FOUR SOPHOMORES AND A DOG
The last recitation of the winter term was over, and the corridors were
alive with girls hurrying this way and that, pinning on their hats,
buttoning jackets, crowding into the elevator, unfurling umbrellas, and
chattering all the time.
"Hope you'll have the nicest sort of a time!" "Don't stay up too late!"
"Good-bye!" "Oh, good-bye!" "Be sure to get well rested this vacation!"
"Awfully, awfully sorry you wouldn't come home with me, Gertrude, you bad
child! But I know you won't suffer from monotony with Berta and Beatrice
in the same study." "Hurry, girls, there's the car now. Just hear that
bell jingle, will you!" "Good-bye, Gertrude, and don't let Sara work too
hard!" "Oh, good-bye!"
Gertrude felt the clutch of arms relax from about her neck, and managed
to breathe again. This was one of the penalties--pleasant enough,
doubtless, if a person were in the mood for it--of being a popular
sophomore. For a minute she lingered wearily in the vestibule to watch
the figures flying down the avenue to the Lodge gates. How their skirts
fluttered and twisted around them, and how their hats danced! Their
suit-cases bounded and bumped as they ran, and their umbrellas churned up
and down in choppy billows before the boisterous March wind. There! the
last one had vanished in a whirl of flapping ends and lively angles
beyond the dripping evergreens.
As she was turning languidly away, a backward glance espied two girls
emerging from one of the dormitories far across the flooded lawn. They
came skipping over the narrow planks that had been laid in the rivers
flowing along the curving walks. The first was Berta swathed in a hooded
waterproof; and the second, of course, was Beatrice, a tam flung askew on
her red curls, her arms thrust through a coat sleeve or two, a laundry
bag swinging from one elbow, and a tin fudge pan clasped tenderly and
firmly beneath the other, while with the hands so providentially left
free she stooped at every third step to rescue one or the other of her
easy-fitting rubbers from setting out on a watery voyage all by itself.
"Hi!" she gasped after a final shuffling dash, as she caught sight of
immaculate Gertrude, "I wore your overshoes. Hope you don't mind. They're
not very wet inside, and I brought over your things so that we can move
into our borrowed study right off now."
"Where are my things?" asked Gertrude with natural curiosity and perhaps
unnatural calm.
"Here," jerking the laundry bag, "it holds a lot--brushes, soap,
nightgown, toothpowder, fountain-pen, note-book, everything. Berta
carried your mending basket. You needn't bother one bit."
"I'll run back and forth for anything you want," volunteered Berta
hastily at sight of an irritable frown on the usually serene brow of
handsome Gertrude.
"You're cross!" commented Bea with a cheerful vivacity that was
exasperating to the highest degree, considering that everybody ought to
be worn down to an unobtrusive state of limp inertia after the three busy
months just concluded, "you've been cross ever since Sara----"
"Berta, lend me your gossamer and rubbers, please," when Gertrude was
unreasonably provoked she had a habit of snapping out her words even more
clear-cut than usual. An instant later she swept forth into the rain only
to stop short and hurry in again before the door had swung shut. "We
might as well look at the study first," she said in a more gracious tone,
"and we can draw lots to see who is to have the inside bedroom. I dare
say the change to this building will be a rest."
Berta took quick survey from the window to explore the cause for this
amazing wavering of purpose.
"Ah!" she murmured in swift enlightenment, "it's Sara. She's coming over
the path."
A peculiar expression flitted across Bea's ingenuous face--an expression
half quizzical, half sorry. "Then we'd better follow Gertrude's example,
and clear the track. She'll cut us dead again--that meek little mouse of
a girl! And I don't blame her for it either, so there!"
Berta tucked a pensive skip in between steps as they moved through the
gloomy corridor past rain-beaten windows. "It wasn't like Gertrude to
burst out like that just because Sara came late to our domestic evening,
but it did spoil the fudges and the game and everything."
"And not to give her a chance to explain!" fumed Bea's temper always
ready to flame over any injustice. "Before she could open her lips,
Gertrude blazed up, cold as an icicle----"
"What?" interpolated demure Berta with her most deeply shocked accent,
"an icicle blaze?"
