[Illustration: THEY WERE ALL THERE]
BETTY WALES
ON THE CAMPUS
_by_
MARGARET WARDE
_author of_
BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN
BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE
BETTY WALES, JUNIOR
BETTY WALES, SENIOR
BETTY WALES, B.A.
BETTY WALES & CO.
BETTY WALES DECIDES
ILLUSTRATED BY
EVA M. NAGEL
THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA
1920
COPYRIGHT
1910 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY
Betty Wales on the Campus
Introduction
MOST of the girls in this story first became acquainted with each other
in their freshman year at Harding College, and the story of their four
jolly years together and their trip to Europe after graduation is told
in “Betty Wales, Freshman,” “Betty Wales, Sophomore,” “Betty Wales,
Junior,” “Betty Wales, Senior,” and “Betty Wales, B. A.”
It was during this memorable trip that Betty met Mr. Morton, the
irascible but generous railroad magnate. “Betty Wales & Co.” describes
how Betty and her “little friends” opened the successful “Tally-ho
Tea-Shop” in Harding, and what came of it. Babbie Hildreth’s engagement
to Mr. Thayer was one result, and another was that Mr. Morton gave to
Harding College the money for a dormitory for the poorer girls. Betty’s
“smallest sister” Dorothy was also in Harding attending Miss Dick’s
school, and it was for her that Eugenia Ford invented the delightful
Ploshkin. Somebody modeled one, and as little plaster ploshkins were
soon being sold everywhere, it turned out to be one of the Tally-ho’s
most popular and profitable features. Betty had thought she would leave
the shop to Emily Davis and return to her family, but this story tells
how she found herself again on the Harding Campus. And finally, how
Betty Wales, with the aid of one other important person, chose her
career and left Harding, will be found in “Betty Wales Decides.”
MARGARET WARDE.
Contents
I. “TENDING UP” AGAIN 9
II. ARCHITECT’S PLANS--AND OTHERS 29
III. THE CULT OF THE B. C. A.’S 47
IV. THE GRASSHOPPER WAGER 62
V. REINFORCEMENTS 78
VI. FRISKY FENTON’S MARTYRDOM 98
VII. THE DOLL WAVE 116
VIII. MORE ARCHITECT’S PLANS, AND A MYSTERY 140
IX. MOVING IN 158
X. GHOSTS AND INSPIRATIONS 174
XI. WHAT CHRISTMAS REALLY MEANS 191
XII. RAFAEL PROPOSES 213
XIII. GENIUS ARRIVES 229
XIV. AS A BULL PUP ORDAINS 249
XV. A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK--WITH
“FEATURES” 268
XVI. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 285
XVII. THE MYSTERY SOLVED 299
XVIII. FRISKY FENTON’S FOLLY 318
XIX. ARCHITECT’S FINAL PLANS--CONSIDERED 337
Illustrations
PAGE
THEY WERE ALL THERE _Frontispiece_
“I’M SORRY I WAS LATE” 11
SITTING DOWN TO REST ON A BAGGAGE TRUCK 84
“YOU MUST TAKE OFF YOUR APRON” 160
JUST AS THEY HAD GIVEN HER UP 241
THE OTHERS STOOD AROUND LISTENING 282
“WE’LL FIND ’EM, MISS,” HE ASSURED HER 327
Betty Wales On The Campus
CHAPTER I
“TENDING UP” AGAIN
BETTY WALES, with a red bandanna knotted tightly over all her yellow
curls--except one or two particularly rebellious ringlets that
positively refused to be hidden--pattered softly down the back stairs
of the Wales cottage at Lakeside. Softly, because mother was taking her
afternoon nap and must on no account be disturbed. Betty lifted a lid
of the kitchen range, peered anxiously in at the glowing coals, and
nodded approvingly at them for being so nice and red. Then she opened
the ice-box, just for the supreme satisfaction of gazing once more upon
the six big tomatoes that she had peeled and put away to cool right
after lunch--which is the only proper time to begin getting dinner for
a fastidious family like hers. Finally she slipped on over her bathing
suit the raincoat that hung on her arm, and carefully opened the front
door. On the piazza the Smallest Sister and a smaller friend were
cozily ensconced in the hammock, “talking secrets,” as they explained
eagerly to Betty.
“But you can come and talk too,” they assured her in a happy chorus,
for Betty was the idol of all the little girls in the Lakeside colony.
