THE GENUS "FRESHMAN."
Leaving the manager's office, soon afterward, the nine girls would have
liked nothing better than to repair to one of their rooms and discuss
the subject of Miss Remson's grievances at length. All had the liveliest
sympathy for the kindly official and longed to do something to prove it.
Unfortunately, nearly all of them had work to do or engagements to keep.
The Sanford contingent had their trunks to unpack as soon as they should
arrive. They hoped that would be very soon. Katherine had made an
engagement with Lillian Wenderblatt to go for a long walk. Leila and
Vera were going to drive to the town of Hamilton to buy the where-withal
for a spread to be given that evening in honor of Nella and Selma, who
were expected on the five o'clock train. Helen being the only one with
time on her hands, Leila advised her to join them on their quest for the
most toothsome "eats."
Contrary to Jerry's wet-blanket and extravagant prediction that the
trunks would probably be delivered "around midnight," they arrived
shortly before eleven o'clock, and an industrious season of unpacking
set in. Determined to finish arranging their effects before four
o'clock, they labored at the task with commendable energy and speed,
stopping only for luncheon, which was eaten in some haste.
"We certainly have hustled," Jerry congratulated, as she lifted the last
remaining articles from the bottom of one of her two trunks and found
place for them in her chiffonier. "I'm glad the job is done. We shall
have lots of time to take it easy. Here it is, only Wednesday. College
doesn't open officially until next Tuesday. We have nearly a week to
ourselves."
"We'll begin today to look after the freshies," planned Marjorie. "Then
we must meet one train a day, if not two, until we are not needed any
longer. I shall stick rigidly to that work on account of the welcome we
were cheated of last September."
"What are you going to wear to the train this afternoon?" Jerry
inquired, critically inspecting two or three frocks she had laid out on
her couch bed. She was uncertain which one to wear.
"That one." Marjorie nodded toward a chair over which hung a one-piece
frock of fine white linen. "I think white looks nicest when one is
going to the station. I love to wear my white dresses as late in the
fall as I can."
"Then I'll wear white, too." Jerry immediately selected a pretty
lingerie gown and sighed relief to have that matter off her mind. "I am
going the rounds and tell the gang to wear white, by order of the Board
of Suitable Suits for Auspicious Occasions. Back in a minute."
Glancing at the clock, which showed ten minutes past four, Marjorie
hurriedly slipped out of the pink gingham dress she had been wearing and
took the white linen frock from the chair. She had been making leisurely
preparations for the trip to the station while Jerry finished unpacking.
"I can plainly see my finish." Jerry presently entered the room with a
bounce, seized a towel from the washstand and bounced out again. She
returned as breezily within a few minutes and continued her toilet at
the same rate of speed. Leila had said: "Not one minute later than
four-thirty," and Jerry did not propose to be left behind.
"Are the rest of the crowd going to wear white?" Marjorie asked, giving
her wealth of curly hair a final touch before the mirror.
"Yes; but it's just a happen-so. Most of them were dressed for the
auspicious occasion when I arrived on the scene. Their suits were
suitable, so I beat it back here in a hurry. Please tie my sash for me,
Marjorie, while I labor some more with my aggravating hair. I swear I
will have it cropped like Robin Page's."
"She'll have hers done up when she comes back," commented Marjorie,
deftly complying with Jerry's request. "It was almost long enough to do
up last June and she was proud of it."
"I hope Robin comes in on the five o'clock train. I'd like to see her.
Next to Helen, I like her best of the Hamiltonites."
The entrance of Ronny, also in white linen, with the information that
Muriel and Lucy had gone on down stairs to the veranda, cut short
Jerry's remarks. The three girls reached the veranda at precisely
four-thirty, to find Leila's and Vera's cars on the drive in readiness
to start.