"Oh, hush, you're the most disagreeable person! I wish Lila hadn't gone
home. Well, she did just that. She said the artistic temperament was no
excuse for discourteous falsehood--or she almost the same as said
it--meaning breaking your word, you know, for Sara had promised she would
come at eight, and there it was quarter to nine. She said that it might
be wiser next time to invite somebody more reliable about keeping
engagements. Sara did not answer a word--only went white as a sheet and
walked out of the room. Now she even cuts us--because we were
there--stares right over our heads when we meet her anywhere."
"I'm sure Gertrude was sorry the minute she had spoken. And she's been
working awfully hard over committees and the maids' classes and the last
play. She was tired and nervous up to the brim, and then to wait and wait
and wait for Sara. Why, I was getting cross myself."
"Well, why doesn't she beg Sara's pardon then, and make it all right?"
demanded the young judge severely. "Sara has always simply worshiped her,
but because she never has made mistakes nor learned how to apologize, and
everybody admires her and flatters her, she is too proud to say she was
wrong. It's plain vanity--that's what it is. She can't bear to make
herself do it."
"She's unhappy,--that's what I think, though she sort of pretends she
doesn't care."
"She's cross as a bear--that's what I think," snapped Bea, "and Sarah has
dark circles under her eyes. It's dreadful--those two girls who used to
be inseparable! Quarrels are--are horrible!" The impetus of this
conviction almost succeeded in hurling its proprietor against the water
cooler at the bathroom door. "Say, Berta, what if you and I should
quarrel, with Robbie Belle and Lila one thousand miles away?"
"I'm too amiable," responded Berta complacently, "sugar is sweet----"
The tin cup dropped with a flurried rattle against the fudge pan. "Oh!" a
shriek of dismay, "my dear young and giddy friend, we're all out of
sugar. What if we should want to make anything to-night? Let's run back
to the grocery by the kitchen this minute."
Owing to this delay, Gertrude had been in the study for more than ten
minutes, staring out at the trees writhing in the wind, when she was
startled by the sound of a suffocated shriek, followed by a scamper of
four thick-soled shoes, the heels smiting the corridor floor with
disgracefully mannish force. The door flew inward vehemently, and Bea
shot clear across the room to collapse in the farthest corner, hiding her
face in the fudge pan while her shoulders quivered and heaved
terrifyingly. Berta walked in behind her, and after one reproachful look,
sat down carefully in a rocker and brushed her scarlet face before
beginning to giggle helplessly.
"You're the meanest person! Beatrice Leigh, you knew I was turning into
the wrong alleyway, but you never said a word. You wanted to see me
disgraced. The door opened like magic, and there she stood as if she had
slid through the keyhole. She stood there plastered against the wall
and--and--regarded us----"
"Oh!" moaned Bea in ecstasy, one fiery ear and half a cheek emerging from
the kindly shelter of the fudge pan, "she glared. She wondered why those
two idiotic individuals were stalking toward her without a word or knock
or smile, when suddenly the hinder one exploded and vanished, while the
other ignominiously--stark, mute, inglorious--fled, ran, withdrew--so to
speak----"
"Why didn't you say something?" groaned Berta. "I simply lost my wits
from the surprise. She was the very last person I expected to see
anywhere around here. How in the world did she happen to borrow the next
room to ours? She'll think we were making fun of her--that we did it on
purpose. She's awfully sensitive anyhow!"
"Well, you two are silly!" commented Gertrude, her face again toward the
driving storm. "Who was it? Not a senior, I hope, or a faculty?"
Bea straightened herself abruptly, the laughter driven sternly out of
every muscle except one little twitching dimple at the corner of her
mouth. "It was Sara," she exclaimed, "and she is pale as a ghost. She has
never been so strong since waking up on that boat and finding a burglar
trying to steal the ring off her finger during the holidays. You know how
she jumps at every sudden noise, and she's been getting thinner and
thinner, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself clear down to
the ground." Here the dimple vanished in earnest. "I know I'm ashamed of
myself, and so's Berta. Even her lips were white. Now we've hurt her
feelings worse. I didn't think. Nice big splendid excuse for a sophomore,
isn't it?"
