THREATS AND DEFIANCE
The girl approaching was not so easy to appraise as her unusual
costume proclaimed her to be. Jane realized this; country girls are
apt to make such mistakes, and even dinner gown tags on school day
togs would hardly be proof positive of inferiority, Jane reflected.
Shirley Duncan swung along with a careless stride, but even the pose
might cover embarrassment. Jane sent a welcome smile out to meet her
and the stranger jerked her head rather saucily in recognition.
"Have I kept you waiting?" asked Jane in the best of humor.
"Well, rather," replied the freshman, "but I knew better than to
break in on that crowd," with an arm sweep toward the ball field.
"Can we go up to your room for a few minutes?"
Jane thought quickly. To go to her room might mean an interruption
from Judith; also it might mean the danger from an undisciplined
voice.
"I have been indoors so much today," she replied, "and our lovely
days are flying so, suppose we go over to the rose summer house? We
won't be interrupted there and we will both have the benefit of a
longer time out of doors. I suppose you feel it, freshmen usually
do." They were moving toward the rustic house that looked rather
desolate in its coat of faded rose leaves.
"Oh, freshmen feel everything, I suppose," replied the other, "but I
can't see why we should be openly abused for all that. I heard there
was no more hazing allowed in colleges?"
"We have never hazed at Wellington," Jane said rather indignantly,
"and Miss--Miss Duncan, I am sure no one will ever attempt the least
abuse even in a spirit of fun at this college."
"They won't, eh?" type broke out in that challenge. "Well, that is
just what I wanted to see you about. I suppose I'm not good enough
to go to your rooms." Lip curled, nostrils quivered and head jerked
up impertinently with that accusation.
"Why, Miss Duncan--" floundered Jane.
"Why don't you call me Shirley? Isn't that a swell enough name?"
interrupted the other.
Jane dropped down on the summer house seat with a thud. Here was a
problem surely. Antagonism fairly blazed in the girl's dark eyes.
Yet she was a stranger--actually Jane's guest.
"Shirley is a very sweet name and I have always loved it," replied
Jane frankly. "But my dear young lady, we must not quarrel. We shall
never get acquainted that way."
"Oh no, the juniors may do all the quarreling. We freshies must just
turn the other cheek of course. But I suppose you know that long
lanky friend of yours, they call some foolish name like Doses, hit
me on the head with her hammer the other night?"
"You mean Dozia Dalton--yes, she told me her hammer slipped--"
"Slipped indeed!" more scorn and lip curling. "She deliberately
dropped it on my head--"
"And you threw it at the mirror," broke out Jane, weary of acting
the angel without gaining the slightest return from this rude girl.
"Yes, I broke it and I'm glad of it! Now what are you going to do
about it?" Two hands not really pretty, dug deep into the satin
skirt pockets, and Shirley Duncan towered over Jane Allen defiantly.
"What am I going to do about it?" repeated Jane. But the irony was
lost on her companion. "You did not ask to see me just to be
offensive?" parried Jane.
"No indeed, I wanted to remind you I am in this college because your
father gave a scholarship, and I suppose that would mean you might
be nice to me at least."
"I'm sure I want to be," Jane quickly toned down. "But no girl can
make friends with another when she insists on quarreling. I am
willing to pay for the broken mirror--"
"You don't need to trouble yourself; if it is to be paid for I'll do
it myself. My folks wouldn't let me--sponge on anybody."
"Sponge," repeated Jane, frowning with something like disgust.
"Please don't use such horrible slang."
"Oh my! I suppose a scholarship girl must be a mouse or a kitten.
Well, when I took it I understood no one in Wellington was to know
about it and that the scholarship girl had equal rights with every
other girl."
"So she has and no one here does know who wins the scholarship."
Somehow Jane stumbled over the word. It was fraught with terror in
the hands of this impossible creature.
"Well, I don't believe it" (no regard for Jane's veracity), "but
I'll hold on awhile and see." (Condescending, thought Jane.) "My
folks always wanted me to go to college and I just came to satisfy
them. I don't give a snap for all the high brow stuff and I might as
well tell you I am nearly dead with homesickness." (She didn't look
it, Jane observed.) "But I'm no quitter, so I intend to stick. Now
let's get back to the girl who hit me. Can you make her apologize?"
"No," said Jane flatly, "and what's more I have no intention of
trying to. You brought trouble on yourself by going into Dozia's
room without being invited. You should know that the younger girls,
the freshmen, are not supposed to take such privileges. Then when
you annoyed my friend" (Jane almost kissed the word) "she told you
outright she was busy and did not want to be bothered. Next thing,
you deliberately sat under her stepladder. Do you like to get in the
open path of tack hammers?"
"Love to," sneered Shirley. "And I'm crazy about playing ball with
them when mirrors are up for back stops. All right, go ahead, as far
as you like. I believe now what I heard about the Jane Alien crowd.
A lot of goody goodies, too stuck up to bother with country girls."
Jane jumped from her seat and gasped at an interruption but did not
succeed in sustaining it. "But I've got friends around here who know
the ropes. They are not freshies either, so don't bother about me,
Miss Allen. I'll see about the looking-glass and the girl who hit me
with her hammer."
Jane let her go, was actually glad to see the last of the satin
skirt as it swished out into the winding path, nor did she
immediately follow it. Instead she sat there, tearing little red
rose hips from the tenacious vines and tossing them away regardless
of their artistic value as decorative winter berries.
"Tragic," she muttered, "positively tragic. And that is what my
darling dad wasted a perfectly good scholarship on." Thoughts of
"dad" mercifully intervened and saved the girl's temper further
violence. "But what puzzles me is how that girl ever won the
scholarship?" Jane silently questioned, and in that unspoken
sentence she unconsciously shaped the key to fit the mystery.
How did this girl win the scholarship? For some moments longer Jane
sat there. She went over again the incident of Dozia's tack hammer.
That she could depend absolutely on Dozia, and knew this strange
girl had done more than sit in the path of the showering tack hammer
was irrefutable.
"Dozia was a little bit reckless of course," admitted the mentor,
"and she did seem to coddle the fact that her hammer fell on
Shirley's head. I recall she even said she was glad it hit her and
hoped the blow would send the freshie home to her 'maw.'"
Jane wanted to laugh but she refrained. There was a strange proctor
in office this year to be considered. If dear old Miss Weatherbee
were still in charge it might be much easier to explain the
accident.
"And that girl defied me with a threat of friends! She has friends
who are not in the freshman ranks? I remember she said that. Who can
they be? My enemies naturally," decided Jane.
How these enemies would fill that foolish head with nonsense, and
how far they might urge her on to mischief if not to actual danger,
Jane Allen did not venture to estimate.
"But Dozia tried first shot to send her home to her 'maw!'"
The humor of the situation now struck Jane like a blow on the funny
bone, and she burst out laughing in the very face of the thorny rose
bush.
"After all it is too delicious!" she told herself. "And even if she
is my dad's scholarship girl there's a heap of fun in the ridiculous
situation. I'll find Judy and tell her the whole thing. Too good to
keep; too funny to spoil," and the blue serge skirt that fanned the
boxwood a moment later never swished a swish. Jane did not give it
tune to do so.