Through the glory of late afternoon sunlight the two cars, each with its
winsome freight of white-gowned girls, sped down the smooth pike past
beautiful Hamilton Estates and on toward the station. Happy in the fact
that she was now so perfectly at home at Hamilton, Marjorie smiled as
she compared last year with the present. Yes; it was good to be a
sophomore. Her new estate stretched invitingly before her. It was all so
very different from the previous September. The splendor of the sunlit
sky and the warm fragrance of the light breeze seemed indicative of
pleasant days to come. Because she had missed a welcome on her arrival
at Hamilton, she was ready to welcome doubly some other freshman
stranger within Hamilton's gates.
"Train 16, late, 40 minutes," was the dampening information which stared
them in the face from the station bulletin board.
"Forty minutes! Who cares to eat ice cream? Back into the buzz wagons,
all of you. I like the taste of ice cream in my mouth better than the
feel of those station boards under my feet for a long stretch of forty
minutes. We can go to the Ivy, that little white shop on Linden Avenue.
It is only two blocks from the station. We shall have time and to
spare."
Leila called the latter part of her remarks over her shoulder.
Immediately she had read the notice she turned and started for the
station yard. Her companions followed her with alacrity. They were no
more in favor than she of a tedious wait on the platform for a belated
train.
"One of us had better call time," wisely suggested Helen, as they
flocked into the pretty white and green tea room. "Otherwise we are
likely to overstay our limit. We must be out of here ten minutes before
the train is due. You had better, Luciferous. You are infallible."
"Much obliged." A faint pink crept into Lucy's fair pale skin. Lucy was
secretly proud of her own reliability. Turning her pretty gold wrist
watch on her wrist so that she could see the face of it, she watched it
with an eager eye from then on. The watch had been a gift to her from
Ronny the previous Christmas, and was her most valued possession.
Fortune favored them with prompt service on the part of a waitress. They
had only comfortably finished their ice cream, however, when Lucy
announced that it was time to go. Returning to the station platform,
they found only a sprinkling of students awaiting the coming train.
"What has become of Ethel Laird, I wonder?" asked Jerry. "I hope she
hasn't forgotten she is on this welcoming committee. Suppose about
twenty or thirty freshmen stepped off the five o'clock train. It would
keep Marjorie and me busy chasing up and down this old board walk
handing out welcomes."
"Now where do you suppose we would be during that time?" demanded Leila.
"Oh, you would be a help, undoubtedly," conceded Jerry, with a boyish
grin. "I forgot about you folks. I was merely thinking of us from our
committee standpoint. We'll have to guess whether these arrivals are
freshies or not. I don't know all the Hamilton students and where they
belong. It will be about my speed to walk up to some timid-looking
damsel and gallantly offer my assistance only to find out she is a proud
and lofty senior."
"There are few faces at Hamilton which I don't know," Leila assured.
"Behave well and stick to me and I'll promise you will not do anything
foolish. I can pick a freshie from afar off."
"Miss Remson told me yesterday that she understood there were one
hundred and ten freshmen applications this year," said Katherine. "We
are to have three freshies at Wayland Hall."
"One hundred and ten democrats would help our cause along," remarked
Lucy. "Only we need not expect any such miracle."
"With the start we now have, if even half of the freshmen were for
college equality, it would be a hard blow to the Sans. I wish it might
be like that." Vera clasped her bits of hands, an unconsciously pretty
fashion of hers when she earnestly desired something to come to pass.
"The Sans will fight for every inch of the ground this year. See if they
don't," Katherine Langly spoke with half bitter conviction. "Do you think
for an instant that they will sit still and see democracy win? Leslie
Cairns loves power. Joan Myers is determined to have her own way.
Natalie Weymain is vain. Dulcie Vale is vindictive. Evangeline Heppler
and Adelaide Forman are thoroughly disagreeable. Margaret Wayne is
malicious and scandalously untruthful. There! That is my candid opinion
of those seven students. I have always longed to express it."
"I see you have found your tongue. I congratulate you." Leila beamed
approval of such refreshing frankness on the part of quiet little
Katherine.
"We had better enter a conspiracy to spend our spare time rushing
freshies," proposed Helen. "When they are with us they will be out of
mischief."