"There's the gong for luncheon," was Gertrude's only reply as she moved
toward the door.
Bea's flare of denunciation had subsided quickly in her characteristic
manner. She sat absently nibbling the handle of the obliging pan, while
staring after the receding figure, its girlish slenderness stiffened as
if to warn away all friendliness. "She's stubborner than ever. I say,
Berta, let's reconcile them."
"Oh, let's!" in echoing enthusiasm, adding as the beauty of the plan
glowed brighter, "they'll probably thank us to the last day that they
live. I know I would, if it were Robbie and I who were drifting farther
and farther apart."
"Very likely," responded the arch-conspirator, beginning at the lower
edge of the tin doubtless itself delicious from long association with
dainties, "but the question is: How are we going to do it? One is proud,
and the other is proud too. I don't see exactly how we can fix it."
As Berta did not see either, they decided with considerable sound sense
meanwhile to go to luncheon. The next day after many minutes of
discouraging meditation mingled with a few hours of tennis in the
gymnasium, an idea came to them. While they rested on the window ledge,
watching Gertrude stroll to and fro in the sunshine balmy at last, Bea
began to waste her breath as usual.
"'To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow drags out its weary course from
day to day,'" she quoted with mindless cheerfulness, only to interrupt
herself good naturedly, "say, Berta, do you realize that the third
to-morrow aforementioned is April Fool's Day? I wish something
interesting would happen. This is the most monotonous place in vacation."
"To-morrow never is, it always will be," corrected the carping critic.
Bea with indifference born of long endurance paid no attention. "I say!"
rapturously as the idea began to dawn upon her inward vision, "let's
reconcile them with a joke."
"All right," agreed her partner with most charming alacrity, "what joke?"
The question was rather a poser, as Bea was inclined to take only one
step at a time and utter one thought as it obligingly arrived, without
anxiety about the next. This tendency had occasionally landed her high
and dry on the shores of nothingness in the classroom.
"Oh, um-m-m, I haven't determined that point yet. It isn't only great
minds that move slowly." Gertrude's cape swung into view at the turn of
the walk. "Berta, she looks awfully lonesome, doesn't she?"
"Well," argued the other, "nobody can expect us to do all the tagging
around ourselves, especially where a contemporary is concerned. If she
wants us to walk with her, she might omit a few snubs now and then. I'm
tired of chasing after her."
"The trouble is that you are not a faithful friend, faithful friend,"
rattled Bea, "man's faithful friend, the dog. Oh, oh, oh, Berta, I have
an idea!"
"Noble girl!" Berta patted her on the head. "I generously refrain from
comment."
"Thank you, sweetheart. I feared you could not deny yourself that remark
about keeping my idea, as I might never get another. But this one is an
idea about a dog. Let's find a puppy to give Gertrude for a soothing
companion this vacation. I love puppies."
"The question is: does Gertrude also love puppies? Or is it a joke?"
"Let's get a dog and surprise her with it April Fool's morning. He will
be such a friendly little fellow and so faithful that her conscience will
sting her----"
"I must acknowledge that you are a humane, tender-hearted individual. To
plot a stinging conscience----"
"Oh, hush, Berta! Do be nice and agreeable. I'm awfully tired this week,
and I really need some distraction. The corridors stretch out empty and
silent, and breakfast doesn't taste good at all, and--and I want to do
something for Sara."
"Oh, all right!" Berta spied the glint of an excitable tear and shrugged
the weight of common sense from her shoulders. "I'm with you."
Three days passed--three days of blue sky and fluffy clouds and air that
sent Bea dancing from end to end of the long stone wall while Berta
stumped conceitedly along the path in her new rubber boots. Gertrude
wondered aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon
spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads.
Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice,
Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was
due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side
glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where she hid
the notions which she dimly felt looked best in the dark, she reflected
that an attack of some mild disease might be a valuable form of
retribution, and also afford the invalid leisure to repent of her sins.
Still she did not quite like to mention this thought aloud, as it seemed
too unkindly vengeful with regard to any one so obviously miserable as
Gertrude.
One day on charitable plans intent the two conspirators dragged Gertrude
out across the brown fields to have fun building a bonfire, as they had
done the previous spring. But somehow the expedition was not much of a
success--possibly because the wood was too damp to burn inspiritingly. On
that other occasion Sara had been with them, and had kept them laughing.
She could say the funniest things without stirring a muscle of her small
solemn face. That stump speech of hers given from a genuine stump had
sent them actually reeling home. This year--alas!--while returning to
college rather silently, they saw Sara plodding toward them with an air
of being out for sober exercise, not pleasure. The moment she spied them,
she deliberately retraced her steps, and vanished through a hole in the
hedge. This incident set Gertrude to chattering so excitedly about
nothing in particular that the others knew she cared even more than they
had fancied.
On the evening of the last day of March, Bea and Berta came rushing into
the dining-room twenty minutes late for dinner. When they both declared
that they did not want any soup--their favorite kind, too--Gertrude
sighed impatiently over countermanding her order to the maid. It seemed
as if she were not getting rested one bit this vacation, though she did
nothing but read novels all day long. She felt sometimes as if she were
hurrying every minute to escape from herself and her own thoughts.
Everything irritated her in the strangest way. In all her busy healthful
life she had never been nervous before. It was not hard work that had
worn upon her. The doctor told them when they were freshmen that no girl
ever broke down from work unless worry was added. Gertrude knew perfectly
well what torturing little worry was gnawing away in her mind. She kept
telling herself that her speech to Sara had been true--it was so--Sara
had broken her engagement--and she could not, could not, could not humble
herself to apologize. In fact, Sara was the one who ought to offer
apologies. And all this time wilful Gertrude refused to acknowledge even
to herself that she was juggling with her conscience in the desperate
determination to hold herself free from blame in her own esteem. She
simply could not beg anybody's pardon, and she was not going to do it,
because--well, because she had not been to blame--so there!
On this particular evening, after five solid minutes of silence on the
part of her exasperating roommates, she raised her heavy eyes, and let
them rest expressionlessly on the two wind-freshened faces, till Bea's
roses blossomed to her hair.
"We're not doing anything," rebelliously, "you are so boss-y."
"Moo-oo," muttered Berta to her plate. "Bow-wow-wow." Bea choked over her
glass and fled precipitately, leaving her partner to capture a pitcher of
milk ostensibly to drink before going to bed.
Of course they would have regretted missing dessert as well as soup, if
Gertrude had not asked permission to carry some of the whipped cream to
her room. It was easier to do something unnecessarily generous than to
beg Sara's pardon--which was merely plain hard duty. The girls were not
in the study when she entered with her offering, but soon Bea dashed in
and dropped breathlessly on the couch, with a conspicuous effort to act
as if accustomed to arrive without her present double. Gertrude listened
unsuspiciously to the flurried explanation that Berta was kept by
a--a--a--friend, before she revealed the brimming trophy from dessert.
Bea clapped her hands. "Oh, you darling! the very thing! Won't that
pup"--an abrupt and convulsive cough subsided brilliantly into, "that pet
of a Berta be pleased! I'll take it to her this instant."
However, she did not invite Gertrude to accompany her, and upon her
return after a prolonged absence, she conducted herself with odd
restlessness. In the intervals of suggesting that they put up an engaged
sign or read aloud or darn stockings or play patience before going to a
certain spread, she stared at the clock. Promptly at eight she escaped
from the door, near which she had been lingering for the past
quarter-hour, with the carefully distinct announcement that she was going
after Berta, and later she might attend the spread.
Five minutes later she was bending over a fluffy little creature nestling
on Gertrude's best pillow in one of the partitioned off bathrooms at the
end of the corridor.
