POINTS OF VIEW
During the first part of their year at the Chapin house Betty and her
friends had taken very little interest in the Harding Aid Society. It had
been to them only a name, about which Mary Brooks, who was a member of
the aid committee of her class, talked glibly, and in behalf of which she
exacted onerous contributions, whenever the spirit moved her. But at the
time of the valentine episode, when Emily Davis and her two friends
suddenly appeared upon Betty's horizon, Betty and Katherine realized all
at once what the Aid Society must mean to some of their classmates.
During the rest of the year they seconded Mary's efforts warmly, and the
whole house got interested and plied Mary with questions about the work
of the society, until, in sheer desperation, she admitted that she knew
very little about it, and set herself to get some definite information.
The head of the committee, pleased with Mary's sudden enthusiasm, sent
her to one of the faculty trustees, and for a few days Mary, who was
entirely a creature of impulse, could talk of nothing but the splendid
work of the Harding Aid Society in helping the poorer members of the
college to meet their expenses.
It was perfectly marvelous how little some girls got along on. To many of
them a loan of twenty-five dollars actually meant the difference between
going home and staying in college a year longer.
"Now fancy that!" interpolated Mary. "It would mean just about the price
of a new hat to me."
And each dollar helped an endless chain of girls; for the society made
loans, not gifts; and the girls always paid up the moment they could get
the money together.
"One girl paid back two hundred dollars out of a five hundred dollar
salary that she got for teaching, the year after she graduated. Imagine
that if you can!" said Mary.
The Aid Society managed the bulletin boards in the gymnasium basement. It
ran an employment agency, a blue-print shop, and a second-hand book-
store. It was astonishing, said Mary, with a mysterious shake of her
head, how many splendid girls--the very finest at Harding--the society
was helping. Confidentially, she whispered to the valentine coterie that
Emily Davis and her two friends had just been placed on the list of
beneficiaries. Her eloquence extorted a ten dollar contribution from
Roberta, and smaller amounts from the rest of the girls. But then came
spring term, and the Harding Aid Society was forgotten for golf,
bicycling, the bird club, and the other absorbing joys of the season.
But it was only natural that Mary, casting about for a "Cause," in behalf
of which to exercise her dramatic talent, should remember the Aid
Society, and the effort it was making to complete its ten-thousand-dollar
loan fund before Christmas. Mary was no longer on the aid committee, but
that was no reason why she should not help complete the fund, for which
everybody,--alumnae, friends of the college, and undergraduates,--were
expected to work. Mary was a born entertainer, never so happy as when she
was getting up what in college-girl parlance is called a "show." She had
discovered how to utilize her talent at Harding, at the time of the
Sherlock Holmes dramatization. It had lain dormant again until the
Hallowe'en party brought it once more to light, and the election parade
kindled it into fresh vigor.
In all her enterprises Mary found a kindred spirit in Madeline Ayres.
Madeline had taken part in amateur theatricals ever since she could talk.
"And I've always been wild to do men's parts," she said. "I hope I can up
here."
"Of course you can," returned Mary, promptly. "Do you know any actors or
actresses?"
"Oh, two or three," answered Madeline, carelessly. "Or at least father
does--he knows everybody that's interesting--and I've talked to them. And
once I 'suped.' It was a week when I'd been to the theatre three times,
and I didn't want to ask father for any more money. So I went to the
manager and got a chance to be in the mob--that's the crowd that don't
have speaking parts, you know. And the people who'd promised to take me
home forgot and went off to supper without me, and the leading lady heard
about it and took me home in her carriage. So mother asked her to tea,
and she came, and was a dear, though she couldn't act at all. I forget
her name. But the family wouldn't let me go on again. They said it
wouldn't do, even in Bohemia."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Mary, excitedly. "Wasn't that a lark! Madeline, do
let's get up a play."
