"threshed it all out," as the former said in discussing Mr. Ballantyne;
and during the process had been half-formed in Marjorie's mind the idea
which, though growing slowly during the long winter, reached its full
maturity only later when warmed and ripened by that gentleman's noble
rage against women's colleges. Marjorie saw that her crusade must be
carried on both within college and beyond its peaceful campus. "You see,
Eleanor," she said, "all the Marian Coales in the freshman class (I am
afraid it is too late to work with hardened upperclassmen) ought to be
given a good broad point of view on the question of what they are to get
out of college: and _then_ all the Ballantynes in the world outside are
to be convinced that such a point of view exists--is more common than
they think. What gives me most hope about the second half of the work is
that the Ballantynes of the world are nearly always people who have met
no college women, or few and unfortunate specimens of the race."
With a strong sense of the need of instructing people of the Coale and
the Ballantyne type in the way they should go, Marjorie began her last
Semester in college. That, however, was only one of a number of
conflicting ideas behind that broad, white brow of hers. For a senior's
last Semester, by reason of her desire to do her remaining work at least
well enough to merit that coveted title of Bachelor of Arts, and her
intention to spend more time than she has hitherto spent with the
soon-scattered members of the dear old class, (tramping with them about
the country to the Gulph, Valley Forge, and the Red Rose Inn, or
gathering congenial spirits about the hospitable chafing-dish)--by
reason of all this, a senior's second Semester is a time of great
physical activity and some confusion of mind. Marjorie worked
indefatigably at her beloved political science, took part
enthusiastically in Sheridan's _Critic_ when that delightful drama was
given for the benefit of the College Settlement Chapter, and when
basket-ball training began in mid-March, cheerfully forswore all sweet
things and "eating between meals," that she might, when the time came
for the inter-class match games, help to win the silver lantern for the
class of ----.
And as she worked and played her thoughts were never far from the
crusade she and Eleanor had undertaken. They told no one of their
efforts, but they were often amused by the way in which their friends
unconsciously forwarded their plans. Carroll Mayo, dubbed by Marjorie
the "Versatile Virginian," was a gallant supporter; for though her
record for scholarship was not so high even as Marjorie's, it was high
enough not to be despised by the respecters of intellect only, in
estimating her total strength. As for her power in other directions,
Carroll was considered by this somewhat remarkable group of seniors the
best "all round" girl among them. If Marjorie chanced to have a guest of
the Ballantyne type, (and it must be confessed that she laid traps for
many such by inviting them to dine or have afternoon tea) she generally
contrived that Carroll should sit on one side of him or her, and by her
unconscious charm help Marjorie banish the prejudice that was waiting to
be justified.
Then there were Betty Hall and Anne Aldridge, both of whom were
excellent though unconscious abettors of Marjorie and Lee. Betty, in
spite of the self-distrust that put her into a very real agony of
apprehension whenever examinations stared her in the face, and caused
her to announce beforehand that in a few short days she would be
"flunked out," was no mean student; and ever since freshman days of
Minor Latin had done clever work in the classics. She was likewise a
good actor of what she called "heavy female parts," and the owner of a
fund of most delightful stories.
And Anne? Everybody knew Anne. Underclassmen gazed upon her with awe
and rapture--for was she not captain of the senior basket-ball team,
whom as juniors she had led to the championship? Merry, kindly,
black-eyed, sweet-tempered, saucy, loyal, unassuming Anne Aldridge,
overflowing with infectious humour, and having a good word for every
one--never was any one so justly popular as she. And to describe her yet
further with a wild flight of far-fetched metaphor, she was one of the
brightest jewels in the crown of the biology professor!
Less considerable than the help given the two crusaders by these three
was that which Marjorie and Eleanor received from another unwitting
senior--Kate Murray. Kate, if she had not been thrown with such girls as
Marjorie, Eleanor, and her own roommate, Dorothy Van Dyke, might have
turned out pure grind; but the constant contact with the good friends
had bred in her a wholesome sense of the value of a well-rounded college
experience. Now, in senior year, although she had at times to be
forcibly dragged from work by the frivolous Dorothy, she was heard to
deliver herself spontaneously of the opinion that people ought to play
daily,--afternoon tea with the six, after a long tramp or basket-ball
being preferred as the form that play was to take. And so when outside
influence was used to make Kate take her own advice, she was an
admirable example to the delinquent freshman Coale.
