THE CULT OF THE B. C. A.’S
WHEN Betty first unfolded what Will flippantly called the Morton-Prexy
Proposition to the family circle, the “if” loomed very large indeed on
mother’s face and larger still on Dorothy’s.
It would be too much for Betty, mother said. “And I don’t want my
little girl to get tired and dragged-out and old before she has to.
There was some reason in her trying to earn money in her own way
last year, but now there isn’t the least sense in plunging into this
project, just when the tea-shop is so nicely started and she has won
the right to an easy time.”
“But, mother dear,” Betty interposed, “an easy time isn’t the chief
thing in life.”
“Not exactly a cause worth living for, is it, child?” laughed father.
“And being cook to the Wales family in the intervals when they happen
to have a kitchen never did seem to satisfy your lofty aspirations.”
“Yes, it does, father,” declared Betty soberly, “but you’re going to
board again this winter, so I can’t be cook much longer. It’s just a
question of where I’m needed most. That sounds dreadfully conceited,
but it really isn’t.”
So father laughed, and said that he and mother would “talk it
over,” whereat Will winked wickedly at Betty in a way that meant,
“Everything’s settled your way, then,” and hustled her off to dress for
a tennis match, in which the skill of the Wales family was to be pitted
against that of the Bensons. And just as the Wales family had won two
sets out of a hard-fought three, father was saying diplomatically to
mother on the piazza, “Well, dear, I think you’re right as usual;
we ought to let her go and try herself out. It’s not many parents
whose daughters are sought for to fill positions of such trust and
responsibility.”
“I hope she won’t have to learn to run a typewriter like a regular
secretary,” sighed mother, who had never in the world meant to let
herself be coaxed, by father’s adroit methods, into approving or even
permitting another of those “dreadful modern departures” that her
old-school training and conservative temper united to disapprove.
Father smiled at her indulgently. “If girls learned to write a
copper-plate hand nowadays as they did when you were young, we
shouldn’t be so dependent on typewriters. Betty’s scrawl is no worse
than the rest. Well, now that this matter is settled and off our minds,
let’s walk out to the big bluff before dark.”
So the discussion was closed, the “if” dwindled to nothingness once
more, and two weeks after Jim Watson had assisted Mr. Morton to
see Betty off in a fashion befitting that gentleman’s idea of her
importance, he was at the Harding station to meet her--quite without
assistance.
“Was I the last straw?” he inquired gaily, as they walked down the long
platform toward Main Street.
“The last straw?” repeated Betty absently. She was wondering whether
the Student’s Aid seniors would expect her to help meet the freshmen at
their trains.
“Well, the last figure in the column that you added up in order to
estimate the possibilities of Harding as a mission field,” amended Jim.
“Because if I helped to turn the scales in favor of your coming here I
can at last consider myself a useful member of society.”
“Now don’t be absurd, Jim,” Betty ordered sternly. “Whatever else
you do, I’m sure you’ll never succeed in being a brilliant object of
charity.”
“Unappreciated, as usual,” sighed Jim. “Nevertheless I invite you to
have an ice at Cuyler’s. It’s going to be very awkward, Betty--your
being proprietress of the Tally-ho. I can never ask you to feed there.”
“But you can ask all the pretty girls I’m going to introduce you to,”
Betty suggested, but Jim only shrugged his shoulders sceptically.
“Pretty girls are all right,” he said, “but I already know as many
girls here as I can manage--or I shall when they all arrive. Don’t
forget that I’m to help you meet Miss Helen Chase Adams to-night, and
Miss Morrison to-morrow, and Miss Ayres whenever she telegraphs.”
“You mustn’t neglect your work,” Betty warned him.
“Shan’t,” Jim assured her. “I’ve merely arranged it so I can meet
all Eleanor’s friends’ trains. There’s everything in arrangement. I
generally begin my arduous duties at nine, but to-morrow seven o’clock
shall see me up and at ’em--meaning the carpenters, bricklayers,
plasterers, sewing-machine agents, and all the rest of my menials.”
“With all the extra men that Mr. Morton had sent up, can’t you possibly
get through before Christmas?” demanded Betty eagerly.
“I can’t say yet,” Jim told her. “Is it so long to wait for your
sewing-machines and things?”
“Perfect ages!”
Jim frowned. Betty didn’t mean to be unkind, but any one else, he
reflected sadly, would have considered the personal side of the
matter. Betty was a jolly girl, but all she really cared for was this
confounded philanthropic job--and her tea-shop, maybe. She expected a
fellow to be the same--all wrapped up in his job.
Madeline arrived, according to custom, ten minutes before her telegram,
and swung up the Tally-ho steps to the lilting tune of her famous song,
“Back to the College Again.”
