I
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
A drop of ink splashed on the cover of Julia Bourne’s blue-book.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking,” murmured an apologetic
voice, as Julia glanced up in surprise. A small, pale girl standing
beside her desk had evidently held her fountain pen point down with
disastrous result.
“Oh, it did no great harm,” responded Julia, dexterously applying her
blotter. Like the other girl, she spoke in an undertone, for silence was
still the rule of the room.
“I’m thankful, however, that my book was closed,” she said to herself,
as the other passed on. “A blot on an inner page might prejudice the
examiner, and I shall need all his good-will.”
It was the Tuesday before the opening of college, and examinations were
going on to enable some students to take off conditions imposed by the
June finals, or to permit others—like Julia—to anticipate some study of
the Freshman year.
Before handing in her book Julia corrected some errors, for there still
lacked ten minutes of the close of the examination hour. As she sat
there reading the printed questions, one by one, she was thankful for
the cool day. How insufferably hot had been those two Junes when she had
taken her preliminaries and her finals! Old Fay House then had swarmed
with girls, lively, solemn, silent, chattering, short, tall, thin,
stout, dowdy, attractive,—but why enumerate? They were as varied in
aspect, and probably in disposition, as those other girls who never
think of college. In comparison with the spring crowds, the girls to-day
were but a handful.
Julia, glancing toward the window, caught a glimpse of the yellowing
elms of Garden Street, and a soft September breeze blew across her
cheek. Then her eye wandered to the photograph over the old-fashioned
mantle-piece, and she thought that the class-room, except for its chairs
and desks, was like the sitting-room of a private house.
Julia handed in her book promptly, but some of the others gave theirs up
reluctantly, as if to say, “Oh, for ten minutes more, or even five
minutes. It would make all the difference in the world to me.” One of
these girls, who was tall and strong-looking, with short, curling hair,
expressed her feelings emphatically.
“I don’t see,” she said, as Julia and she left the room together, “how
you got through so soon. You haven’t been writing for ten minutes. Why,
if we had five hours instead of two, I should still need an hour more.
Weren’t you frightened to death at the preliminaries?”
“I barely survived,” replied Julia, entering into the other’s mood.
“There’s an art in taking examinations that I’m only beginning to
learn.”
“Well, the worst is over! Harvard, they say (and of course it’s the same
with Radcliffe), is the hardest college to enter and the easiest to
graduate from. That’s why I left my happy Western home. I don’t mind
struggling to get in, but I want an easy time after I’ve once entered
college.”
“You’re from the West?” queried Julia.
“Oh, yes, from ‘the wild and woolly West’ as you call it here. I took my
preliminaries in Chicago, although my home’s farther off. Our colleges
are just as good as any East, at least Pa says so. But I said ‘the best
isn’t too good for me, and if Harvard’s the best of all for men, why
Radcliffe must be the best for women.’ As soon as I’d thought it out I
made up my mind to come here. I couldn’t have done better, could I?”
“Why, Radcliffe has a pretty good standing in this part of the world.”
“You don’t speak with enthusiasm.”
“Oh, I was only thinking that a good education can be obtained in a
Western college. I’ve lived in the West myself,” she explained.
“Let me embrace you,” cried the Western girl, impulsively, fortunately
without suiting the action to the word.
“You see it makes me tired the way people here pretend not to know
anything about the West; but I honestly believe that you realize where
Kansas is, and that St. Louis and Chicago are a few miles apart, and
that the Mississippi is east of the Rocky Mountains.”
“Oh, you could probably give me points in Western geography.”
“Perhaps, but let me introduce myself. My name is Clarissa Herter, and
my home is Kansas. My age is a little more than it ought to be—for a
Freshman—for I’ve wasted a year at college elsewhere.”
Julia smiled at this frank inventory, and she felt that she could do no
less than tell Clarissa something about herself.
“So you’re an orphan!” cried Clarissa, “and you’ve lived with relatives
for two years or more. Well, you must have had a pretty good disposition
to stand all the wear and tear. There’s nothing so hard as living with
relatives—except one’s parents. As to your personal appearance, it suits
me right down to the ground—don’t look at your boots,” she added. “I
include them in the list.”