"He's been pretty good," said Berta as she surrendered the spoon, "and he
likes the cream, only the bubbles in it keep him awake, I think. Somebody
hammered at the door so long that I had to stuff a lot into his mouth
every time he started to cry."
Bea assumed her station of nurse with businesslike briskness. "Hurry back
to Gertrude, and coax her to go to that spread if you can. She's terribly
blue to-night. Be sure to get back here at nine, and I will take my turn
at the party so that nobody will be too curious about this affair. At ten
we shall both be here to decide about the night."
"Then we can hook the door on the inside, and climb over the partition.
Won't it be fun! I wonder if I shouldn't better practice doing it now,"
and Berta looked longingly at the black walnut precipice.
"You trot along this instant, and don't let Gertrude suspect anything for
the world. Be just as natural as you know how--more than ever before in
your life. I reckon I shall put him to sleep in a jiffy."
"Try it," called the ex-nurse with laconic scorn, "I'll allow you the
full hour for the experiment."
It must have been a very full hour indeed, to judge from Bea's feelings
as the minutes dawdled past. It seemed to her that instead of flying with
their sixty wings, according to the rhyme, each minute trailed its
feathers in the dust as it shuffled along. At first, it was amusing to
watch for the mouth to open, and then pop in a spoonful of cream. But
this soon became monotonous, especially when she learned that no matter
how long she sat motionless beside the pillow, the bright little eyes
blinked wide awake at her slightest stir to rise.
It was lonesome in that end of the great building. Their suite and Sara's
room next to it were the only ones occupied in that neighborhood during
the vacation. This bathroom was as much as forty steps distant even from
that populated spot, and not a single footfall had sounded in the
corridor since Berta had disappeared into the gloom. The light from the
outer apartment glimmered dully over the partition. At intervals in the
stillness, a drop of water clinked from the faucet out there. Bea found
herself holding her breath to listen for the tinkle of its splash.
Outside the small window, a pale moon was drifting among fluffy clouds.
More than once Bea rose with exquisite caution, and stole to the outer
door, only to hear a plaintive whine, while four clumsy paws came
pattering after her. Then followed more minutes of soothing him with
cream, and watching for the little woolly sides to cease heaving so
piteously. Perhaps after all it would have been wiser to have left this
troublesome joke with his mother on the farm.
By the time this vague suggestion had wavered into her consciousness, the
strain of waiting and listening began to re-act on her temper. Of course,
Berta had forgotten all about her watching there alone in the dark. Berta
was selfish and thoughtless and heedless. That very afternoon, while they
were bringing the puppy to college, she had almost tipped the buggy over
into a puddle. Berta had no right to impose upon her like this, and make
her do the worst part of the work every time. Why, even when they went
calling together, Bea always had to do the knocking and walk in first and
manage the conversation and everything. And now Berta was having fun at
the spread, and it must be near ten o'clock, for the watchman had already
shuffled softly past and turned the gas still lower. And she knew her
foot was going to sleep, and she could never feel the same toward Berta
Abbott again.
Bea was so sorry for herself that her lip began to quiver over a sobbing
breath, when steps came hurrying helter-skelter, the door banged open,
and Berta dived in.
"Oh, Bea, I'm dreadfully sorry! I couldn't get away before. They held
me--actually--and made me jig for them, and sing that last song I wrote.
The preserved ginger was so delicious that I saved some for you. Nobody
suspects a thing. How is the little dear?"
Bea rose with impressive dignity till the straightening of numb muscles
inspired an agonized, "Ouch!" and a stiff wriggle. It was every bit
Berta's fault, and she evidently didn't care a snap. She would show
people whether they could walk all over her and never say boo! She would
not lose her temper--oh, no! she would not utter a word--not a single one
of all the scorching things she could think of. She would just be
dignified and self-possessed and teach certain persons that she did not
intend to be imposed upon one instant longer. Therefore, Miss Beatrice
Leigh flung open the door and stalked away without a backward glance.
"Hulloa!" ejaculated Berta, staring blankly after her, "what's your
rush?"