“Hello, Betty! Hello, Emily! Hello, Nora and Bridget! I say, but isn’t
this Improved Version of the Tally-ho almost too grand? No, I didn’t
write. I couldn’t; I didn’t decide in time. I had a special article on
fresh air children to write up for a friend of Dick’s, and a Woman’s
Page for the ‘Leader,’ because the person who does it usually, known
to Newspaper Row as Madam Bon Ton, has gone on a vacation to Atlantic
City. But I sat up all last night out at Bob’s, listening to her merry
tales and writing them down, and then pinching her awake to tell me
more whenever I ran out of material. And I did the Woman’s Page on the
train coming up here. We ought to have a real celebration for me after
I’ve worked so hard as all that just to come.”
“You go ahead and plan one and we’ll have it,” Betty promised
recklessly.
Madeline nodded, and rushed on to something else. “Is Rachel really
going to teach Zoo, and is Helen Chase Adams going to adorn the English
department? Christy wrote me about her appointment for History. Why,
Betty, there’ll be a regular Harding colony of the finest class this
year. You round them all up for tea to-morrow, and I’ll have the
celebration ready. Never fear about that!”
“You want Mary Brooks Hinsdale, of course,” Betty suggested.
Madeline nodded. “All the old bunch, but nobody who’s still in college.
It’s to be strictly a B. C. A. party, tell them.”
“Madeline,” demanded Emily sternly, “do you know what that stands for,
or are you going to think something up later?”
Madeline grinned placidly. “Dearest girl, as Madam Bon Ton calls all
her fair correspondents, never so far forget your breeding as to give
way to idle curiosity. It tends to create wrinkles. And speaking of
wrinkles, do you suppose Georgia will murder or otherwise dispose of
her new roommate and take me in for the night?”
They were all there the next afternoon. Little Helen Chase Adams was
just as prim and demure as ever, but the great honor that had come to
her had put a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and added a comical touch
of confidence to her manner. Rachel’s air of quiet dignity that the
head of her department approved of only made the funny stories she told
of her first experiences as a “faculty” all the funnier. Christy was
her old, serene, dependable self. Mary, in a very becoming new suit,
smiled her “beamish” smile at everybody, and argued violently with
Madeline about the relative importance of being a “small” faculty or a
“big” faculty’s wife.
“George Garrison Hinsdale is a genius, and he says he couldn’t live
without me,” declared Mary modestly but firmly. Then she smiled again
at the obvious humor of George Garrison Hinsdale’s remark. “Of course
he did live without me until he discovered me.”
“We couldn’t live without you either, Mary dear,” Rachel assured her.
“No indeed we couldn’t, you Perfect Patron,” added Madeline. “And that
reminds me that if you don’t hustle around and do something nice for
the Tally-ho right away, you’ll be expelled from the society.”
“There’s no rule about how often you have to do things,” declared Mary
indignantly, “and anyway I can’t be expelled when I’m the only member.
It’s too utterly absurd.”
“Is the Perfect Patrons a society?” demanded Christy eagerly. “Can’t we
join? It’s not limited to faculty’s wives, is it?”
“Rules for the Perfect Patron,” chanted Madeline impressively. “Rule
one: Only the prettiest and best-dressed faculty wife existing at
Harding is eligible. Rule two: In estimating Perfection patronizing the
firm is counted against patronizing the menu. That’s where little Mary
always meets her Waterloo.”
“I do not, and anyway those rules aren’t half so funny as the real ones
that you made up first,” interpolated Mary sweetly.
“Well, I’ve forgotten the real ones. Anyway, we don’t need Perfect
Patrons nowadays as much as we did when we were young and poor, instead
of prosperous and almost too elegant. So suppose we attend to the
organization of the B. C. A.’s.”
“Is that a society, too?” demanded Helen the practical.
“No, it’s a cult,” explained Madeline curtly.
“What’s a cult?”
“What does it stand for?”
“We’re all ‘Merry Hearts.’ What’s the use of any more clubs?”
Madeline met the avalanche of questions calmly.
“A cult is a highly exclusive club--nothing vulgar and common about a
cult, like the Perfect Patrons’ Society, with its crowded membership
list. As for the B. C. A. part, you can take a turn at guessing that.
If any one gets it right we shall know that it’s too easy and that we’d
better change to Greek letters or something. When you’ve guessed what
it’s the cult of, of course you’ll understand the object of organizing
it.”
“Very lucid indeed,” said Christy solemnly.
“Don’t try your patronizing faculty airs on me,” Madeline warned her.