Just then a proctor approaching introduced to the two the timid girl who
had blotted Julia’s book.
“I asked for the introduction,” said the newcomer, whose name was
Northcote, “because I wished to apologize for my carelessness.”
“Now, really,” responded Julia, “the blot did no harm.”
“But if it had gone through the cover?”
“Oh, that would have been nothing.”
“But I fear that I did more mischief than you think. There’s a little
ink spot on the side breadth of your skirt, and I’m sure that it came
from my pen.”
“Oh,” cried Julia, looking where Pamela pointed, “that spot may have
come from my own pen; and besides, the gown has seen its best days.”
“Well, I’m very sorry,” continued Miss Northcote.
In the meantime Clarissa had risen from the low, red couch, on which
they had been sitting. “You must be a New Englander.”
“I’m from Vermont.”
“I thought so,” cried Clarissa. “You have a well-developed conscience.
You seem to be apologizing for something that perhaps you didn’t do.”
“Let us go upstairs to the library,” interposed Julia, noticing that
Miss Northcote was made uncomfortable by Clarissa’s badinage.
“Isn’t it pleasant! I had no idea it was so homelike!” exclaimed Julia
on the threshold of the library.
“Do you mean you haven’t been here before? Why, I explored the whole
building from top to bottom last June. I didn’t wait for a special
invitation,” cried Clarissa.
“It was so warm then!” Julia felt almost bound to apologize.
The room that they had entered justified the term “homelike” to the
fullest extent. It had none of the stiffness of a college hall, although
shelves of books were everywhere, always invitingly within reach. The
deep-mullioned windows, the high mantle-piece and broad fireplace all
had a decided charm. From the window that Julia approached, through the
elms that shaded Fay House, there was a glimpse of the Soldiers’
Monument on the Common, and nearer at hand the time-scarred Washington
Elm. After looking into one or two smaller rooms filled with books,
Clarissa suggested that they go into the open air.
“There must be something of the gypsy in my blood, for I begrudge every
minute spent indoors at this season. Clarissa! Clarissa!” she cried
dramatically, “you must out and walk.”
“Is your name Clarissa?” asked the Vermont girl.
“Why not? Doesn’t it suit me?”
“Well, it’s strange,” responded the other, “for I am called Pamela.”
“How odd! Why, people may begin to call us ‘the heroines,’ unless we
show them that we’re made of stronger stuff than Richardson admired.”
“Poor Richardson! How he would be horrified to see us modern girls going
to college! You must belong to sentimental families to have those
names.”
“I was named for my aunt,” explained Pamela with dignity.
“Well, I’m afraid that my mother took ‘Clarissa’ from a novel,” admitted
the Western girl.
After leaving Fay House, the two others walked with Julia toward Brattle
Street. They had gone but a short distance when Clarissa exclaimed with
surprise that it was nearly one o’clock.
“My luncheon is at half-past one,” said Julia, “but perhaps yours is
earlier.”
“Yes, at my boarding-house we are very plebeian. At one o’clock we have
dinner, not luncheon, while you, I dare say, have dinner at half-past
six.”
“Of course,” replied Julia, while Clarissa, echoing “of course,” added,
“Then you must be a regular swell. But I thought that I’d feel better to
find a boarding-place in Cambridge, where their manners and customs are
like ours at home.”
Not to leave Pamela out of the conversation, Julia asked her if she had
found a boarding-place, and Pamela replied that she had not yet decided
on a house. She might have added that all the rooms that thus far she
had seen were beyond her slender purse. Before they reached Julia’s
door, Pamela bade the others good-bye.
“She’s almost too good, isn’t she?” was Clarissa’s comment as Pamela
disappeared in the distance.
“I like her,” returned Julia, begging the question.
“Oh, so do I; with that neat little figure, and those melancholy gray
eyes, she is my very idea of a Puritan maiden. You are something like
one yourself,” she concluded, “and I hope that you’ll let me call on you
occasionally.”