Betty smiled at them and pulled back the raincoat to show what was
underneath. “Thank you, dears, but I’m going for a dip while the sun is
hot. And Dorothy, don’t forget that you’ve said that you’d stay here
and see to everything till I get back. And if more girls come up, don’t
make a lot of noise and wake mother. Good-bye.” And she was off like
the wind down the path to the beach staircase.
Half a dozen welcoming shouts greeted her from the sand.
“We’ve waited ages for you,” cried one.
“Dare you to slide down on the rail,” called another.
[Illustration: “I’M SORRY I WAS LATE”]
“No, slide down the bank,” suggested a third.
Betty gave her head a funny little toss, threw the raincoat down to one
of them and slid, ran, jumped, and tumbled down the sheer bank, landing
in a heap on a mound of soft sand that flew up in a dusty cloud around
the party.
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered, wiping the dust out of her eyes. “Sorry
that I was late, I mean. The sand is Don’s fault, because he dared me.
You see, I had to mend all Will’s stockings, because he’s going off
to-morrow on a little business trip. And then I had to see to my fire,
and remind Dorothy that she is now in charge of mother and the house.
Beat you out to the raft, Mary.”
Mary Hooper shook off her share of the sand-cloud resignedly. “All
right,” she said. “Only of course I’ve been in once already, and I’m
rather tired.”
“Tired nothing,” scoffed one of the Benson girls. “You paddled around
the cove for five minutes an hour ago, poor thing! That’s all the
exercise you’ve had to-day. Betty’s the one who ought to be tired,
with all the cooking and scrubbing and mending she does. Only she’s a
regular young steam engine----”
Betty leaned forward and tumbled Sallie Benson over on her back in the
sand. “Hush!” she said. “I don’t work hard, and I’m not tired, and
besides, I shall probably lose the race. Come along, Mary.”
The race was a tie, but Betty declared that Tom Benson got in her way
on purpose, and Mary Hooper retorted that Sally splashed her like a
whole school of porpoises. So they finally agreed to try again going
back, and then they sat on the raft in the sunshine, throwing sticks
for Mary’s setter to swim after, and watching the Ames boys dive, until
Will appeared on the shore shouting and waving a letter wildly--an
incentive to Betty’s getting back in a hurry that caused Mary to
declare the return race off also, especially as she had lost it.
“Didn’t want to bother you,” explained Will amiably, “but Cousin Joe
drove me out in his car, and I thought that maybe the chief cook----”
Betty seized the letter and ran. “I knew things were going to happen,”
she murmured as she flopped up the beach stairway. “But there’s an
extra tomato that my prophetic soul told me to peel, and lots of
soup, and lots of ice-cream. Oh, dear, I’m getting this letter so
wet that I shan’t ever be able to read it.” She held it out at arm’s
length and looked at the address. It was typewritten, and there was a
printed “Return to Harding College” in the corner. “Nothing but an old
circular, I suppose,” she decided, and laid it carefully down in a spot
of yellow sunshine on the floor of her room to dry off.
Of course there was no time to open it until dinner was cooked and
eaten; and then Cousin Joe piled his big car full of laughing,
chattering young people and drove them off through the pine woods in
the moonlight.
Betty was in front with Cousin Joe. “Things look so much more enchanted
and fairylike if you’re in front,” she explained as she climbed in.
Cousin Joe chuckled. “You always have some good reason for wanting
to sit in front, young lady,” he said. “When you were a kid, you had
to be where you could cluck to the horses. But I certainly didn’t
suppose you went in for moonlight and fairies and that sort of thing.
I thought you were a hard-headed business woman, with all kinds of
remarkable money-making schemes up your sleeves.”
Betty patted the embroidery on her cuff and frowned disapprovingly at
him. “You shouldn’t make fun of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, Cousin Joe. It
does make money--really and truly it does.”
“Well, I guess I know that,” Cousin Joe assured her solemnly, “and I
understand the extremely marketable nature of ploshkins. Will keeps me
very well posted about his wonderful sister’s wonderful enterprises
that are backed by the Morton millions.”
“Don’t be silly, please, Cousin Joe,” begged Betty. “I’ve just done
what any girl would have under the circumstances, and I’ve had such
very scrumptious luck--that’s all.”
