MARJORIE’S CALLER
“I thought you were never coming back, Jerry Macy!” Marjorie dropped
into the depths of the near-by arm chair with a weary little flop. “I’ve
worked like mad for as much as an hour getting up my share of the eats
for Ronny’s birthday spread.” She poked out her red under lip and tried
hard to look aggrieved. The sparkle in her eyes contradicted the
pretence.
“How could you harbor such disloyal thoughts of me, Beautiful Bean? You
are beautiful, even if your lip is away out of place,” Jerry tenderly
assured.
“Being beautiful doesn’t make me feel rested.” Marjorie still searched
for cause to complain. “For why did you stay away so long, Jurry-miar?”
“There’s the cause of my lingering longering.” Jerry held up a
good-sized pasteboard box tied with stout string. “Just wait till you
see it. I had to toddle all around Hamilton in search of a cake. When
all seemed lost we bumped into this glorious, scrumptious cocoanut layer
cake.” She set the box on the table and untied the string.
“It’s a white splendor.” Marjorie stood beside Jerry peeping at the cake
as her chum removed the box lid. “I’ve made the sandwiches.” She nodded
toward a side table carefully covered with a snowy lunch cloth. “I
cracked the walnuts for the brown bread ones and also my thumb.” She
ruefully put the injured member in her mouth.
“How you must have suffered!” Jerry solemnly exclaimed. Both girls began
to laugh. “Leila was in one of her fine frenzies because we couldn’t
find a real cake or any stuffed dates.”
“I was that,” notified an affable agreeing voice from the opened door.
“Did not the people of Hamilton all have their mouths set for sweet
cakes today?” Leila closed the door and joined her chums. “We could find
nothing we wanted.”
“Until in despair we went over to a new bakery on Gorman Street that
just opened yesterday. The woman who keeps it is German. She has yellow
hair and looks just like a pound cake,” Jerry described with enthusiasm.
“And our dream of a cake was in the window!” exclaimed Leila. “We
thought we would eat it ourselves and tell no one, but we have such
honor about us. We could not bear to think of those who would have no
cake.” She smiled broadly upon Marjorie.
“You are a pair of fakes. You’ve been out having a fine spin while I’ve
been in working hard. The minute dinner’s over you two may make the
fruit salad. That will be your job,” Marjorie sternly pronounced
sentence on the buoyant, hilarious pair.
“I will make forty fruit salads to please you, Beauty, though I do not
know how to make one. Behold in me a helpful Harper.”
“You mean a harpful helper,” corrected Jerry.
“If you mean I am a harp, then I must tell you you are right. I do not
know how you guessed it.” Leila gazed at Jerry in mock admiration.
“Dinner won’t mean much to us tonight,” commented Marjorie as she
proudly raised the lunch cloth to allow the girls to see the tempting
generous stacks of small, three-cornered sandwiches, the relishes and
various other toothsome viands always welcomed by girlhood at a spread.
“Remember, we are to take nothing but soup at dinner. It’s to be cream
of celery. I asked Ellen.”
“Oh, Marjorie, I almost forgot to tell you,” Jerry suddenly cried out.
“Something has happened to the Hob-goblin’s Folly.” This was Jerry’s pet
name for Leslie’s garage enterprise.
“Happened?” Marjorie’s question contained little interest.
“Yep. There’s a new gang of men at work on the garage. Leila and I
noticed them when we went to town. They were gone when we came back, but
it was after five-thirty. There were as many as your gang on the
dormitory. I think they were Italians. Don’t you, Leila?”
Leila nodded. “They must be a new addition to the Italian quarter,” she
surmised. “Signor Baretti said last fall that nearly all the men of the
quarter were working on the dormitory. He said they had refused to work
for Leslie Cairns’s builders. They would not pay them enough by the day.
Perhaps the new ones are glad of the work. But how can I judge when I am
no boss of Italians, or of any one but Midget. I shall certainly give
her a tart and terrible lecture when I see her again. I left her
entertaining Gentleman Gus. Now I believe they have eloped.”
Leila’s dark suspicion of Vera set the three girls laughing. Gussie was
the tallest girl at Wayland Hall and Vera the tiniest. The elopement of
the pair was a joy to contemplate.
“I haven’t been near the dormitory for three whole days,” Marjorie
confessed ruefully. “I’ve been so busy since we came back from Sanford
trying to make up for a lot of things I let slide before I went that I’m
a no good manager. Robin is coming early tonight, so she’ll know what
has been going on over there. We may thank our stars we have such a
splendid manager as Mr. Graham to look after the dormitory for us.”