“Why, of course, and I will call on you, too, if I may.”
Thus with the feeling that each had made a friend, the two Freshmen
parted, both looking forward with interest to the college year.
Julia went to Rockley that same Tuesday afternoon, and was warmly
welcomed by Brenda at the station. The younger girl, it is true, teased
her cousin about being a Freshman, yet at the same time she showed so
much affection, despite her teasing, that she hardly seemed the same
Brenda who not long before had found in every act of Julia’s some cause
for dissatisfaction.
Rockley was the summer place of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Barlow, the uncle
and aunt with whom, for two years, Julia Bourne had made her home. It
was on the seashore, little more than twenty miles from Boston, and
Julia had passed two happy vacations there. She had gone to live with
her uncle and aunt soon after her father’s death, and had completed her
preparation for college at Miss Crawdon’s school, the same school that
Brenda and her intimate friends attended. Brenda, Edith, Nora, and Belle
were inseparables, while Julia had been more intimate with Ruth Roberts,
the Roxbury girl who was now her room-mate at Cambridge.
The Barlows were to stay at Rockley until late October, and Mrs. Barlow
regretted that Julia must spend that beautiful autumn month in
Cambridge. She remarked at dinner that Julia looked pale, and said that
she and Brenda had decided that this resulted from examinations.
“Why, you can’t imagine how weak _I_ feel,” Brenda had added, “after an
examination. You know that Miss Crawdon makes us have them, though few
of us are going to college.”
“It pleases me,” Mr. Barlow had interposed, “that you and your friends
should get even this indirect advantage from Radcliffe. In time the
average private schoolgirl may have an equal chance with boys.”
“Why, papa, you never have wished me to go to college.”
“No, my dear, but I often have thought that you suffered at school—”
“Yes, papa, I _have_ suffered at school, often.”
“My idea of suffering probably differs from yours. I mean that you
suffer from a lack of thoroughness. Thoroughness is the first essential
of college preparation.”
“Why, papa, girls can fit for college at Miss Crawdon’s. Julia and Ruth
and several others prepared for the examinations. But let us change the
subject,” said Brenda, adding, “What are those Radcliffe girls like? Are
they very queer?”
“Why, no indeed,” replied Julia loyally. Yet even as she spoke she had a
vision of Pamela and Clarissa, to whom Brenda might apply her adjective,
although to each in a different way.
“After all,” interposed Mr. Barlow, “thirty-five years ago who would
have imagined girls in college? Why, even twenty years ago a man would
have been thought foolish to prophesy that within his lifetime girls
would be admitted to full Harvard privileges.”
“Oh, but papa, it isn’t really the same as Harvard. The boys say that it
is quite different.”
“Then it’s a difference without much distinction. Professor Dummer the
other day told me that Harvard and Radcliffe students have identical
examinations in all subjects, as well as the same courses of study. But
I will grant that in athletics and that kind of thing they haven’t the
same chance as Harvard boys.”
At this moment the long glass door was pushed open, and Philip stood
within the room. The whole family greeted him heartily, for they had not
seen him since his return from Europe. He told them that his mother and
Edith had decided to stay a month longer abroad, and that he was
spending a day or two on his yacht in Marblehead Harbor.
“On Thursday I must be in Cambridge, and after that the ‘Balloon’ goes
out of commission for the season.”
The young people soon went out on the piazza, where they made themselves
comfortable with cushions and wraps.
“It’s a great thing to be young,” said Mr. Barlow, as their laughter
rippled through the open window. Two girls from a neighboring cottage
had joined them, and with them was their brother, also a Harvard
undergraduate. They had more in common with Brenda than with Julia, and
thus the latter was free to answer Philip’s many questions about
Radcliffe.
Although two or three years Julia’s senior, Philip had of late acquired
the habit of turning to her for advice. To himself he admitted that her
level-headedness had more than once saved him from making a fool of
himself. Philip Blair had just escaped being spoiled after the fashion
of most only sons with plenty of money. His parents had always been so
ready to consider his wishes that he had come to think the quick
gratification of his tastes a necessity. Because he was good-looking and
had agreeable manners, older men and women were apt to flatter him, and
his schoolmates fed his vanity in their eagerness for his friendship.
