THEY ALSO SERVE
There was a very serious meeting of students of Wellington being held in
the library of the Square Deal. Twenty of the leading spirits of the
student body had asked Mrs. Edwin Green to let them confer with her on a
most important matter.
The college authorities had announced that the H. C. of L. had affected
Wellington just as it had every person and every institution, and
students' board would have to be raised for the ensuing year. This came
as a blow to the majority of girls. Going to college is an expensive
matter at best, and while there are many rich girls gathered in those
institutions, the majority come from homes of moderate incomes and many
from actual poverty. It will never be known how many sacrifices had
been made to educate some of those Wellington girls, and the H. C. of L.
had affected their families just as much as it had the institution; and
the news that the following year college expenses would increase had
caused much consternation in the student body.
"We won't stand for it!" said one tense little girl from Indiana, who
had been working her way through three years of college by doing all
kinds of odd jobs, which reminded Molly of her own strenuous student
days.
"It's harder on you than me, Mary Culbertson," said a sturdy sophomore.
"You haven't but one more year. At least I haven't wasted as much time
in this old joint as you have."
"But, my dear, please don't look upon it as wasted time," begged Molly.
"Well, I came for a degree and if I don't get it, I consider I have
wasted two years. I might just as well have taken a job at home. A
teacher's place was open for me then and now it may be filled for good.
A degree will give one a better salary, but two years of college won't
get you anywhere."
"I am sure some scheme can be worked to keep down the expenses,"
insisted Molly.
"We can't live on less food!" bluntly declared Lilian Swift.
"Nor plainer!" from a discontented one.
"It might be plainer without being less nourishing," suggested Molly.
"How about your doing some light housekeeping on your own hook and not
trying to board with the college?"
"But I am sure the college authorities do not make money on the girls
as it is," said Billie McKym, who had come to the meeting from truly
altruistic motives, as expenses made no difference to her personally.
"If a great body of girls cannot be fed on the amount charged now, I am
certain a girl could not live on less if she went in for herself."
Billie, with all her wealth, had a good keen eye for business and
understood the management of money rather better than any poor girl at
Wellington.
"I reckon you are right," said Molly sadly. "Would you girls mind if I
ask my husband to come in and talk it over with you?"
"No!" in chorus. "Bring him in!"
"Not that knowing how to read Chaucer in old English will make him wise
as how to live on nothing a year," whispered one.
Professor Green was in the den with his cousin, old Major Fern, who had
motored in from the country to have a chat with his favorite kinsman.
Molly entered, smiling at the clouds of tobacco smoke which almost
obscured the two gentlemen.
"Edwin, I know the Major will excuse you for a moment. I need you
badly."
"Of course, my dear! But I hope it is nothing serious that is beclouding
your fair brow," said the old gentleman with the courteous manner of his
generation.
"Yes, it is serious in a way," and Molly told her husband and his cousin
what was the problem the girls had brought to her to solve.
"Of course, I can't blame the college authorities," she sighed. "It is
hard to feed people as it is, and with expenses going up, up, I know
they will have to raise the board. But on the other hand, there are many
girls who simply cannot pay more than they are already paying. I feel
for them, as I was one of them when I was at college. If the board had
been raised one nickel I should have had to stop. I almost had to as it
was. If it had not been for Edwin's fondness for apples, I should have
been degreeless to this day."
"Adam and I!" laughed the professor. "But what do you want me to do,
Molly? I am yours to command."
"I don't know exactly! I thought you might talk to the girls and we
might keep on thinking and praying until some solution is reached."
"I have a proposition to make that might interest your college friends,"
said Major Fern. "They may scorn it, but on the other hand they may like
the idea. Let me talk to them."
"Oh, how lovely! I knew there would be a way," cried the optimistic
Molly.
"Wait until you hear it first," smiled the old gentleman.
Molly led the way to the library, where the twenty girls were having a
hot discussion on ways and means. She introduced Major Fern, who took
his seat among them and beamed on them with kindly eyes.
"Ahem!" he began. "I am not much of a public speaker but I am going to
put a plan before you and see how it strikes you. I understand that you
are making a kick because of the raising of board for the ensuing
year----"
"We are!"
"Well, you know that everything is going up?"
"Everything but prayer!" from the discontented one.
"Even that may be going up, too," he answered solemnly. "Now listen:
Perhaps you know that I am rich,--not so rich as some, but richer than
I have any right to be or any reason for being----"
Here Mary Culbertson tossed her proud little head as much as to let him
know that charity was not what she wanted. Major Fern saw her and smiled
his approval.
