THE SENIORS ENTERTAIN
The A-D party was probably the first “official” senior duty, or
pleasure, said Betty. It was the entertainment of the D class, or
freshmen, by the A class, or seniors. By long custom it was celebrated
at the beginning of the year and constituted a sort of initiation or
adoption of the freshman class into Lyon High. There was nothing
difficult about it and much that was sheer fun, including the
refreshments. Oh, yes, it might be mentioned that it was confined
entirely to the senior and freshman girls. No masculine member of the
freshman class was ever asked to dress in more or less infantile fashion
and so appear, at a party and even in some fashion that marked them, at
least, during the day at school which preceded the party.
One morning, as Betty was getting her locker open, a shy, attractive
little freshman girl came up to her. “Please, Miss—Betty Lee, are you
too busy to tell me something?”
“Always ready to impart knowledge,” jokingly Betty replied, putting a
book on the shelf of her locker and taking another out. “What can I do
for you, Eileen? Did you get my invitation to the A-D party?”
“Yes—that’s it. Thank you so much for asking me to be your ‘little
sister.’ I’ve felt better ever since to have a girl like you ask me.”
The slight girl looked at Betty and continued.
“I thought I’d better ask you about it because I’ve heard so many things
about what the freshman girls have to do, dressing up like babies and
going around all day at school that way. And must we look _crazy_?”
“No,” laughed Betty, “just ‘cute,’ and while you are supposed to have
some badge of childhood all day, you needn’t be dressed that way at
classes. Bring whatever you are going to dress up in to school and put
it in your locker. You have such nice hair—why don’t you have long
curls and tie them with a ribbon. You would look _darling_!”
The rather worried face brightened. “Why, I used to have curls! I’ll
just do it, Betty Lee. Thanks awfully.”
“You’ll make a hit in classes,” said Betty. “Excuse me, I’ll have to
run. See me again if you have any doubts about anything.”
“That is Betty Lee,” explained Eileen to the freshman girl she joined on
leaving the vicinity of Betty’s locker. “I just _adore_ her! She’s going
to take me to the A-D party.”
“Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s a _very_ prominent senior and wins swimming
matches and everything.”
It was a pity that Betty could not hear this sincere freshman tribute,
but as it was she was likely to be spoiled enough, if Betty could be
spoiled, before her senior year was over.
“Girls,” Betty, chairman of the A-D entertainment committee, said that
day after school, to an assembled few whom she had asked to stay, “there
absolutely isn’t time to get up a real play or anything we have to
_learn_. How are we going to entertain the freshmen? Speak up, ladies,
or else ‘forever after,’ and so forth.”
“Are we supposed to be the ‘cast?’” asked Mary Jane Andrews.
“You are.”
“Then I speak for a pantomime.”
This statement met with a general giggle from the seniors as well as
some applause.
“What pantomime do you _know_, Mary Jane?” severely asked Betty, rapping
for order and pretending to glare at Mary Jane.
“Well—I don’t just think of one right now!”
“Why not give the Tragedy of the Lighthouse Keeper?” Selma Rardon
suggested.
“Has that been given lately?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Who does know?”
“I know positively,” said Dotty Bradshaw, “what the seniors have done
since we were freshmen ourselves. It’s always written up in the _Lyon
Roar_, you know. What they did back in the ages doesn’t concern us, you
know.”
“Is it as old as that?” asked Carolyn.
“I’m sure I don’t know how old it is, but the freshmen could stand it if
they’ve heard it before—I mean, _seen_ it. It’s all in the funny
costumes and acting anyhow and with the present _cast_ anything could be
done.”
“Yes,” laughed Betty, “I’m afraid of that!”
At that the girls all claimed to be desperately offended and Kathryn
said she was sure she could not act after such an implication.
“I take it all back. It was too good an opportunity to lose, Dotty. You
are always getting things off on us. Well, now, shall we decide to take
Selma’s suggestion? I’m just swamped with work and with Mary Jane and
Mary Emma saying that they will see to ordering the refreshments and
getting somebody to bring the ice-cream over to the gym, that is one
load off. Now if we decide on this, one practice will be enough, just to
know when to do what. Dotty, will you be director?”
“You don’t need a director, Betty. I’d rather be the villain. I have a
lovely pirate costume of my brother’s.”
“Good. You’ll make a beautiful villain, then. Be sure your knife is made
of pasteboard.”
“What else?” laughed Dotty.