Cousin Joe put on slow speed, and leaned forward to stare at Betty in
the moonlight. “You’ve pulled off a start that any man might envy you,
little girl, and you’re just as pretty and young and jolly as if you’d
never touched money except to spend it for clothes and candy. And you
still love fun and look out for fairies, and some day a nice young
man--I say, Betty, here’s a long straight stretch. Change seats and see
how fast you can tool her up to the Pine Grove Country Club for a cool
little supper all around.”
“Oh, could I truly try?”
Betty’s voice sounded like a happy child’s, and her eyes sparkled with
pleasure and excitement, as her small hands clutched the big wheel.
Cousin Joe leaned back and watched her. “I had a tough pull when I
started out in life,” he was thinking, “and no ‘such very scrumptious
luck,’ either, and I let it sour me. Betty’s game, luck or no luck.
Luck’s not the word for it, anyway. Of course people want to keep
friends with the girl who owns that smile. It means something, her
smile does. It’s not in the same class with Miss Mary Hooper’s society
smirk. I can’t see myself why that nice young man that I almost said
was going to fall in love with her some day doesn’t come along--several
of him in fact. But I’m glad I didn’t finish that sentence; I suppose
you could spoil even Betty Wales.”
Betty remembered her letter again when she stepped on it in the
dark and it crackled. She had undressed by moonlight, so as not to
wake little Dorothy, who shared her room at the cottage. Now she
lit a candle, and opening her letter read it in the dim flickering
light. Something dropped out--a long slip that proved, upon further
examination, to be a railroad ticket from Cleveland to Harding and
back again. And the typewritten letter--that might have been “only an
old circular”--was signed by no less a personage than the President
of Harding College himself. Seeing his name at the end, in the queer
scraggly hand that every Harding girl knew, quite took Betty’s breath
away, and as for the letter itself! When she had finished it Betty blew
out the candle and sank down in an awe-stricken little heap on the
floor by the window to think things over and straighten them out.
Prexy had written to her himself--the great Prexy! He wanted her to
come and advise with him and Mr. Morton and the architects about the
finishing touches for Morton Hall. Of all absurd, unaccountable ideas
that was the queerest.
“Mr. Morton originally suggested asking you,” he wrote, “but I heartily
second him. We both feel sure that the ingenuity of the young woman
who made the Tally-ho Tea-Shop out of a barn will devise some valuable
features for the new dormitory, thereby fitting it more completely to
the needs of its future occupants.”
Morton Hall was the result of a suggestion Betty had made to her friend
Mr. Morton, the millionaire. It was to give the poorer girls at Harding
an opportunity to live on the campus and share in the college life.
“Gracious!” sighed Betty. “He thinks I thought up all the tea-room
features. It’s Madeline that they want. But Madeline’s in Maine with
the Enderbys, and wouldn’t come. And then of course Mr. Morton may need
to be pacified about something. I can do that part all right. Anyway, I
shall have to go, so long as they have sent a ticket--right away too,
or Mr. Morton will be sure to need pacifying most awfully. I wonder
what in the world that postscript means.”
The postscript said, “I had intended to write you in regard to another
matter, connected not so much with the architecture of the new hall as
with its management; but talking it over together will be much more
satisfactory.”
Betty lay awake a long while wondering about that postscript. When she
finally went to sleep she dreamed that Prexy had hired her to cook
for Morton Hall, and that she scorched the ice-cream, put salt in the
jelly-roll, and water on the fire. She burned her fingers doing that
and screamed, and it was Will calling to remind her that he wanted
breakfast and his bag packed in time for the eight-sixteen.
At the breakfast table the cook--she ate with the family--gave notice.
She was going away that very afternoon.
“Most unbusinesslike,” Mr. Wales assured her solemnly, but with a
twinkle in his eyes.
“Most absurd,” Betty twinkled back at him. “I can’t suggest a thing to
those architects, of course, and they’ll just laugh at me, and Prexy
and Mr. Morton will be perfectly disgusted.”
“You’ve got to make good somehow,” Will assured her soberly. “It isn’t
every girl that gets her expenses paid for a long trip like that, just
to go and advise about things. You’re what they call a consulting
expert, Betty. I’ll look up your trains and telephone you from town.”
“And I’ll help you pack a bag,” announced the Smallest Sister. “You’re
just going in a bag, like Will, and coming back for Sunday, aren’t you,
Betty dear?”
“Yes, I’m just going in a bag,” Betty assured her laughingly,
“and coming right back to Lakeside for Sunday. But perhaps in
September--well, we need not think about September when it’s only the
middle of August; isn’t that so, little sister?”