That clever young person whom Marjorie had found so problematical, was
now, by the end of the second Semester, working herself out to a
satisfactory solution. The slight change which had already, under the
energetic training of Marjorie, taken place in her was remarked by many
who had known her in her freshest freshman days, even though they did
not know of the influence that had wrought it. She was more alert, more
sympathetic than she had been when first the senior started her upon a
course not laid down in the college program; but not being of an
introspective nature, she was hardly conscious of the utter difference
between her former and her present points of view.
Her attitude towards the question of the next European Fellow, (that
annual earthquake whose rumblings so agitate the entire college with
increasing violence until the shock of the final announcement rends it)
was a delightful index to Marjorie of her own success in crusading, and
of what she considered Marian's improved mental condition resulting
therefrom. They talked it over, as do any two Bryn Mawr girls who are
together for more than five minutes at this period of the year; and
Marian, somewhat diffidently because she was a freshman talking of
seniors, said she very much hoped that Carroll Mayo would be the choice
of the Faculty. Why? Oh, because she was the sort of person the college
might for every reason be proud to have represent it at a foreign
university.
Didn't she think other people were as promising candidates? Marjorie had
inquired. Oh, yes, but personally she wanted to see a girl as charming
and as "all-round" as Carroll win. She thought Eleanor Mertoun another
great person for the honour,--supposed Kate Murray had a show, but she
wasn't very enthusiastic about _her_.
In the meantime, the senior class, with the best possible right, was in
a state of ferment that was not to be relieved save by the knowledge of
which one of them was chosen for such well-nigh crushing honour. As
March advanced, all other topics of conversation at breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, during long walks, or strolls about the campus on the way to
lectures, or from the athletic field, were relegated to the forgotten
corners of the mental attic; and "who do _you_ think will have the
fellowship?" was the incessant question.
When the bulletin boards at last displayed the announcement that all the
students were requested to come to chapel on Tuesday morning, March
20th, like a leaping prairie fire spread the news that the European
Fellow's name was to be made public. At once discussion waxed the more
violent, that every one might say all she thought before the need for
speculation in regard to the chosen one should be past. Monday
afternoon, when the final Faculty meeting for deciding the matter was in
progress, was spent by the senior class in a state of restlessness that
kept them vibrating in a distracted manner between that portion of the
campus immediately under the windows of the President's office (as
though forsooth any information could trickle, like a welcome stream,
down to the thirsty ones below) and the rooms of different members of
the class who were so fortunate as to live facing that august building
where the fate of several people was being decided. Pembroke East, being
nearest Taylor was the favourite place for these indoor gatherings, and
Marjorie's and Eleanor's study, which faced the President's office
windows, was filled with a constantly changing crowd of eager seniors.
In the course of the afternoon, practically every one in the class was
suggested; for human nature, in such cases, does not thoroughly like
being surprised, and there was abroad a hardly culpable longing to be
able to say, "I told you so," in case some dark horse should prove the
winner. When the Faculty meeting was over, they knew would come, in
some mysterious manner, the official notice from the Secretary of the
Faculty to the chosen candidate. Then, in accordance with a wise
provision which prevents the spontaneous combustion of the new-made
fellow, she might tell one of her friends. And every one longed to be
sharer in the secret that was to be kept over-night.
As it happens every year, so too when the class of ---- were seniors,
the efforts at discovering the recipient of the Faculty note failed
utterly, and all but two seniors were therefore ignorant of the
long-desired name when the morning came on which the public announcement
was to be made. Speculation was rife, and breakfast, contrary to its
usual sleepy moroseness, was nearly as animated and "discussive"
(Marjorie's word) as dinner was prone to be.