“Do you think, Betty, that our freshman children ought to see such a
pantomime?”
“We might change it, Carolyn, and have the lighthouse keeper only
slightly injured and the villain caught. Carolyn, _you_ be director!”
“All right. I’d rather do that than act in that dizzy thing.”
Plans were at last all made, parts assigned, the time for the one
practice in the gym set. Betty knew that she could count on these girls
and went off to the next thing on hand as school girls do, dismissing
all immediate responsibility.
The freshmen naturally took the event more seriously than their senior
entertainers, for they were the ones who had to make themselves
conspicuous all day at school. They blossomed forth in childish
arrangement of hair as far as possible, if it were nothing more than
wearing a hair ribbon, and that whether the children of the period wore
hair ribbons or not. Bibs or wide collars were the order of the day.
Sashes decorated otherwise ordinary dresses, though lockers were full of
childish outfits.
As the freshmen girls much outnumbered the seniors, it was necessary for
a senior girl to escort more than one freshman. And to the relief of the
freshmen, they remained in the home room until called for, each senior
doing her best to make her freshmen girls feel at ease and happy over
the fun.
“We might call it a ‘tea dance,’” said Betty, as she escorted her two
freshmen over to the girls’ gymnasium. “First we’ll have a bit of a
program, a sort of welcome to the freshmen. Then there will be a silly
little play; and then we’ll dance, and have refreshments. It’s easy gym
dancing, you know. You look just lovely, girls! How in the world did I
happen to pick two long-haired freshmen?”
Betty’s “baby sisters” did happen to have a taking arrangement of their
hair. Eileen had long black curls, caught back at the proper places by
ribbons, and the other, known as Ann, wore her hair in two tight brown
braids. Although her hair was drawn straight back from her face, oddly
enough the effect was becoming.
The first event was announced as the “Freshman Initiation” and little
“ohs,” and “oh dear, how awful!” ran through the assembled freshmen. But
the initiation turned out to be only a “Baby Parade” in which the
freshmen marched in time to music and rather enjoyed showing off
themselves and their funny costumes. There was also a ridiculous pledge
read by one of the senior girls with great sobriety, hard to maintain
amid the giggles and occasional shrieks of laughter from the freshmen
who listened. All the ridiculous things that Dotty Bradshaw could think
of were included in this freshman pledge, such as sweeping curtseys to
the senior girls whenever they met them in the halls or on the street.
But by some “oversight,” as Betty announced later, Dotty forgot to have
the pledge passed to be signed.
Whether or not any of the freshmen had seen or taken part in a “Tragedy
of the Lighthouse Keeper” did not appear to matter, for they laughed as
heartily as could be desired. First appeared Selma as the lighthouse
keeper, wearing a long coat and an ancient vest over her own dress.
True, her pretty silk hose and low shoes looked a bit incongruous, but
Betty had announced that imagination had a good deal to do with this
pantomime.
The lighthouse keeper picked up his lantern and began to go around
before the audience in large circles, gradually narrowing. His steps
began to grow slower as he was supposed to ascend the circular stair to
the light. And now, what was that figure that stealthily entered the
outer circles, crept round and round and within the narrower circles
gradually approaching the lighthouse keeper? Dotty, in full pirate
costume, velvet knee breeches, sash and large pasteboard knife, painted
red, was received with shrieks of delight, though Eileen said to Ann
that it almost made her nervous to see them going round and round.
But every one’s imagination could picture the ascending circular stairs
to the top of the lighthouse. Presently the dramatic moment came; the
pirate pounced, and the lighthouse keeper lay stretched in the middle of
the inner circles. Round and round, down the imaginary stairs, ran the
pirate, with comical and shifty glances here and there and glaring eyes
turned upon the audience—such expression as only Dotty could give. The
pirate disappeared, presumably having satisfied a revenge “or
something.”
Next came three happy children, hand in hand at first. These were the
two Marys, Mary Emma Howland and Mary Jane Andrews, with Kathryn Allen,
all dressed in extreme childish costume. They danced and cavorted before
the audience and finally started upon the circles. Naturally, after
climbing, with the usual change of gait as they rose higher and higher,
they came upon the tragic figure of their father. With silent grief and
much expressive action, the children performed their part, rapidly going
“down” the circles once more.