"First catch your hare," advised Muriel. "Maybe the freshies would not
take kindly to the continuous round of pleasure we arranged for them. I
don't believe there is any one infallible method of winning them over."
"Oh, I wasn't serious," Helen said, with her roguish, indolent smile.
"While I don't object to helping the great cause along, I am not
yearning to become a polite entertainer. I'd probably be a most impolite
one before the end of a week, if I had to rush freshies as a steady
task. I am afraid few of them would turn out to be as amiable,
beautiful, jolly, delightful, agreeable and companionable as good old
Jeremiah here."
"An awful waste of adjectives," was Jerry's terse reception of this
extravagant tribute to herself. "Here comes the train." Despite her lack
of sentiment, she flashed Helen a smile of comradeship.
The belated express thundered into the station with a force which shook
the platform. Instinctively the scattered groups of persons on the
platform drew back a trifle as the first three coaches shot past. It was
a long train and it did not take more than a second glance down its
length to note that the last coach was quite different from the others.
"Private car!" Leila's low exclamation held more than surprise. It was
sarcastically significant. "Behold the Philistines are upon us," she
continued in pretended consternation.
"We needn't mind a little thing like that," Jerry assured with a genial
smile. "They won't be met and fussed over by us. I wonder where the mob
is who ought to be at the station to greet these celebrated geese?"
"They certainly chose a poor day for a triumphal return." Muriel
indulged in a soft chuckle at the Sans' expense. She broke off in the
middle of it with a jubilant cry of, "Girls; there's Hortense just
getting off the train three coaches up the platform!"
"Hooray! Nella and Selma are with her!" This from Leila, whose eyes had
picked up dignified Hortense Barlow descending the car steps immediately.
Muriel had cried out. Following her were the two juniors of whom Leila
and Vera were so fond.
The unwelcome Sans entirely forgotten, Leila, Muriel and Vera headed an
orderly rush up the platform. All of the station party were anxious to
give the three juniors a hearty reception. Marjorie and Ronny happened
to be the last of the little procession. The former bore in mind her
chief object in coming-to the station and kept a sharp lookout for
freshmen.
Just as they reached the edge of the group which had closed in about the
three arrivals, Marjorie's searching eyes spied a small, flaxen-haired
young woman with wide-opened blue eyes and a babyish expression, coming
toward her. The latter was burdened with a heavy seal traveling case and
a bag of golf sticks. She had evidently emerged from the coach behind
the one from which Nella and her two companions had come. As she
advanced, she gazed about her with a slightly perplexed air.
"Pardon me." Marjorie had stepped instantly to her side. "Are you a
freshman? I am Marjorie Dean, of the sophomore class, and hope I can be
of service to you. I am one of a sophomore committee to welcome arriving
freshmen."
"Oh, thank you. Delighted, I'm sure, to know you, Miss Dean." The
newcomer's conventionally courteous tone conveyed no particular
enthusiasm. "Yes; I am a freshman. At least, I hope so. I have one exam.
to try. I flunked in geometry at the prep school I attended last year.
Had a tutor all summer. Guess I'll scrape through this time."
"I hope you will," Marjorie made sincere return. She half offered a hand
to the other girl. The latter did not appear to see it. She clung
tightly to her bag of golf sticks and traveling case. Far from paying
undivided attention to Marjorie, her wide blue eyes roved over the
platform, the light of curiosity strong within them.
"Hamilton must be a slow old college if it can't show more of a station
mob than this," she remarked, almost disdainfully. "I mean it must be
rather well--humdrum. I was at Welden Prep last year. It is a mighty
lively school. It takes the Welden girls to properly mob the station.
Oh, we were a gay crowd, I can tell you! Awfully select, you know, but
really full of life."
"You will find Hamilton lively enough, I believe. It is early yet. A few
of us are back earlier than usual. Not more than a fifth of the students
have returned yet." Marjorie's tone was kindly. She made a patient
effort to keep reserve out of it. Her first impression of the
dissatisfied freshman was not pleasing.