"I have no idea of offering any of my ill-gotten gold to you.--I know
how you would hate that. In fact, I haven't any gold to offer. I am rich
only in land and about as poor as they make 'em in other things. I am
really land poor, having much more land than I have any use for or can
till. I can't get labor to keep up my farms. I have been thinking of
selling an especially fertile farm about four miles from Wellington, but
I don't want to lose money on it, and if I sell at this time I am sure
to. This farm comprises about two hundred acres of as good land as one
can find in these parts, and that is saying a great deal. And now I am
coming to my scheme----"
The old gentleman paused while the girls waited in breathless eagerness.
"I will let you have this farm if you will work it for me,--have it for
as long as you need it. You don't know what can be done in the way of
intensive farming if one can get the labor. You could raise enough
potatoes to run your mess for the winter; enough tomatoes and beans to
can, and what's more you can can them right on the spot."
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted Billie McKym. "The problem is solved or I'm a
Boche."
"Are you willing to undertake it?" asked the Major.
"Of course we are willing!" cried Lilian.
"The ones who live far can take the first part of the summer, and the
last, just before college opens, and the ones who are close can fill in
during the midsummer," said Molly, immediately grasping the possibility
of the plan.
"Well, I'll leave it to you young ladies to work up, and when you care
to, I'll take you over the place. There is a good house and well and
plenty of fruit,--apples to feed to the hogs----"
"That suits me!" declared Edwin, who had been quiet while his cousin was
unfolding the plan. "I see no reason, seriously, why this idea should
not be wonderfully successful,--not only should it bring you back to
college and keep you for the same, or even less, money than you have
hitherto had to pay, but it will at the same time help materially in the
food situation that the country is going to have to face."
"Will you be one of that committee that must take hold of this thing?"
asked Billie.
"If the student body so wishes!"
"Well, we so wish!" came from twenty throats.
"You and Mrs. Green,--she is already one of us. As for you, Major Fern,
we hardly know how to thank you for what you have done," said the
president of the juniors.
"Don't thank me! I have done nothing! Instead of selling a farm at a
loss when I can't get labor to work it, I am going to ask some beautiful
young ladies to work it for me."
"We might drink him down," whispered a timid girl.
"Of course! Drink him down!"
And without more ado the twenty girls, with Molly chiming in and Edwin
holding down a second, sang:
"Here's to Major Fern! Drink him down!
Here's to Major Fern! Drink him down!
Here's to Major Fern! Here's to Major Fern!
Drink him down! Drink him down! Drink him down!"
"Fine! That beats a wreath of bay," beamed the dear old gentleman. "And
now I'll take myself off. I forgot to say I'll have the land turned
under for you and give the use of a team whenever you need it."
He was gone. The girls, who only a few moments before had felt so
depressed, were now filled with hope and animation. Degrees were to be
had, after all. Of course it meant work, but that would be fun.
"Oh, gee! I'm happy!" cried Mary Culbertson. "But we must get busy in a
hurry."
"First we must see Prexy and get her to cooperate," suggested Molly.
"Sure! Let's do it in order, and find out if we do our part if the
college authorities will do theirs. I dote on digging potatoes, myself,"
said Lilian.
Committees were formed immediately; one to see Prexy; one to go view
their estate; another to look into housing conditions; another to canvas
the student body and find out who would and who wouldn't, who preferred
to plant and who to reap.
Billie McKym was wild with enthusiasm. "Do you realize, Molly, that I
won't have to spend a summer in Newport, after all? I can put it up to
my relations that I am needed in these parts. I mean to ask for a larger
allowance, though, as I can help out some on the sly. I am thinking
about buying some Close-to-Nature houses and presenting them to the
agricultural club. We shall have to have overalls, too,--and farming
implements.--I think I'll make Grandmother and Uncle come across in good
shape."
Prexy, Miss Walker, was not only willing to cooperate but delighted that
the students were finding a way out of the difficulty. It was a deep
grief to her, this raising of prices, and she knew only too well how
many girls would be cut out of their degrees by this necessary step.
Many interviews with Major Fern had to be arranged and many meetings of
committees had to be held, but finally everything was under way for the
agricultural club's work on the farm so kindly donated by its delighted
owner.
"By Jove, I begin to feel that I'm helping to win the war!" he declared.
"I have been hating myself for a useless hulk of a veteran who was too
old to fight and too old-fashioned to suggest to others how to fight,
but if I can be the means of keeping a lot of girls at college I think I
am doing pretty well; especially if by so doing, those girls will grow
food enough for themselves. Every potato is equal to a hand grenade and
every bean to a bullet."