More action. Another senior girl appeared, dressed in a disreputable old
house dress. She hears the news, rather sees it in pantomime and starts
up the stairs. Tragic action again. Down from the dizzy height in dizzy
circles, whirling in her haste. The telephone, the doctor with his case,
the ascent. Gwen Penrose made a good doctor and had great difficulty,
puffing and panting, in making the “ascent.” Between them the wife and
the doctor had to carry down the lighthouse keeper, the most difficult
feat of all, and one which, shocking to relate, aroused neither sympathy
nor sorrow in their audience. It was too ridiculous. And with this the
pantomime suddenly ended, as it is supposed to end, though one freshman
in front said, “Well, what next? How does it turn out?”
But Gwen, whisking off her cotton wrapper because it was too hot,
overheard and laughingly replied, “It doesn’t turn out at all. That’s
the end and the rest is left to the imagination.”
They were just serving the sandwiches when some one came, to stand in
the door of the gym and look in. There was a rustle among those near the
door and Betty Lee almost dropped the plate she was passing when she
looked to see an easily poised, well-dressed figure in the door and
recognized the black eyes and smiling face of—Lucia Coletti!
“Lucia!” cried several of the girls and in a moment Lucia was
surrounded.
“I heard that you seniors were up to something, so we drove around and I
came over here,” Lucia explained, to answer the “who, where and what”
expressed and unexpressed by her friends. Then Betty insisted that she
must meet all of the freshmen and clapped her hands for order. “I want
you all to know one of our finest senior girls, Lucia Coletti, from
Milan, Italy. Don’t forget how to pronounce her name, Loo-_shee_-a! And
that you may appreciate your school all the more, let me tell you that
her father and mother, Count and Countess Coletti, are letting her come
to finish her high school course here because she wants a Lyon High
diploma! Let’s give her a Lyon High cheer!”
Even the experienced Lucia was almost overcome at this, as in feminine
treble seniors, and freshmen cheered. “Lucia, rah! Lucia, rah!
Rah-rah—Lucia!”
“Oh, you Betty!” said Lucia, her face flushed; but she smiled at
everybody and carried it off as best she could.
“Speech!” cried Dotty, her face full of mischief. “Speech! Speech!”
“All right,” said Lucia. “I might as well say something first as last, I
suppose, Dotty. I am ever so glad to meet you freshmen and I am sorry
that I could not get here in time for the whole entertainment. I almost
wish I were a freshman, too, to have all the good times over again. Yes,
I _do_ want a Lyon High diploma, and besides that I have made friends
here that I can never give up in my whole life. I am pretty well torn to
pieces between loving my own country and this one, too, but I believe
that one can have—opportunities and friends everywhere!”
This was quite a long speech for Lucia. “If I had thought I’d have to
say anything, I probably wouldn’t have come; but I just stepped right
into Lyon High atmosphere, didn’t I? and it seemed natural.” So she told
Betty presently. Lucia’s bit of Italian accent was a little more
pronounced since having talked in her own tongue all summer, and it made
quite an impression. She was new for most of the freshmen, but Eileen
explained to Ann that she was Mr. Murchison’s niece and that she had
been in America with her mother “for some reason or other” at the
Murchison place and had attended Lyon High till the Count came for them.
“I imagine that Betty Lee knows her terribly well, or she wouldn’t have
introduced her like that.”
Meanwhile Lucia’s special friends were making a fuss over her with which
her father’s title had nothing to do. Mathilde, to be sure, was
assiduous in her attentions.
“You’re here in time for ice-cream, Lucia,” said Dotty. “Mary Emma,
hurry a plate of it around. Lucia is almost melted, but I hope the
ice-cream isn’t.”
“The ice-cream is just right, Dotty,” firmly said Mary Emma and Lucia
added, “Like every other senior attempt.”
“Good for you, Lucia. You are always loyal. How does it seem to be a
senior?”
“Glorious! It may seem better after I get my work made up, though. What
do you think, Betty? Mother and Father came over, too, deciding at the
last minute and they are going to take an ‘all-American’ tour this fall,
be here for Christmas, go to Florida, sail for South America, come back
to see me graduate and take me home. That is, all that is _planned_.”
The Murchison chauffeur, who came back to the school for Lucia, took a
full load of girls to their different homes. Betty was the last to be
delivered and Lucia had whispered to her, in the retirement of the back
seat, “It’s just like one continuous honeymoon with them now, Betty, and
I am the very happiest girl you ever knew. A lot of it is due to your
good advice, Betty.”
“Nonsense!” said Betty. “You would have seen what to do anyway.”
“I’m not so sure.”