“I may say in passing that in my humble opinion no faculty should be
caught belonging to a nice frivolous affair like the ‘Merry Hearts.’
A kindly desire not to exclude our faculty friends of 19-- from our
councils was of course my chief object in promoting the more dignified
cult of the B. C. A.’s.”
“B. C. A.--Betty Can’t Argue.” Mary, who had been lost in thought,
burst out with her solution. “She can’t, you know. She always smiles
and says, ‘I don’t know why I think so, but I do.’”
“Beans Cooked Admirably,” suggested Emily. “Then the obvious
entertainment would be Saturday suppers à la Boston.”
“Butter Costs Awfully,” amended Christy. “Then the obvious procedure
would be to open a savings account.”
“Better Come Again,” was Rachel’s contribution. “That sounds nice and
sociable and Madelineish.”
“Thanks for the compliment. You’re getting the least little speck of a
bit warm,” Madeline told her encouragingly.
“Brilliant Collegians’ Association,” interposed Betty eagerly. “That
must be right, because you’re all brilliant but me, and I’m the
exception that proves it. Have I guessed, Madeline?”
Madeline shook her head. “Certainly not. Brilliance should be seen,
not heard, Betty, my child. Besides, according to my well-known theory
of names, a good one should bring out subtle, unsuspected qualities.
That’s why editors get so excited, and even annoyed, about the titles
of my stories; they aren’t generally subtle enough themselves to get my
subtle points.”
“Well, I may say that I sympathize with the editors,” declared Mary
feelingly. “Hurry and give a guess, Helen Chase, and then maybe she’ll
tell us.”
“Bromides Can’t Attend,” said Helen timidly. “I suppose that’s wrong
too.”
“Wildly,” Madeline assured her.
“And also senseless, I should say,” added Mary. “What in the world are
Bromides?”
“People who ask foolish questions,” explained Christy, “like that one
you’ve just propounded. The others are Sulphites. Get the book from
Helen, who had it presented to her to read on the train, and then
you’ll know all about it. Now, Madeline, tell us quick.”
Madeline shrugged her shoulders and stirred her tea with a provoking
air of leisureliness. “It’s nothing to get excited about. Really,
after all your ingenious guesses, the humble reality sounds very tame
and obvious. We are the B. C. A.’s--the Back-to-the-College Again’s.
It sounds simple, but like all my titles it involves deep subtleties.
Why are we, of all the 19--’s who would give their best hats to be
here, ‘elected’ to honor Harding with our presence? What have we in
common? The answer is of course the sign of the cult and the mark of
eligibility. It’s rather late to-day, so probably we’d better postpone
the discussion until the next weekly tea-drinking.”
“Oh, do we have weekly tea-drinkings?” asked Christy. “Goodie! now tell
our fortunes, Madeline.”
“Yes, that’s a lot more fun than a silly old discussion,” said Betty,
holding out her cup.
“Wait a minute, Betty,” interrupted the methodical Rachel. “She hasn’t
told us the object of the cult yet.”
Madeline swept the circle with a despairing glance. “As if perfectly
good tea and talking about that ever-interesting subject, Ourselves,
wasn’t ‘object’ enough for anybody. But you can have an ‘object’ if you
like. I don’t mind, only you know I always did refuse to get excited
over objects and causes and all that sort of thing.” Madeline reached
for Betty’s cup, and promptly discovered a tall, fair-haired “suitor”
in the bottom of it. “He has an object,” she declared. “Can you guess
what it is? It’s Betty Wales.”
“Well, I’m sure Betty’s a worthy object for any suitor or any cult,”
Rachel declared. “If you don’t believe it, watch her blush.”
“I’m not blushing,” Betty defended herself vigorously. “I’m only
thinking--thinking how nice it would be if the B.C.A.’s would take me
for an object. I shall need lots of help and advice, and maybe other
things, and I shall make you give them to me anyway, so you’d better
elect me to be your object, and then you won’t mind so much.”
“I shall be much relieved, for my part,” declared Madeline. “An object
with yellow curls----”
“And a dimple,” put in Mary.
“Isn’t likely to be very much of a bore,” Madeline finished, and
turned her attention to tea-grounds again, discovering so many suitors,
European trips, and splendid presents, that Christy, who was house
teacher at the Westcott, disgraced herself by being late to dinner. As
for Mary Brooks Hinsdale, in the excitement of recounting it all to
her husband, she utterly forgot that she had promised to chaperon the
Westcott House dance and had to be sent for by an irate and anxious
committee, who, however, forgave her everything when she arrived in her
most becoming pink evening gown, declaring fervently that she should be
heart-broken if she couldn’t dance every single number.