"But how can we?" objected Madeline, lazily. "Hallowe'en is over, there
aren't any more elections or holidays coming, and we're not either of us
on the committee for house plays. We can't just walk in and offer our
services, can we?"
Mary stared at her absently. "That's so," she said. "That's the bother of
being on the campus, where they have committees for everything. Oh, dear!
Isn't there something we can have a play for?" Then her face lighted
suddenly. "The Harding Aid! The very thing!" she shrieked, and seizing
the stately Madeline around the waist, she twirled her violently across
the room.
"I haven't the ghost of an idea what you are talking about," said
Madeline, gravely, when she had at last succeeded in disentangling
herself from Mary's bearish embraces. "But I'm with you, anyway. What
shall it be?"
"Why, a--a play."
"Don't you like vaudeville shows better?" inquired Madeline, "and
circuses, and nice little stunts? Girls can do that sort of thing a lot
better than they can act regular plays. And besides it brings in a bigger
cast and takes fewer bothering old rehearsals."
This time Mary danced a jig all by herself.
"Come over to Marion Lawrence's," she commanded, breathlessly. "She's
chairman of the big Loan Fund Committee. She'll make us two a special
entertainment committee, and tell the rest to let us go ahead and do what
we please."
But Madeline shook her head. "I loathe committees," she explained. "You
go along and see Miss Lawrence and be on your committee, if you like. And
when you want some help with the stunts or the costumes--I have a lot of
drapery and jewelry and such stuff--why, come and tell me, and I'll do
what I can."
And no amount of persuasion on the part of Mary, Marion Lawrence, or the
Loan Fund Committee _en masse_, could induce Madeline to change her
mind. "Why, I can't be on a committee," she said. "I get around to
recitations and meals and class meetings, and that's all I can possibly
manage. You don't realize that I'd never had to be on time for anything
in all my life till I came here, except for trains sometimes,--and you
can generally count on their being a little late. No, I can't and won't
come to committee meetings and be bored. But all that I have is yours,"
and Madeline tossed a long and beautifully curled mustache at Mary, and a
roll of Persian silk at Marion. "For the circus barker," she explained,
"and the Indian juggler's turban. I'll make the turban, if the juggler
doesn't know how. They're apt to come apart, if you don't get the right
twist. And I'll see about that little show of my own, if you really think
it's worth having."
So, though her name did not appear on the list of the committee or on the
posters, it was largely due to Madeline Ayres that the Harding Aid "Show"
was such a tremendous success.
"The way to get up a good thing," she declared, "is to let each person
see to her own stunt. Then it's no trouble to any one else. And you'd
better have the show next week, before we all get bored to death with the
idea."
These theories were exactly in accordance with Harding sentiment, so next
week the "Show" was,--in the gymnasium, for it rapidly outgrew the Belden
House parlors, where Mary and Madeline had at first thought of holding
it. It was amazing how much talent Madeline and the committee, between
them, managed to unearth. The little dressing-rooms at the ends of the
big hall had to be called into requisition, and the college doctor's
office, and Miss Andrews' room, and even the swimming tank in the
basement (it leaked and so the water had all been drained off), with an
improvised roof made by pinning Bagdad couch-covers together. All along
the sides of the gymnasium hall there were little curtained booths, while
the four corners of the gallery were turned respectively into a gypsy
tent, a witch's den, the grotesque abode of an Egyptian sorceress, and
the businesslike offices of a dapper little French medium, just over from
Paris.
You could have your fortune told in whichever corner you preferred,--or
in all four if your money lasted. Then you could descend to the floor
below, and eat and drink as many concoctions as your digestion could
stand, sandwiching between your "rabbits," Japanese or Russian tea,
fudges, chocolate, and creamed oysters, visits to the circus, the
menagerie, the vaudeville, and the multitude of side-shows. "Side-show,"
so the posters announced, was the designation of "a bewildering variety
of elegant one-act specialties." Mary Brooks was very proud of that
phrasing.