The Smallest Sister stared solemnly at her. “We ought to make plans,
Betty. Now Celissa Hooper wants me to be her chum if I’m going to
school in Cleveland this winter, but if I’m going to be at Miss Dick’s
again why of course I can’t be chums with Celissa, ’cause I’m chums
with Shirley Ware. So I really ought to know before long who I’m to be
chums with.”
“You certainly ought,” agreed Betty earnestly. “But you’ll just have
to be very good friends with Celissa and with Shirley and with all the
other girls until I come back, and then mother and father and you and
I can have a grand pow-wow over you and me and the tea-shop and Miss
Dick’s and everything else under the sun. Now, who’s going to wipe
dishes for me this morning?”
“I am. What’s a grand pow-wow?”
“We’ll have one in the kitchen,” Betty explained diplomatically,
hurrying off with both hands full of dishes.
But the pow-wow was a rather spiritless affair.
“You’re thinking of something else, Betty Wales,” declared the Smallest
Sister accusingly, right in the midst of the story of the Reckless
Ritherum, who is second cousin to the Ploshkin and has a very nice tale
of its own. “If you’re going to look way off over my head and think of
something else, I guess I’d rather go up-stairs and make beds all by my
lonesome.”
“I’m sorry, dearie,” Betty apologized humbly, “but you see I feel just
like a reckless ritherum myself this morning--going out to play with
three terrible giants.”
“What giants are you going to play with?” demanded the Smallest Sister
incredulously.
“The fierce giant, the wise giant, and the head of all the giants,”
Betty told her. “The fierce giant eats reckless little ritherums for
his breakfast--that’s Mr. Morton. The wise giant laughs at them when
they try to show him how to make the house that Jack built--that’s the
New York architect. The head of all the giants--that’s Prexy--shakes
the paw of the poor little Ritherum kindly, and asks it not to be so
silly again as to try to play with giants, and it gets smaller and
smaller and smaller----”
“Just exactly like Alice in Wonderland,” put in the Smallest Sister
excitedly.
“Until it runs home,” Betty concluded, “to play with a little girl
named Dorothy Wales, and then all of a sudden it gets big and happy and
reckless again.”
“Then don’t be gone long,” advised Dorothy eagerly, “because I’m always
in a hurry to begin playing with you some more.”
“Thank you,” Betty bowed gravely. “In that case I won’t let the fierce
giant eat me, nor the wise giant blow me away with his big laugh, nor
the head giant stare at me until I vanish, recklessness and all, into
the Bay of the Ploshkin.”
“I’d fish you up, if you did fall into the bay,” Dorothy assured her,
with a sudden hug that ended fatally for a coffee-cup she was wiping.
“But it was nicked anyway, so never mind,” Betty comforted her, “and
you’ve fished me up lots of times already, so I know you would again.”
“Why, I never----” began the Smallest Sister in amazement.
“All right for you,” Betty threatened, putting away her pans with a
great clatter. “If you’ve stopped believing in fairies and if you’ve
forgotten how you ever went to the Bay of the Ploshkin and fished up
ritherums and did other interesting things, why should I waste my time
telling you stories?”
This terrible threat silenced the Smallest Sister, who therefore never
found out how or when she had “fished up” her sister. But on the way
east Betty, still feeling very like a ritherum, consoled herself
by remembering first her own simile, and then Will’s “Maybe I’m not
proud to know you!” blurted out as he had put her on board her train.
A little sister to hug one and a big brother to bestow foolishly
unqualified admiration are just the very nicest things that a reckless
ritherum can have. And who hasn’t felt like a reckless ritherum some
time or other?
Mr. Morton was pacing the station platform agitatedly when Betty’s
train pulled in.
“Twenty-three minutes late, Miss B. A.,” he panted, rushing up to her.
He had always called her that. It stood for Benevolent Adventurer, and
some other things. Grasping her bag and her arm, he pulled her down the
stairs to his big red touring car. “The way these railroads are run is
abominable--a disgrace to the country, in my opinion. Now when I say
I’ll get to a place at four P. M.--I mean it. And very likely I arrive
at six by train--most unbusinesslike. Well, it’s not exactly your fault
that idiots run our railroads, is it, Miss B. A.? I thought of that
without your telling me--give me a long credit mark for once. Well, I
certainly am glad to see you, and to find you looking so brown and
jolly. No bothers and worries these days, Miss B. A.?”
