) that she sprang over the neighboring bed and swooped down on
Jane's hat box! Her black hair now fell fearlessly over the
embroidered forget-me-nots, and her bare feet shot in their usual
skating strike.
"Good thing that hat box is the new kind," commented Jane, "but even
at that it will hardly serve as a divan. Still, I am glad you are
up. Do you know where you are, Judy Stearns? And what you are
expected to do today?"
"All of those things and additional horrors are seething through my
poor brain," moaned Judith, "but a moment ago I was having a fast
set of tennis with adorable Jack St. John--Sanzie they call him.
Have I told you about him, Jane darling?" Judith gathered herself
and her feet up from the black enameled box and glided over to her
own corner.
"No, Judy, I do not recall Sanzie," replied Jane, who was already
armed with soap and towel for the lavatory. "But keep the story. I
shouldn't like to get interested in boy tennis just now. We must
forget--" proclaimed Jane in tones so dramatic a poet calendar on
the wall trembled in the vocal waves. "Forget! forget----" and Jane
was outside the door with a sweeping wave of her big fuzzy towel and
a rather alarming thrust of her fist full of soap.
"Ye-eah," groaned Judith, "forget is the word, Sanzie and tennis."
She glanced at the tiny clock on a shelf of the bracket type. It was
Jane's idea the clock should not be cluttered with surroundings.
"Gee-whiz! It is late, and this the first day. Glad the others on
this corridor are all nice and punctual."
In bathrobe and slippers Judith soon followed Jane down the long
hall. Neither dallied long in the plunge, for Judith was wide awake
now, and presently, after dressing and patting herself and
belongings into place, she confronted Jane with this: "I heard Dozia
Dalton last night. And I know there will be trouble about the farmer
girl. Jane, tell me, is she the scholarship?"
"Yes," almost gasped Jane the irreproachable. "And to think that I,
in any way, should be responsible for bringing her to college!"
"But you are not, Janie dear," soothed Judith. "That your father
should give this college a scholarship each year is a noble thing,
and how can you tell who may win it? That girl is--well, a bit raw,"
she ground her mouth around the word, "but we have nothing to do
with that. She doesn't belong among the juniors, and just leave it
to little Judy to steer her off. Don't go trying any uplift; just
cut her dead and watch her wilt. From the ashes there may arise a
nice little green thing, even if it is of the common garden variety
of onion. Now Jane, you have got to do exactly that. Keep Shirley
Duncan on her own grounds. Shoo her out of junior haunts."
"You are right, Judy. I have been tortured with the idea that I
would have to play fairy godmother to that--that 'hoodlum.'
Honestly, did you ever see so ordinary a girl in Wellington?"
"Never. But then she may be a genius. I have read such descriptions
of them. There's the first breakfast bell. Smile now and disappoint
the horde. They think you have been crossed in love and the old maid
depression has settled upon you. You acted that way yesterday,"
teasingly.
Jane's laugh pealed out at this. It was like ragging a down scale,
that rippling crescendo, and Judith needed no other assurance of her
friend's good humor.
But the day's tasks left little time for trifles. College work is
serious and exacting, each day's programme being carefully and even
scientifically marked out to make the round year's schedule
complete. Jane and Judith, juniors, with a reputation made in their
previous years, "buckled" down to every period with that
intelligence and determination for which both had been credited.
Everything was so delightful and the autumn air so full of promise!
Jane could not find a true reason for the haunting fear that seemed
to follow her in the person of that crude country girl, who somehow
had won the Alien scholarship.
It was in free time late the next afternoon that this fear took
definite shape. Jane and her contingent were leaving the study hall
when Shirley Duncan brushed up through their arm linked line.
She was garbed in a baronet satin skirt of daring hue with an
overblouse of variegated georgette. This as a school frock! At first
glance Jane almost recoiled, then the possibility of delayed baggage
suggested itself and softened her frown.
"Don't notice her," whispered faithful Judith.
Jane's glance just answered when the unpopular freshman broke
through the line, grasped Jane's hand and deliberately forced a
folded slip of paper into it. Then, with a mocking smile that ran
into an audible sneer, she turned and sped away. Her awkward gait
and frank romping so close to Wellington Hall brought questioning
glances from the line of juniors.
"What's that, Jane Allen?" asked Janet Clarke good-naturedly. "I
hope you are not doing uplift for anything like that this year?"
"The merry little mountain maid," mocked Inez Wilson, doing a few
skips and a couple of jumps in demonstration.
"How on earth did she ever make Wellington?" demanded the
aristocratic Nettie Brocton, disapproval spoiling her leaky dimples.
"Girls, you are horrid!" declared Judith to the rescue. "You all
know the freaks love Jane. It's her angel face," and Judith
playfully stroked the cheek into which streaks of bright pink
threatened admission of guilt--that Jane really knew the uncouth
country girl.
"She's a stranger to me," said Jane truthfully, "but in spite of
that I must respect her confidence." The crumpled note was thereat
securely tucked into the pocket of Jane's blouse.
Winifred Ayres tittered outright, but the advent of Dozia Dalton
furnished a welcome interruption.
"Girls," she panted, "what ever do you think? Dol Vincez, our
dangerous adversary of last year, runs the beauty shop beyond our
gate! Can you comprehend the audacity?"
"We can when you say Dolorez," replied Jane. "Do you actually mean
to say she has set up the College Beauty Shop at our very door?"
"She has!" declared the excited Dozia. "Who would dare trust a live
and workable phiz to that--traitor?"
"Not I," said Velma Sigsbee.
"Nor I," from Maud Leslie.
"My face must serve me this term," added Inez Wilson, twisting her
features to make sure they worked well.
"All the same," demurred Judith, "the temptation is not to be
laughed at. Just imagine real dimples speared in," with a finger
poked in Maud Leslie's cheek, "and long silky lashes tangles in
one's violet gaze----" This was too much even for staid juniors and
the race that followed almost justified Shirley's much criticised
romp. With this difference: Wellington Hall was now out of the
shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting in
and out of the autumn sunshine that lay like stripes of panne velvet
on the sward, but Shirley's run had begun at the very steps.
Recreation had its limits and that day was counted lost into which a
race over the pleasure grounds had not been crowded. It might be for
tennis, or even baseball, or yet to the lake, but a run was
inevitable. And so they ran.