"Oh, I see, I am glad there is hope." The girl gave a vacant little
laugh. "I do so hate anything slow or poky or stupid. I had supposed
Hamilton to be very smart and exclusive, or I wouldn't have chosen to
come here."
"It is a very fine college. There is no better faculty in the country,
and the college itself is ideally located. You cannot help but love the
campus. At which house are you to live?" Marjorie chose not to discuss
Hamilton from the freshman's point of view.
"Alston Terrace. Is it an interesting house to live in? Where do you
live? Are the garage accommodations good? I shall have my own car here;
perhaps two. How far is it from the station to the campus?"
The stranger hurled these questions at Marjorie all in a breath. The
latter's inclination toward secret vexation increased rather than
diminished. Her freshman find was showing somewhat Sans-like tendencies.
"All the campus houses are interesting. I live at Wayland Hall. There
are several garages in the vicinity of the college. It is about two
miles from the station to Hamilton. If you will come with me, I will
introduce you to some of my friends. A number of us came to the station
together; some of us to meet friends expected on this train. Miss Macy,
my room-mate, and myself are on the committee. Let me help you with your
luggage."
Marjorie deftly possessed herself of the bag of golf sticks which the
freshman now surrendered willingly, and led the way to the part of the
platform where her companions had gathered around the three juniors.
"Here she is!" exclaimed Vera, as she approached. "Aha! Now I know why
you left us all of a sudden!" She smiled winningly at Marjorie's
companion, who allowed the barest flicker of a smile to touch her
slightly pouting lips.
"Girls, I would like you to meet Miss----" Marjorie stopped, her color
rising. The stranger had not volunteered her name at the time when
Marjorie had introduced herself. She turned to the freshman with an
apologetic smile. "Will you tell me your name?" she asked pleasantly.
"Oh, certainly. My name is Elizabeth Walbert." As she spoke her restless
eyes began an appraisement of the group of girls whom Marjorie had
addressed.
"Miss Walbert, this is Miss Mason, Miss Lynne, Miss Harper----" Marjorie
presented her friends in turn to the newcomer, then said: "Please make
Miss Walbert feel at home among us, while I greet our famous juniors."
"Oh, we knew you wouldn't forget your little friends," laughed Selma,
"particularly the Swedish dwarf." Selma, who stood five feet nine, had
bestowed this name upon herself, she being the tallest of the four girls
who had chummed together since their enrollment at Hamilton.
Having warmly welcomed the trio, Marjorie realized Jerry was missing.
She glanced quickly up and down the platform in search of her. She
finally spied her coming down the platform with a plainly-dressed girl
whose pale face, under a brown sailor hat, bore the unmistakable stamp
of the student. In one hand she carried a small black utility bag of
very shiny material. The other hand grasped the handle of a large straw
suitcase. Jerry carried the mate to it. Her plump face registered
nothing but polite attention to what her companion was saying. She was
marching her freshman along, however, at a fair rate of speed. Not so
far to their rear the Sans had detrained. Their high-pitched talk and
laughter could be heard the length of the platform, as they gathered up
their luggage and prepared to march on Hamilton. Jerry proposed to be
safely in the bosom of her friends with her find before that march
began.
"Come along, children. Let's be going. The choo-choo cars are getting
ready to choo-choo right along to the next station. Look as I may, I see
no more arriving freshies--except the one Jeremiah is now towing toward
us." Leila added this as she saw Jerry. "We'll delay our going in honor
of the freshie."
Next instant Jerry had joined them and was introducing Miss Towne, of
Omaha, Nebraska, as the stranger had shyly declared herself. Amidst the
crowd of dainty, white-gowned girls, she looked not unlike a dingy
little brown wren. Miss Walbert eyed her with growing disapproval and
gave her a perfunctory nod of the head. Immediately she turned her
attention to the on-coming Sans whom she had already noticed. Her face
brightened visibly as she watched them. While she had reluctantly
decided that her new acquaintances were as well dressed as she, and
carried themselves as though of social importance, their kindly
reception of a girl who was clearly a dig and a nobody displeased her.
