ELEANOR'S FRESHMAN
It was early in the afternoon of the great day of the sophomore reception
that Betty Wales ran up two flights of stairs at the Hilton House, and
bursting into Eleanor's "extra-priced" corner single, flung herself, hot
and breathless, into Eleanor's Morris chair.
"Oh, but I'm tired," she said, as soon as she could speak. "And dirty,"
she added, looking ruefully at the green stains on the front of her pink
linen suit.
"You also seem to be in a hurry," observed Eleanor, who was always vastly
entertained by Betty's impetuous, haphazard methods.
"I am," said Betty. "We're awfully behind with the decorating, and I
ought to rush back to the gym. this very minute, but I--" she paused, then
finished quickly. "I wanted to see you."
"That was nice of you," said Eleanor absently, sorting over the pages of
a theme she had just finished copying. "I helped wind the balcony
railings with yellow cheese-cloth all the morning, and I thought I'd
better finish this before I went back. I'm bound not to get behind with
my work this year."
"Good for you," returned Betty, cheerfully. "But I'm glad you're through
now. I was hoping you would be."
"Did the chairman send you after me?" asked Eleanor, fastening her sheets
together, and writing her name on the first one.
"Oh, no," said Betty, quickly. "She didn't at all. I wanted to see you
myself."
Eleanor was too preoccupied to notice Betty's embarrassment. "Who is it
that you're going to take to-night?" she asked. "You told me, but I've
forgotten, and I want to put her name on my card."
"I asked Madeline Ayres--" began Betty.
"You lucky thing!" broke in Eleanor. "She's the most interesting girl in
her class, I think, and she's going to be terribly popular. She's a class
officer already, isn't she?"
"Yes, secretary. I'm glad you like her, because I came over to see if you
wouldn't take her, in my place."
"I?" said Eleanor, in perplexity. "Why, I'm going to take Polly Eastman,
--Jean's freshman cousin, you know. Do you mean you want me to take Miss
Ayres too? Are you sick, Betty?"
"No," said Betty, hastily, "but Polly Eastman is. She's got the mumps or
the measles or something. Jean told me about it, and an A.D.T. boy was
just leaving a note for you--from Polly, I suppose--when I came up.
She's gone to the infirmary."
"Poor child," said Eleanor. "She missed the freshman frolic, and she's
been counting on to-night. I had such a lovely card for her, too. Pity
it's got to go to waste. Well, she can have her violets all the same.
I'll go down and telephone Clarke's to send them to the infirmary. But I
don't see yet why you want me to take Miss Ayres, Betty."
"Because," said Betty, "we've just discovered a left-over freshman. She
lives way down at the end of Market Street, and she entered late, and
somehow her name wasn't put on the official list. But this morning she
was talking to a girl in her Math. division, and when the other girl
spoke about the reception this one--her name is Dora Carlson--hadn't
heard of it. So the other freshmen very sensibly went in and told the
registrar about it, and the registrar sent word to the gym. And then Jean
said that her cousin was ill, so I came over to see if you'd take
Madeline, and let me take Miss Carlson. Now please say 'yes' right off,
so that I can go and change my dress and hurry down and ask the poor
little thing."
Eleanor got up and came over to sit on the arm of the Morris chair.
"Betty Wales," she said, with mock severity, but with an undertone of
very real compunction in her voice, "do you think I'd do that? Have I
ever been quite so mean as you make me out? Did you really think I'd take
Miss Ayres and let you take Miss Carlson? You're absurd, Betty,--you are
absurd sometimes, you know."
"Yes, I suppose I am," began Betty, "but--"
"It's perfectly simple," broke in Eleanor. "You go straight back to the
gym. and work for the two of us, while I go and invite Miss Carlson to go
with me to the reception. Where did you say she lives?"
"Number 50 Market Street. Oh, Eleanor, will you really take her? She's
probably--oh, not a bit your kind, you know," ended Betty, doubtfully.
"Trust me to give her the time of her life all the same," said Eleanor,
decidedly, putting on her hat.
"Oh, Eleanor, you are a gem," declared Betty, excitedly. "I'll go and get
Helen to take your place at the gym. Good-bye." And she was off.
As Eleanor went down the steps of the Hilton House, she looked
regretfully over at the gymnasium. They were dumping another load of
evergreen boughs at the door. The horse was restless. It took three girls
to hold him, and three more, with much shouting and laughter, to unload
the boughs. Through one window she could see Rachel and Alice Waite
stringing incandescent lights into Japanese lanterns. Katherine Kittredge
was standing behind them in her gym suit. She had evidently been hanging
lanterns along the rafters. It had been bad enough to stay at home and
copy her theme. Now the decorating would be finished and the fun almost
over, before she could get back. Eleanor shrugged her shoulders and
turned resolutely away, trying to remember whether Market Street was just
above or just below the station.