Without being really weak, Philip was easily influenced; and though in
school he never had been in disgrace, more than once he had been near
suspension from college. A certain indolence made it hard to shake off
his undesirable associates. But even the slow-thinking Edith had
discovered that Philip had a real regard for Julia’s opinion.
“Mamma and I are very glad that Philip likes to talk to a sensible girl
like Julia, for we were afraid that his head might be turned, with so
many silly girls always running after him.” Philip’s college
friends—those whom he asked to dine with him sometimes, or took to call
on Edith’s friends—were afraid of Julia.
Hearing that she was fitted for college, they could not understand how
Philip had the courage to talk with her, or even to dance with her. They
supposed that he was polite to her simply because she was a friend of
Edith’s. “Not that she isn’t a nice-looking girl, but she must be
frightfully strong-minded to think of going to college.”
Knowing the Harvard sentiment toward Radcliffe, therefore, Julia was
prepared for more or less teasing from Philip, and yet as she bade him
good-bye she was pleased to be able to remind him that he had said
hardly a thing to discourage her about her college career.
II
THE FRESHMAN RECEPTION
When Julia approached Fay House on Thursday, the opening of the term,
there were girls on the steps, girls in the halls, girls besieging the
Secretary’s office with questions; old students stood about discussing
all kinds of things, from their summer experiences to their proposed
courses of study. But the Freshmen were less often in groups. In single
file they waited their turn at the office, or sat in the conversation
room, catching scraps of wisdom from the lips of the older girls who
passed by.
“Oh, last year I had five and a half courses, but I’ve promised papa to
be more sensible and limit myself to four, so as to have some time for
other things.”
This from a serious-looking girl, and then from another more frivolous,
“Well, I tried to forget everything this summer, except how to have a
good time. It was delightful not to have even a theme or a forensic on
my mind. I was a walking encyclopedia last June, but now I feel
absolutely empty-headed.”
“What in the world,” came from another group, “possessed you to take
Pol. Econ. this year? I thought you were trying for honors in classics.”
“So I am,” in a rather melancholy tone; “but I’m tired of having nothing
but Greek and Latin. My future bread and butter may depend on them, as
I’m to be a teacher of the classics, but I’m indulging in Pol. Econ. as
a luxury.”
“A luxury! Well, you’ll pay for it.”
Julia, seated at the reading table, was not only amused by these bits of
conversation, but was interested in watching the passing girls.
“Isn’t it great?” cried Ruth, joining her. “It’s a little like the first
day at school, and yet it’s different. Who is that queer-looking girl,
she’s actually bowing to you,” with an intonation of disapproval; “why,
you don’t know her, do you?”
“Yes, I met her yesterday. She’s a Freshman from the West.”
Clarissa now reached them, grasping Julia’s hand with a hearty “Well, I
_am_ glad to see you!”
“Have you chosen your electives yet?” asked Julia, after a minute or
two. “Aren’t they bewildering?”
“It isn’t the elective, I’ve been told,” responded Clarissa, “but the
man who gives them that makes the difference. The younger the
instructor, the worse his marks. He thinks that he shows his own
importance by making ‘A’ and ‘B’ marks few and far between. I’m going in
for all the starred courses I can get, for then there’ll be more chance
of my having real professors to teach me.”
Ruth hurried Julia away from Clarissa to an appointment with a history
professor. He had wished to talk with them before consenting to their
entering his class. He was pleased to find them so interested, adding,
as he gave his consent:
“You must be prepared for hard work, as Freshmen are rarely permitted to
take this course. I hope that you read Latin at sight, for you may have
to make researches in some old books.”
Then he bowed and left them, and Ruth looked at Julia, and the latter,
understanding the question that Ruth would ask, replied, “Of course I’ll
help you;” while Ruth, whose Latin was weaker than Julia’s, responded,
“You always were a dear.”