At last Taylor bell begins to ring for chapel, and hardly has the first
stroke melted into the clanging monotone of the succeeding ones when on
all sides is displayed an unwonted eagerness for attending divine
service (not compulsory). From every hall flow long lines of students,
the black gowns of the more eager ones streaming straight out behind
them in the fresh March wind, like Alice's hair when the Red Queen ran
with her "faster! faster!" Followed by the slower comers, they hurry
into Taylor, up the staircase and into the chapel. There they scatter to
the excited though somewhat subdued groups that occupy the sections set
apart by unwritten law for different classes. In the middle front
writhes the senior class, forgetful of its usual stony impassiveness in
the face of anxiety. They are excited, for is it not one of themselves
that has been chosen? They are supported on the left by the loyal
juniors, who, because they have known the Fellow (whoever she may be)
three years, longer than any other class in college, are in turn justly
thrilled. The right flank is held by the devoted sophomore class,
excited because those from among whom the Fellow comes were once their
champions, when in freshman year they needed such. And behind the choir,
which is the rearguard of the seniors, sit the freshmen, excited because
they have never before come within hailing distance of the honour.
The clock is anxiously watched as the hands approach, oh! so slowly,
towards 8:45. Every probable, nay possible, candidate is being pierced
to the soul from all sides with glances compared to which a hawk's would
be careless and cursory. Now and again the wave of whispering and
laughter rises suddenly, until some conscience-pricked proctor silences
the throng. It begins again--a low bubbling noise that is alive with
anxious, suppressed excitement, and that threatens to engulf the
decorous Chapel in the rise of its un-religious tide.
The nervous twisting about to survey the crowd, the buzz of talk, the
ripple of laughter, cease suddenly. Then as the President and the
College Preacher, in their academic robes, enter the two upper doors and
ascend the platform, the mass rises, and led by the choir breaks into a
vigorous processional hymn. Then very quiet is the room while the words
of the strong King David are read, and it is only when the last sentence
of the prayer brings the students upright that the excitement breaks
forth again.
Across the rustle of readjustment, subduing it momentarily as a great
wind flattens the waves for an instant only to toss them the more
wildly, comes the voice of the President.
"Before we come to speak of the purpose for which we are gathered here
this morning," she begins, her smile expressing perfect appreciation of
the suspense that racks her audience, "I should like to make some
announcements of general interest to the students." The strained
attention of her hearers all over the Chapel breaks in hardly audible
catches of the breath. Those unheard announcements give time for
further speculation as to the candidate. Marjorie is eagerly leaning
forward, too impatient-looking for one who knows the Thing--so it can't
be Eleanor, decide the sagest critics. Kate Murray is abnormally
flushed, Carroll correspondingly pale. It must be Carroll--she looks so
subdued--so unexcited.
Those announcements are over. The President unfolds an innocent-looking
bit of paper. The honour list of ten, from whom the Fellow has been
chosen, is read. "Is it she?" is the tacit question of the crowd at each
name. Then----
"The decision has been difficult," says the President impressively.
"After long and earnest discussion the Faculty has nominated to the
Board of Trustees, as European Fellow for the coming year----"
A pause. The weighted silence seems to stifle one.
"Eleanor Whitcomb Mertoun!"
A roar shatters the air--or is it the roof?--a shout of generous
gladness mingled with the hearty clamour of hand and heel. The pent-up
eagerness to know is changed into the longing to honour the chosen
candidate, and it bursts forth and swirls tumultuously about Eleanor
like the Fundy tide. It rises, falls, rises again, twenty feet at a
leap.
Marjorie is meantime pounding Eleanor's knee, and exclaiming to every
one within reach, "I knew it! I knew it!" as though some especial credit
were due her for having been told the secret. Kate Murray, on the other
side, was dragging Eleanor down by the neck, as if she would unseat from
its firm base the head whose market value had risen 100% in five
minutes.
Decorum returns for a moment when the President dismisses the students
with the request that they sing the college hymn; and they sing it as
can only those that have felt the "gracious inspiration" of our
"Mistress and Mother." When it is over, there is a rush for Lee Mertoun
from all sides, for it is _de rigueur_ to shake the new Fellow's hand
very nearly to the maiming of that revered member. For ten minutes she
clasps hands, hardly recognizing their owners in the press; and then
gradually, as the bell rings for first lectures, the crowd melts out of
the chapel.