Before she had reached the campus gate, she heard some one calling her
name. It was Jean Eastman.
"What's your hurry?" panted Jean. "Did you get Polly's note? And why
aren't you at the gym.?"
"Yes, I got the note," answered Eleanor. "I'm more than sorry for Polly,
and for myself, too. I shall get back to the gym. as soon as I can, but I
have to ask another freshman to the reception first."
"Who?" demanded Jean.
"Miss Carlson," answered Eleanor simply.
"Oh, that! Don't you think, Eleanor, that you're getting a little
quixotic in your old age?"
Her scornful tone was very exasperating, and Eleanor straightened
haughtily. "I don't think either of us need worry about being too
charitable just yet awhile," she began. Then she caught herself up
sharply. "Don't let's get to bickering, Jean. You know I ought to ask
her, and you know how much I want to. But I'm going to do it, and I
expect every girl on my program to help make her have just as good a time
as if she were one of us." And Eleanor was off down the hill, leaving
Jean gazing amazedly after her.
Jean had no clue to the new Eleanor, whose strange toleration of the
world in general annoyed the "Hill girls" (as those who had come from the
Hill School were called) more than her high-handed attempts to run her
own set, and her eventual wrecking of its influence, had done the year
before. But the Hill girls appreciated Eleanor's ability, and they had
resolved among themselves to wait a little and see what happened, before
declaring open war.
Somebody came to call just before dinner, and Betty was consequently late
in dressing for the reception. But in the midst of her frantic efforts to
make her own toilette and help Helen with hers, she had time to wonder
what Dora Carlson was like and how she and Eleanor would get on together.
She knew that Eleanor was equal to any emergency, if she cared to exert
herself, but the question was: would Dora Carlson in the concrete arouse
the best--or the worst--of her nature? Betty loved Eleanor in spite of
everything, but she had to admit to herself that a timid little freshman
might infinitely prefer staying at home from the sophomore reception to
going in Eleanor's company, if she happened to be in a bad mood. And
furthermore, as Betty lost her temper over Helen's girdle, which would go
up in front and down behind, completely spoiling the effect of an
otherwise pretty evening dress, she was in a position to realize that
trying to help is by no means the soul-inspiring thing that it sometimes
seems in contemplation.
But she need not have worried about Dora Carlson, who, having lived alone
with her father on a farm in the environs of a little village in Ohio,
and kept house for him ever since she was twelve years old, was
abundantly able to take care of herself. She was not at all timid, though
she was not aggressive either, and she had a quaint way of expressing
herself that would have interested almost any one. But it was the frank
good-nature with which she accepted her eleventh hour invitation that
appealed most to Eleanor, newly alive to the charm that lies in
courageously making the best of a bad matter. For half an hour Eleanor
devoted herself to finding out something about Miss Carlson and to making
her feel at ease and happy in her company. Then she went off to order a
carriage and twice as many violets as she had sent to Polly Eastman, and
to find a maid who would press out her white mull dress,--this in spite
of her decision, an hour earlier, that the white mull was much too pretty
to waste on a promiscuous crush like the sophomore reception.
As a result of all these preparations, Dora Carlson arrived at the
gymnasium in a state of mind that she herself aptly compared to
Cinderella's on the night of her first ball. She had a keen appreciation
of the beautiful, and she had never seen any one so absolutely lovely as
Eleanor in evening dress. It was pleasure enough just to watch her, to
hear her talk to other people, and to feel that she--Dora Carlson--had
some part and lot in this fascinating being, who had suddenly appeared to
her as from another world. But Eleanor had no intention of keeping her
freshman in the background. All through the reception that preceded the
dancing she took her from group to group, introducing her to sophomores
whom she would dance with later and to prominent members of her own
class. Eleanor Watson might be considered odd and freakish by the Hill
girls, and very snobbish by the rest of the college; but nobody of either
persuasion cared to ignore her, when she chose to make advances. And
there was, besides, a good deal of curiosity about the short, dark little
freshman, with the merry brown eyes, the big, humorous mouth, and the
enormous bunch of Parma violets pinned to the front of her much-washed,
tight-sleeved muslin. Why in the world had the "snob of snobs" chosen to
bring her to the reception? Eleanor knew how to utilize this curiosity
for Miss Carlson's advantage. She took pains, too, to turn the
conversation to topics in which the child could join. She was determined
that, as far as this one evening went, the plucky little freshman from
Ohio should have her chance. Afterward her place in the college world
would of course depend largely on herself.