Julia and Ruth had arranged to board in the same house, having separate
bedrooms, but sharing a large study. This was a square, corner room,
with three windows. One looked down on a bit of old-fashioned garden,
and the other two gave a view of some of the stately houses on Brattle
Street. Their landlady, or hostess, as she liked to be called, was the
widow of a Harvard instructor, who, besides a widow and two children,
had left a slim little book on the Greek accusative. Mrs. Colton always
had the book in plain sight on her library table, and she believed that
had her husband lived he would have been one of the most distinguished
of the faculty. She had long refused to open her house to Annex, or
Radcliffe, students. Like many other conservative people, she did not
approve of the presence of women students in Cambridge, and she did not
care to encourage the new woman’s college by taking its students to
board. But when the new Harvard dormitories made it harder for her to
get the right kind of students to take her rooms, she began to think
about the possibilities of Radcliffe. When she happened to hear that
Mrs. Robert Barlow was looking for a home for her niece, she immediately
sent word that she would be very glad to have her consider her rooms.
She saw that it would give her house prestige to have Julia and Ruth her
first Radcliffe boarders. Mrs. Barlow and the girls were well pleased
with the rooms, especially as Mrs. Colton was to take no other boarders.
Ruth and Julia would hardly have been girls, however, had they been
perfectly satisfied with the arrangement of the furniture as planned by
Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Barlow. With the exception of a few pictures, the
study was supposed to be in perfect order on that first Thursday of the
term. But Julia, when they went upstairs after luncheon, decided that
the divan must be moved from the windows to the corner opposite the
fireplace, and Ruth suggested that the library table should go from the
centre to a recess near the mantle-piece. Chairs ranged stiffly against
the wall they pulled out into more inviting positions, and moved many
other things. They both agreed that several pictures must be rehung, and
Ruth began to jump about from mantle-piece to table to make the changes.
“Oh, do be careful!” cried Julia, as Ruth stepped from a chair to the
table, with a framed Braun photograph under her arm, and a half-dozen
picture nails in her hand. “Do wait,” she added, “until we can find some
one.”
“Wait for whom? We can’t call the chambermaid, and Mrs. Colton would be
of no more use than—well, than you, Julia. Besides, I’ve hung more
pictures than you could count; and—why, what’s that?” she concluded, as
a very loud knocking at the door sounded through the rooms. Forgetting
the picture under her arm, as she turned she let it fall with a crash to
the floor.
“Gracious!” cried Master Percival Colton, astonished at the sight of one
Radcliffe girl standing on a narrow mantle-piece with another sitting on
the floor picking up fragments of broken glass.
“I hope nothing’s hurt,” said Percival politely, though hardly
concealing his curiosity as he handed Julia two letters. Then he turned
away rather sadly, as the girls neither explained what had happened nor
what they intended to do about it.
“Come down, Ruth,” cried Julia, as Percy disappeared. “Clarissa Herter,
that Kansas girl, has sent her card with these letters that she found on
the bulletin board. She thought that we might like to have them. Oh,
they’re invitations!” she added, as she opened her envelope.
“The Senior, Junior, and Sophomore classes at home in the Auditorium,
Saturday, September 30. 4 to 6.”
“Our first college invitation, and from the upper classes, too! Well,
it’s evident that they don’t intend to haze us.”
Hardly had Julia and Ruth stepped into the Auditorium that Saturday
afternoon when a girl with a ribbon badge greeted them warmly. From a
table near the door she took two slips of paper, and, pinning one on
Julia’s dress, said pleasantly, “You must excuse my being so
unceremonious, but we find that this is the best way of making girls
acquainted with one another, by giving them slips of paper with their
names written on them. I honestly think that you feel more like talking
to a girl if you know her name. Your slips are white, but we old girls
wear blue.”
“But how did you know which slips of paper to give us?” asked Ruth, as
she received a decoration like Julia’s.