As Lee, Marjorie, Kate, and Carroll left the room Marjorie ran her arm
through that of the warm and red recipient of blushing honours and
facing her quickly about, pointed tragically with her pen at the almost
deserted confusion of chairs helplessly awry.
"There, woman," she said, "a picture of that might with great
plausibility be labelled 'Charleston after the Earthquake.' That is all
your fault, and it is what you have got to live up to."
Eleanor laughed. "If that were all!" she said.
"You are right--there is more," retorted Marjorie, putting her own
construction upon Eleanor's words. "You have to live this thing down as
well as live up to it. And that means you will have to work hard to
convince the infidels that you are still in the crusade, and that you
stand for something besides the midnight oil. Now if you have yourself
well in hand after all this agitation, let's go to Latin." So the four
seniors wended their way through the small groups that were still
"talking it over," Marjorie declaring that she simply must cut her own
lecture and go with Lee to Major Latin, in order to see how to treat a
Fellow.
As they passed into Room E closing the door behind them with the
peculiarly irritating, undecided rattle that particular door always
gives, suspended animation woke again in the lingering underclassmen,
who had ceased their talk to gaze after the person who had suddenly
become a Personage in the college world. A knot of freshmen talked in
low tones.
"Marian Coale is embittered for life because Marjorie didn't get it,"
suggested one teasingly.
"I'm not," protested the literal-minded accused. "Marjorie doesn't
deserve it----"
"Tut, tut, how disloyal!" murmured the tease.
"--so far as scholarship is concerned," she finished.
"What else would you base the choice upon?" was the astonished inquiry
from another.
"That is the first thing to consider, of course; but it is not all." And
Marian waxed eloquent upon the subject of the ideal European Fellow.
"Who told you all this?" asked she of the insatiable desire to annoy,
when Marian paused. "You didn't have it with you when you came to
college."
Marian's dark face reddened. "I am learning a few things in college,"
was the slow answer. "One is to value something beside pure intellect,
and to estimate people at more than the amount of grey matter they
happen to possess."
This was quite true. Marian's face-about was a matter of great
astonishment to the few who had known her at all well when she entered.
Most of them traced the change to her friendship with Marjorie, but no
one, least of all Marian herself, suspected that design on the part of
the senior had brought it about.
As to Marjorie, she hardly believed in the transformation of the
freshman, and kept furtively watching her convert for some signs of
flagging energy. But watch as she might she never saw in Marian any
indications of departure from the way into which she had been drawn. As
the spring advanced, and one was greeted upon going out of doors with
the faint, exhilarating scent of new-sprung grass, and the sight of a
green patch, like the broadcast promise of the prodigal summer, here and
there on the brown campus, Marjorie began to feel that the first part of
the "crusade" she had placed before herself that February day had been
carried out.
The second part, which concerned the extra-college world of men and
women she had in the meantime not neglected. Here, her efforts, though
not confined to Mr. Ballantyne, were yet centred in him. She dated her
spring, as do most Bryn Mawrtyrs, by the changes in field and tree, but
in this particular year she counted time also by her progress with the
"genus Ballantyne," and especially with him from whom it took its name.
In the time of cherry blossoms, when the black old trunks flung over
them a white splendour woven by the wind and the sun, she had broken
through the outer wall of prejudice that had been so weakened by her
first attack. When the wind began to whirl from the apple-trees the
full-blown petals, she felt that she was actually gaining ground, and
faster than she had hoped; and when finally the daisies whitened the
country-side, Marjorie received proof of complete triumph.
This pleasant reward for the labour of a Semester came to Marjorie one
Saturday afternoon in the latter half of May. The days had been warm
and, as the work piled up in its inevitable way towards the end of the
year, wearisome also. Dorothy Van Dyke, to celebrate the passing of the
week, persuaded Kate Murray that they two should give a "Ball" to the
other five under the big cherry-tree by Pembroke West. So it came about
that lemonade flowed freely there that afternoon, and every one of the
seven friends returning from a shopping expedition in town, from work,
or what not, was welcomed to rugs, cushions and the cool clink of ice
under the hospitable boughs. Marjorie was there, of course, helping
every one in her own particularly helpful way. It was restful, sitting
there in the golden-green afternoon shadows, while the breath of the
lilacs drifted along to them with the lazy air. The beauty of it all
silenced the little group more than once, and their love for campus and
halls rose breast-high--throat-high, and choked them oddly as they
thought of going away.