Mary herself was in charge of the menagerie. "Not to be compared for a
single instant with the animals of the biggest show on earth," she
shouted through her megaphone, accompanying her remarks with impressive
waves of her riding-whip.
Then the white baby elephant walked forth from its lair. It was composed
of one piece of white cheese-cloth and two of Mary's most ardent freshman
admirers. There was a certain wobbly buoyancy in its gait and a
jauntiness about its waving white trunk,--which was locked at the end, as
Mary explained, to guard against the ferocious assaults of this terrible
man-eater,--which never failed to convulse the audience and put them in
the proper humor for the rest of the performance. The snake-charmer
exhibited her paper pets. The lion, made up on the principle of the one
in "Midsummer Night's Dream" pawed and roared and assured timid ladies
that she was not a lion at all, but only that far more awful creature, a
Harding senior. And finally Mary opened the cage containing the Happy
Family, and there filed out a quartette of strange beasts which no
Harding girl in the audience failed to recognize as the four "class
animals,"--the seniors' red lion, the juniors' purple cow, the green
dragon beloved by the sophomores, and the freshmen's yellow chicken.
"They dance" announced Mary in beatific tones, and the three four-legged
creatures stood on their hind legs and, joining paws and wings with the
chicken, went through a solemn Alice-in-Wonderland-like dance. This was
always terminated abruptly by some animal or another's being overcome by
mirth or suffocation, and rushing unceremoniously back into the cage to
recuperate. When the Happy Family was again reunited, Mary announced that
they could also sing, and, each in a different key, the creatures burst
forth with the "Animal Song," dear to the hearts of all Harding girls:
"I went to the Animal Fair; the great Red Lion was there.
The Purple Cow was telling how
She'd come to take the air.
The Dragon he looked sick, and the little Yellow Chick,
Looked awfully blue, and I think, don't you,
He'd better clear out quick--quick!"
At the end of this ditty, the chick hopped solemnly forward, gave vent to
a most realistic cluck, scratched vigorously for worms, and the Happy
Family vanished amid an uproar of applause, while Mary piloted her
audience into the circus proper, managed by Emily Davis.
Here Mlle. Zita, beautiful in pink tarleton,--only her skirt had been
mislaid at the last moment and she had been compelled to substitute the
Westcott House lamp shade,--Mlle. Zita balanced herself on a chair, and
gave so vivid an imitation of wire-walking, on solid ground all the time,
that the audience was actually fooled into holding its breath. Then Bob's
pet collie did an act, and the juggler juggled, in his turban, and some
gym "stars" did turns on bars and swings. And there was an abundance of
peanuts and pink lemonade, and a clown and a band; and Emily's
introductions were alone well worth the price of admission.
At the end of her performance Emily stated that this circus, being modern
and up-to-date in all respects, had substituted for the conventional
after-concert, "a side-splitting farce which would appeal to all
intelligent and literary persons and make them laugh and cry with mirth."
So everybody, wishing to appear intelligent and literary, went in to see
the little play which Madeline Ayres had written. It was called "The
Animal Fair," and three of the class animals appeared in it. But the mis-
en-scene was an artist's studio, the great red lion was a red-faced
English dramatist, the chick a modest young lady novelist attired in yellow
chiffon, and the dragon a Scotch dialect writer. The repartee was
clever, the action absurd, and there were local hits in plenty for those
unliterary persons who did not catch the essential parody. Everybody was
enthusiastic over it, and there were frequent calls for "Author!" But
nobody responded.
"Who wrote it? Oh, some of the committee, I suppose," said the
doorkeeper, carelessly. "Perhaps Marion Lustig helped--they didn't tell
me. No, the actors don't know either. Did you give me fifty cents or a
quarter? Please don't crowd so. You'll all get in in a minute."
Meanwhile Madeline, having seen through the first performance of her
farce, in her capacity of stage manager, had left the actors to their own
devices, and wandered off to explore the other attractions. Betty met her
at the vaudeville.