No answer; merely a somewhat more defiant swing of the slender shoulders
vanishing in the dusk of the deserted corridor.
"What shall we do with the dog? You borrowed him--you're responsible--it's
your idea," following in a puzzled flurry as far as the threshold. "Shall
I lock him in alone? I said all along it was silly."
Those insolent shoulders sailed silently around the transverse and out of
sight.
After a petrified moment, Berta drew a deep breath, and threw back her
head while the crimson of quick resentment flamed from neck to hair. That
was a nice way to be treated, when she had simply done her best not to
arouse suspicion, exactly as Bea had warned her. She took two steps
hastily away from the spot; then turned slowly and glanced in at the soft
heap of white showing dimly on the darker blur of the pillow. She
certainly did not propose to spend the entire night in playing nurse to
anybody, especially after Bea had insulted her so unpardonably. It had
been Bea's idea all along too, and Berta had worked herself nearly to
death to make it a success. The miles and miles she had tramped through
the mud--and all to no result! Now everything was spoiled, and everybody
had quarreled with everybody else. Whereupon Berta marched away to bed,
leaving the swinging door unhooked and the outer door ajar. Bea was
indisputably right in criticising her fellow conspirator as heedless.
At midnight Gertrude sprang from her pillow, both arms flung out into the
darkness, every nerve quivering as she listened for a second scream. She
had chosen the inside bedroom that had a window opening on the corridor.
Now in the breathless silence, she heard a swift creak ending in the bang
of an up-flung sash. A swish of light garments, a thud shaking the floor
outside, and then bare feet flying in frantic haste past her room and
into the alleyway.
A crash against the study door, and the knob rattled wildly. "Let me in,
quick, quick! Help, Gertrude, help!"
There was a flash of white across the floor, the lock grated, and Sara
was in Gertrude's arms. Portières rustled apart, and two more
apparitions loomed pallidly in the dark.
"Hulloa!" gasped Berta's voice, while a woodeny click from Bea's
direction told of Indian clubs snatched bravely in readiness for war.
"Light the gas, girls," ordered Gertrude quietly; "there, dear, don't be
frightened now. See, we are all here. We will take care of you. What was
it startled you?"
"I don't know. It was dark. Something moved. I heard something. I was
afraid."
Gertrude felt her tremble, and held her closer. Over the bowed head she
spoke with her lips to the other two. "That steamboat shock."
Bea caught the idea impulsively. "Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, "you're only
nervous. You've often waked up and screamed a little ever since that
night on the boat. It's nothing. Crackie! but you frightened us at
first!"
Sara lifted a white face. "This was different," she said; "this was
something alive. Hark!"
They leaned forward, listening. Yes, there was a footstep outside,
muffled, stealthy. A board creaked. Something was breathing.
Gertrude and Berta looked at each other in quick challenge for mutual
courage. All the other rooms at that end of the building were vacant; the
long dark corridor stretched out its empty tunnel between them and
available help. What could four girls do?
"We can scream," said Bea.
"Lock the door--and the inner window--quick!" Gertrude flew to one, Berta
to the other. "Sara, take this Indian club. Now if it really
is--anything, scream. But don't run. Don't scatter. Scream--scream all
together. Ah!"
The footsteps were coming down the alleyway toward the door. Bea filled
her lungs, and opened her mouth in valiant preparation.
"Wee-wee-wee, bow-wow!" Two little paws scratched at the door.
Bea's breath issued in a feeble squeak, as she dropped neatly down upon
the floor and buried her face in her hands.
Berta swooped upon her. "The puppy!"
Gertrude felt herself freed from the encircling arms. She moistened her
lips. "I am sorry, Sara, about the other night. I am--sorry."
The pale little face upturned toward hers began to glow as if touched
with sunshine. "I was late because Prexie kept me. I should have
explained, but--but it hurt. I knew you were sorry."
Berta sat up as if jerked into position by a wire, and briskly brushed
the hair out of her eyes.
"Listen, Bea," she whispered to a small pink ear half hidden by red
curls, "they're reconciled."
"So are we," said Bea, "please open the door for the puppy."