Dear grey, ivy-clad halls! curtained in April with rich, tender green
that is pierced to the heart with glorious sunlight, and that undulates,
rippling, in the sweet spring wind; reddened by your vines that burn,
lit by the sunset, in October; standing bare, proudly silent when the
shouting north wind whirls the white snow about you; roofed with silver
when the high moon dapples the grey road with the soft dim shadows of
your trees; stately but never cold, always beautiful and beloved; if you
but set upon your children as they go forth from you (groping their way
because their eyes are clouded) your hallmarks of strong intellect, high
honour, broad sympathy, and quick insight--who of all _Almæ Matres_ may
more truly rejoice in her noble race than Bryn Mawr?
A mood of contemplation could not but soon pass with such a group. The
irrepressible Dorothy shattered it now.
"Here's a man coming up the walk," she announced. "Does he belong to any
of you? Daughter is with him."
Every one turned to see if he "belonged" to her, and Marjorie seized
Lee's arm as she recognized the stately figure.
"Mr. Ballantyne--and Louise. What do you think that means, Lee?"
"Suppose you go to find out," suggested Eleanor. "He probably wants to
see you at all events." And Marjorie went.
When she came back half an hour later, after showing the delighted
father and daughter as much about college as was possible at that
unpropitious time of day, her face was glowing with pleasure.
"Marge," called Dorothy, as she came running across the grass from where
she had been speeding the parting guests, "we've decided to cut dinner
and stay out here until it's time for the Glee Club to sing on the
steps."
"Jolly," answered Marjorie, "who cares for dinner anyway?" She dropped
down beside Eleanor and seized her firmly by the shoulder. "Lee Mertoun,
Mr. Ballantyne brought Louise out to see her future Alma Mater. She goes
to Miss Stevens's school next fall for the last two years of prep.
work--then here to college. _Was denkst du?_"
Eleanor clapped her hands delightedly. "Good work, Marge! I knew it
would come about. Why, at this rate there won't be any of the genus left
in the city of Philadelphia--not an infidel to crusade on----"
Betty Hall's voice broke across the stream of congratulation. "Of
course, Carroll, I wouldn't mention it to her, but I think it shows
just a _little_ lack of breeding to discuss something we know nothing
about!"
The laugh that followed this expansive hint was joined in by Marjorie
and Lee.
"Do tell them about the crusade, Marjorie. It is time now, I think,
especially as you have met the enemy and made him yours, poetically
speaking. You don't know how I have been burdened by this ghastly
secret!"
And while the sun sank and the shadows melted into the one deepening
shadow we call twilight, and the circling bats flickered against the
sky, Marjorie told of the problem that had presented itself to her that
winter, and of her plans and efforts for its solution.
"Of course," she finished, "I don't mean to have it take all my time.
There are other things more important, and besides it is not the sort of
thing that can be done by constant conscious effort. But it seems to me
so very well worth while to convince people at large of the value of
college training, that I am willing to go out of my way sometimes to do
it. And if we _are_ going to do it, we have got to take care that we are
broad and sympathetic, and not merely 'cold, learned, dehumanized'----"
By senior year one's friends never let one's statements go
unchallenged. Kate Murray as might have been expected, now took up the
case for a hypothetical defendant.
"I don't agree with you at all, Marjorie. That's a one-sided way of
looking at the matter. You leave out of account, absolutely, the point
of view of the people who devote their lives to one particular side of
intellectual work, and accomplish the greatest masterpieces of the
world. Specialization is the only thing that brings about great results
in many cases; and where would be the great works that are above the
horrible level of mediocrity, if your doctrine of--of--universal
versatility (stop giggling. I'm not trying to be poetic or funny either)
were accepted by everybody?"
"See here, Kate," broke in Carroll, "it's you that are getting one-sided
now. I see what Marjorie is after and I think she is quite right.
Getting bloodless and thin-lipped _is_ one of the dangers of the college
woman."
Anne Aldridge's quick voice answered Carroll.