"Come and get some fudge and see the sleight-of-hand stunts in the
swimming tank," whispered Madeline. "These songs are all too much alike."
It was half-past nine. The sleight-of-hand performance was being given
for the tenth and last time to an audience that packed the house. When it
was over Betty, who had been a ticket-taker at the circus all the
afternoon and evening, hurried Madeline back to see how much money Emily
had made.
"Fifty dollars," said Emily, with shining eyes. "Think of it! I've helped
to make fifty dollars for the Aid Society that's helping me through
college."
"Splendid!" said Betty, too tired to be very enthusiastic over anything
that night.
Madeline led her to a deserted corner of the gallery, and they sank down
on a heap of pillows that had composed the gypsy queen's throne.
"I suppose I ought to care about the money," said Madeline, when they
were seated, "but I don't much. I care because it's all been so funny and
jolly and so little trouble. We can help to make money for good causes
all our lives, but most of us will forget how to make such good times out
of so little fuss and feathers when we leave here."
Betty looked at her wonderingly. Madeline's philosophy was a constant
source of interest and amazement to all her friends. She had a way of
saying the things that they had always thought, but never put into words.
"That's so," she agreed at last, "but I don't see how you knew it. You
haven't been here a term yet. How do you find out so much about
college?"
Madeline laughed merrily. "Oh, I came from Bohemia," she said, "and the
reason I like it up here is because this place isn't so very different
from Bohemia. Money doesn't matter here, and talent does, and brains; and
fun is easy to come by, and trouble easy to get away from. But not for
everybody," she ended quickly.
Eleanor Watson, still in her gypsy fortune-teller's costume, was hurrying
up to the big pile of pillows, six devoted freshmen following close at
her heels.
"Hop up, girls," she called gaily to Betty and Madeline. "My faithful
slaves have come to empty the throne room."
"Aren't you tired, Eleanor?" asked Betty. "You've been at it since three
o'clock, haven't you? I should think you'd be dead."
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I'm a bit tired," she answered,
indifferently, "But I couldn't stop. The girls simply wouldn't let me,
though Blanche Norton was willing to take my place. I was a goose to tell
them that I could read palms. Look out for that white satin pillow,
Maudie. Yes, the yellow one is mine, but I can't carry it. I'm too done
up to carry anything but myself."
"Now that," said Madeline, decidedly, as soon as Eleanor was out of
hearing, "that is all wrong,--every bit of it. It's not the fun she
wants. She doesn't even care about the money for the good cause. It's the
honor and the chance to show off her own cleverness that she's after."
Madeline waited a moment. "Is she so clever, Betty?"
"Oh, yes," cried Betty eagerly. "Don't you remember her theme?"
"To be sure." Madeline's eyes twinkled. "I'd forgotten her wonderful
theme. Oh, well, then I suppose she is clever--but I'm sorry for her."
"Why?" asked Betty quickly. Surely Madeline could not know anything about
Eleanor's stepmother, and nowadays her career at Harding was a series of
delightful triumphs. More reason why Madeline should envy, than pity her,
Betty thought.
"Oh, for lots of reasons," answered Madeline easily, "but chiefly because
she's so anxious about getting things for herself that she can't enjoy
them when she's got them; and secondly because something worries her.
Watch her face when she isn't smiling, and when she thinks nobody is
noticing her. It's so wonderfully sad and so perfectly beautiful that it
makes me pity her in spite of myself," ended Madeline with a sudden rush
of feeling. "But I can't love her, even for you, you funny child," she
added playfully, pulling one of Betty's curls.
"I'm not a child," retorted Betty, with great dignity. "I'm a sophomore
and you're only a little freshman, please remember, and you have no
business pulling my hair."
"Lights out in two minutes, young ladies," called the night-watchman from
below, and freshman and sophomore raced for the stairs.