“And such a Marvelous Manager as Bean to look after the sandwiches for
us,” supplemented Jerry, imitating Marjorie’s tone.
“I thank my stars they’re made, and made without your help, Jeremiah
Macy.” Marjorie waved a finger before Jerry’s face. “There’s Robin now,
I’m sure.” She sprang from her chair and ran to the door.
“Were you at the dormitory today?” Her lips framed the question before
Robin had more than stepped into the room.
“No-o.” Robin’s tone was one of self-accusation. “It’s neglectful in me,
but I’ve not been there since day before yesterday. I must turn over a
new leaf tomorrow. What about you, Dean? I know you’ve done better than
I.”
“But I haven’t,” Marjorie protested. “I’m a day behind you, Pagie. Jerry
and Leila saw Leslie Cairns’s builders have at last gathered up a supply
of workmen. The girls noticed them today when they drove to town.”
“Her garage will be about as successful there as it would be in Thibet,”
predicted Robin scornfully. “It’s too far from the campus to be
convenient.”
“I wonder if she intends to run it herself?” remarked Jerry. “I can see
the Hob-goblin proudly marching around her own car roost.”
Conversation about Leslie Cairns came to a halt with Jerry’s remarks.
None of the Travelers liked to discuss her. When they did it was because
of some way in which her affairs chanced to touch theirs.
The lively entrance into the room of the “elopers” who had gone for a
ride in Vera’s car, and returned at the last minute before dinner,
brought a welcome diversity of subject.
“What do you care whether we have dinner or not? Think of the spread we
have for Ronny.” Jerry reminded them. “You may have only soup for
dinner. We’re going to have the eats soon after the party begins so that
nightmares won’t be popular along the hall tonight.”
“You try to be kind-hearted, don’t you, Jeremiah?” said Vera, with a
patronizing smile.
“Oh, yes, I try,” mimicked Jerry. “It’s not my fault if my
kindheartedness doesn’t register. Some people are positively thick,
and—”
The ringing of the dinner gong sent Vera and Gussie scurrying to their
rooms to remove their wraps. Marjorie, Jerry, Leila and Robin made
leisurely way down stairs to the dining room. Dinner began and ended
with soup for the Travelers. The ten original Travelers were invited to
the spread, as were also Phil Moore and Barbara Severn. Marjorie had
invited both of the latter to come over early to “soup.” Both had nobly
refused in favor of study so as to be free to spend the evening at
Wayland Hall without including “unprepared” in next day’s vocabulary.
“The first thing for us to do to start the party is to move the eats
into Ronny’s and Lucy’s room.” was Marjorie’s brisk decision, as she and
Jerry returned to Room 15 from the dining room.
Robin had strolled down the hall to see Ronny and give her a birthday
present of a curious, vellum-bound book in Spanish, which she had
commissioned her dilettante uncle to buy for her in Washington at a
fancy price.
“We might all heave-ho and lug the table into the other room with the
eats on it,” proposed Jerry dubiously. “On the other hand, there might
be a grand heave-ho-ing of eats on the floor. I don’t like to take such
a risk, Bean. Think of my goloptious, celostrous cocoanut cake.” Jerry
had added “goloptious” to her new vocabulary of one word.
“Think of my scrumptious, splendiferous sandwiches,” retaliated Bean
with promptitude.
“I’m thinking about them,” Jerry said mournfully. “I could eat one now,
if I had it. So near and yet so far.” She lifted the lunch cloth and
made eyes at the stacks of sandwiches. “This is the result of only soup
for supper. I yearn to gobble the spread.”
“I’ll feed you a sandwich with my own hand.” Marjorie proffered a nut
sandwich, Jerry’s favorite kind, to her hungry roommate.
“Thanks, kind lady. I wasn’t—”
“I know all about you,” cut in Marjorie with an unsympathetic laugh.
“Hurry up, and eat that sandwich. Then help me move the eats; by hand;
not by table.”
Marjorie went to the door and opened it. She came back to the table,
picked up two plates of sandwiches and started with them for Ronny’s
room. Part way to it she encountered Annie, one of the maids.
“Oh, Miss Dean, I was just coming after you.” The maid’s broad
good-humored features broke into a pleased smile. “There’s a gentleman
down stairs in the living room wants to see you.”
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