“Except the responsibility of having to think up enough good
suggestions for Morton Hall to pay you for asking me to come and for
taking the time to be here to meet me,” Betty told him laughingly.
Mr. Morton snorted his indignation. “That responsibility may worry you,
but it doesn’t me--not one particle. Now, by the way, don’t be upset by
any idiotic remarks of the young architect chap that has this job in
charge. Whatever a person wants, he says you can’t have it--that seems
to be his idea of doing business. Then after you’ve shown him that your
idea of doing business is to do it or know the reason why, he sits
down and figures the thing out in great shape. He’s a very smart young
fellow, but he hates to give in. I presume that’s why Parsons and Cope
put him on this job--they’ve done work for me before, and they know
that I have ideas of my own and won’t be argued out of them except by
a fellow who can convince me he really knows more about the job than
I do. Just the same, don’t you pay much attention to his obstruction
game. Remember that you’re here because I want this dormitory to be the
way you want it.”
Betty promised just as the car drew up in front of the Tally-ho.
“Thought you’d like a cup of your own tea,” explained Mr. Morton,
“and a sight of your new electric fixtures, and so forth. Miss Davis
is expecting you. Let’s see.” He consulted his watch, comparing it
carefully with Betty’s and with the clock in the automobile, which
aroused his intense irritation by being two minutes slow. “It’s now
three forty-one. I’ll be back in nineteen minutes. If I can find that
architect chap, I’ll bring him along. He knows all the main features
of the building better than I do, and he’s a pretty glib talker, so I
guess we’ll let him take you over the place the first time.”
Exactly nineteen minutes later, just as Betty and Emily Davis had
“begun to get ready to start to commence,” according to Emily’s
favorite formula, the inspection of the tea-shop and the exchange of
summer experiences, the big red car came snorting back and stopped
with a jerk to let out a tall young man, who ran across the lawn and in
at the Tally-ho’s hospitably opened door.
“Mr. Morton wishes to know if Miss Wales----” he began. Then he rushed
up to Betty. “By all that’s amazing, the great Miss Wales is the one I
used to know! How are you, Betty?”
“Why, Jim Watson, where did you come from?” demanded Betty in amazement.
Jim’s eyes twinkled. “From the Morton Mercedes most recently, and
until I get back to it with you I’m afraid we’d better defer further
explanations.”
Betty nodded. “Only you must just meet Emily Davis--Miss Davis, Mr.
Watson. She’s a friend of Eleanor’s too. And you must tell me one
thing. Is the architect out there with Mr. Morton?”
“No,” said Jim solemnly, “he isn’t, naturally, since he’s in here with
you. Architect Watson, with Parsons and Cope, at your service, Miss
Wales.”
“Are you the real one--the one in charge?” persisted Betty. “You aren’t
the one that won’t let Mr. Morton have his own way?”
“I am that very one,” Jim assured her briskly, “but there are some
lengths to which I don’t go. So please come along to the car in a
hurry, or I shall certainly be sent back to New York forthwith.”
“Gracious! That would be perfectly dreadful! Good-bye, Emily.” Betty
sped down the path at top speed, Jim after her.
“Did you stop to introduce yourself in detail, Watson?” inquired Mr.
Morton irritably, opening the door of the tonneau.
“He didn’t have to introduce himself,” Betty put in breathlessly, “but
I made him stop to explain himself, and now I certainly shan’t worry
about his objections and opinions, because I’ve known him for ages.
Why, he’s Eleanor Watson’s brother Jim. You’ve heard Babe and me talk
about Eleanor.”
“I should say that I have,” cried Mr. Morton jubilantly. “So you can
manage her brother as nicely as you manage me, can you, Miss B. A.?
I knew you ought to come up and see to things. Hurry along a little,
Jonas, can’t you? We’re not out riding for our health to-day. There are
some little things I haven’t just liked, and now that I’ve got Miss B.
A. to help me manage you---- Feeling scared, Watson?”
“Not a bit, sir, thank you,” said Jim with his sunniest smile. “But I’m
certainly feeling glad to see Miss Betty again.”
“What’s that? Glad to see Miss B. A.? Well, I should certainly hope
so,” snapped Jasper J. Morton. “I’d have a good deal less use for you,
sir, than I’ve had so far, if you weren’t.”