The very manner in which the other group of girls were advancing made
strong appeal to her. They were more the type she had known at Welden.
Marjorie felt an imperative tug at her arm. "Who are those girls? They
came from that private car. They are so much like my dear pals at
Welden." Elizabeth Walbert's babyish features were alive with animation.
"They are juniors. I have met a few of them. I can't really say that I
have an acquaintance with any of them." Marjorie could think of nothing
else to say of the Sans. She did not care to go into detail regarding
them.
"We go down those steps over there to reach the yard where two of my
friends have parked their cars," she continued, with intended change of
subject. Her companions were already moving toward the flight of stone
steps. Miss Walbert still stood watching the approaching company of
smartly-dressed girls.
"Pardon me. What did you say?" The absorbed freshman spoke without
looking at Marjorie. "I think I have met one or two of those girls.
Summer before last, at Newport, I met a Miss Myers and a Miss Stephens.
We had quite a lot of fun together one afternoon at a tennis tournament.
Yes, I am sure those are the same girls. I met them afterward at a
dinner dance."
By this time the party had come within a few feet of where Marjorie and
her annoying freshman find were standing. Marjorie felt the warm color
flood her cheeks as a battery of unfriendly eyes was turned upon her.
Her chums had already disappeared down the stairway, unaware that she
had been left behind. She could hardly have conceived of a more
disagreeable situation. Miss Walbert, however, was quite in her element.
She had done precisely what she had intended to do.
"Excuse me, I must really speak to my friends. I'll probably go on to
the college with them. Thank you so much."
With this Miss Walbert stepped hurriedly forward and addressed Joan
Myers. "How do you do? You are Miss Myers whom I met at the Newport
tennis tournament, I believe. So surprised to see you here and so
pleased."
Joan Myers stared hard at the speaker before replying. She recognized
her as the girl she had met at Newport on the occasion mentioned. She
also recalled the second meeting at the dance and acted accordingly.
"How are you?" she returned affably, extending her hand. "Of course I
remember you. Strange I can't recall your name. I met you at the Newport
tournament and afterward at Mrs. Barry Symonds' dance. Are you going to
enter Hamilton? So pleased, I am sure. Won't you join our party? You
seem to be--er--well out of your proper element." Joan added this with
insulting intent.
Marjorie had stepped back as Miss Walbert had stepped forward. Her first
impulse, in consideration of the cavalier dismissal she had received,
had been to turn and walk away. Courtesy prompted her to wait a moment,
thus making sure the freshman was accepted as an acquaintance by Joan
Myers and Harriet Stephens. She had barely turned away as she heard Joan
Myers say, "Won't you join our party?" She could, therefore, hardly help
hearing the remark which followed.
She went without attempting even a farewell nod. She was not hurt over
the ill-bred manner in which she had been treated. She was disgusted
with the other girl's utter shallowness. She was also visited by a sense
of dull disappointment. Hurrying to overtake her own party, she
discovered she was still carrying the freshman's golf bag. In the
annoyance of the moment she had forgotten all about it. Bravely she
decided to return it at once and have it off her hands immediately. She
was half way down the steps when she made this resolve. She quickly
remounted the stairs. From the top step she could see the Sans, standing
where she had left them. Four or five juniors whom she had seen on the
platform before the train came in, were with them now.
"Is this the way to the station yard?" inquired a soft little voice at
her elbow. "Can I get a taxi there that will take me to Hamilton
College?"
Marjorie turned quickly to meet the questioning gaze of two velvety
black eyes. The owner of the soft voice and black eyes was a girl no
taller than Vera. She had a small, straight nose and a red bud of a
mouth. Her hair, under the gray sports hat which matched her suit, was a
blue black, so soft as to be almost feathery. As she surveyed the pretty
stranger, Marjorie's recent pang of disappointment left her. Here, at
least, was a freshman more after her own heart.