"Do you dance?" asked Eleanor, when the music for the first waltz began.
And when Miss Carlson answered with a delighted "yes," Eleanor, who always
refused to lead, and detested both crowds and "girl dances," resolutely
picked up her train and started off.
Betty Wales and Jean Eastman, who had taken their freshmen up into the
gallery, where they could look down at the dancers, saw her and exchanged
glances.
"More than she's ever done for me," said Jean, resignedly.
"Isn't it nice of her?" returned Betty, with enthusiasm.
And Jean, meditating on the matter later, decided shrewdly that Betty
Wales was somehow at the bottom of Eleanor's unexplainable change of
heart, and advised the Hill girls to make a determined effort to
monopolize Eleanor's time and interest, before she had become hopelessly
estranged from their counsels. But to all their attentions Eleanor paid
as little heed as she did to the persistent appeals of Paul West, a
friend at Winsted College, a few miles away, that she should give up
"slaving over something you don't care about and come over to our next
dance." To the Hill girls Eleanor gave courteous but firm denials, and
she wrote Paul West that once in three weeks was as often as she had time
for callers.
"And you really had a good time?" said Eleanor, riding down to Market
Street to see Miss Carlson home.
"Splendid!" said Miss Carlson, heartily. "I'm sorry your first partner
was sick, but I guess I enjoyed it fully as much as she would. Your
friends were all so nice to me."
"I'm glad of that," said Eleanor, relieved to find that Dora had not
apparently noticed Jean Eastman's insolent manner, nor the careless self-
absorption of one or two of her other partners. "And now that you've met
the girls," she added practically, "you mustn't let them forget you.
Making friends is one of the nicest things about college."
"Yes, isn't it?" responded the little freshman, quickly. "I quite agree
with you, but I don't expect to make any. I guess it's like other gifts.
It doesn't come natural to some people. But," she added, brightening, "I
came here to learn Greek and Latin, so that I can teach and support my
father in his old age. And the good time I've had to-night is enough to
last me for one while, I guess."
Eleanor put out a slim, white hand and caught Miss Carlson's hard, brown
one impetuously in hers, "Don't," she said. "That isn't the way things
are here. Good times don't have to last, because one always leads to
another. Why, I know another that's coming to you very soon. I've had a
good deal of company for dinner lately and I can't ask for a place again
right away, but the first Sunday that I can arrange it, you're coming up
to have dinner with me at the Hilton House. Will you?"
Jean Eastman had a great deal to say about Eleanor's freshman crush, as
she called Dora Carlson. It was foolish, she said, and not in good taste,
to send a bunch of violets as big as your head to a perfect stranger,
whom you never expected to see again. Later, after Dora's appearance at
the Hilton for Sunday dinner, Jean declared that it was a shame for
Eleanor to invite her up there and make her think she really liked her,
when it was only done for effect, and she would drop the poor child like
a hot coal the minute she felt inclined to.
Even Betty Wales failed to understand Eleanor's interest in the quaint
little freshman, and she and the other Chapin house girls rallied her
heartily about Miss Carlson's open and unbounded adoration.
"Please don't encourage the poor thing so," laughed Katherine, one day
not long after the reception. "Why, yesterday morning at chapel I looked
up in the gallery and there she was in the front row, hanging over the
railing as far as she dared, with her eyes glued to you. Some day she'll
fall off, and then think how you'll feel, when the president talks about
the terrible evils of the crush system, and stares straight at you."
Eleanor took their banter with perfect good-nature, and seemed rather
pleased than otherwise at Miss Carlson's devotion.
"I like her," she said stoutly. "That's why I encourage her, as you call
it. Now, Helen Adams doesn't interest me at all. She keeps herself to
herself too much. But Dora Carlson is so absolutely frank and
straightforward, and so competent and quick to see through things. She
ought to have been a man. Then she could go west and make her fortune. As
it is--" Eleanor shrugged her shoulders, in token that she had no
feasible suggestion ready in regard to Dora Carlson's future.
To Betty, in private, she went much further. "You don't know what you did
for me, Betty, when you made me ask that child to the reception. Nobody
ever cared for me, or trusted me, as she does--or for the reasons that
she does. I hope I can show her that I'm worth it, but it's going to be
hard work. And it will be a bad thing for her, and a worse thing for me,
if I fail."