“Oh, I was interested, that is, I asked particularly who you were the
other day,” replied the older girl in a flattering tone. “But now I must
find your Senior for you,” she concluded; “perhaps you haven’t met her.”
“My Senior?” asked Julia. “Why, how in the world do I happen to have
one?”
“Excuse me, then, until I find her. She will tell you all about it.”
Soon Julia found herself standing before a tall, plain girl with
glasses, who wore her Senior’s gown ungracefully.
“This is your Senior adviser, Miss Townall, Miss Bourne. I am sure that
you will like each other;” and the vivacious usher, asking Ruth to
accompany her, turned away to find Ruth’s Senior.
“Miss Darcy is always bright and cheerful,” said Miss Townall, making an
effort to talk to Julia.
“Yes, indeed, I like her immensely. She’s a Sophomore, I suppose?”
“Yes, and very popular.” Jane looked at Julia, as if at an utter loss
for a subject of conversation, until Julia asked her to explain the
system of assigning Senior adviser. In giving information Jane waxed
eloquent, and explained that the Emmanuel Society made the arrangements,
bringing it about that each Senior should take charge of one Freshman,
holding herself ready to give her any needed advice.
“Some of them have two,” added Ruth, who had rejoined them.
“Oh, naturally, for there are always more Freshmen than Seniors; but
dear me, it’s bad enough to have one on your mind,” said Jane
tactlessly.
“There, I didn’t mean that,” she apologized, at once conscious of her
own awkwardness. “Of course I’m delighted to be of help to any Freshman,
but there is so much danger of giving the wrong advice, and—” so Jane
went on explaining and explaining, as people are apt to when once they
have made a mistake, without greatly improving the state of affairs.
“But where is your Senior, Ruth?” asked Julia, to put Jane more at ease.
“Oh, I left her talking to that Western girl. She seemed so deeply
interested in her that I thought I might be in the way. We have been
introduced, however, and if she wishes to speak to me again, she may
take the trouble to find me.”
Julia wondered if Ruth’s annoyance had come from anything said or done
by Clarissa. Already she had seen that Ruth did not like the Western
girl.
As the rooms began to fill with girls, Julia and Ruth recognized many
whom they had seen at examination time, and among them a number from
their own classes. Coffee and chocolate and sherbets were served from
small tables, and the girls who served and the ushers who helped them
were kept busy.
“Not sherbet, but college ice,” corrected a girl at one of the tables.
“You’ll grow heartily sick of it in the next four years.”
Then Clarissa, to whom she spoke, replied, “Oh, a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet; and therefore, as a Freshman I’ll ask for another
glass. I suppose that our class will never again be as important as
now.”
“Probably never again at Radcliffe, at least until the end of your
Senior year. We take the Freshmen up tenderly, treat them very kindly on
the first Saturday of the term, and then drop them suddenly. Unless a
Freshman shows unusual ability, we are apt to forget all about her.”
“Then I’ll see what I can do to make myself remembered,” retorted
Clarissa, as if accepting a challenge.
In the meantime Julia and Ruth had again run across Miss Darcy, and the
latter had inquired if it would be an unheard-of thing for her to change
her Freshman adviser.
“You can do it, of course. It has been done occasionally, but if I were
you I’d wait. So few girls do make a change.”
“I fear that you think me notional.”
“Oh, no,” responded Miss Darcy. “I feel that you are going to be—that
is, that you _are_—the typical Radcliffe girl, and that naturally means
everything agreeable.”
“Yes, indeed, if we may judge by those who are here to-day.”
“Ah! we are in holiday attire now, but you will like us even at our
worst.” And Julia and Ruth, looking about them, agreed that Radcliffe in
holiday attire was well worth seeing. The rooms were prettily decorated,
and most of the girls wore light and becoming colors. There was little
formality, and each girl was not only at liberty to speak to her
neighbor, but was sure to be met more than halfway.
Finally, before they separated, the Glee Club girls gathered around the
grand piano, and one merry song after another was sung, to the great
delight of the Freshmen. One that made the most impression was “The Only
Man,” which, although unfamiliar to many of the new girls, was already
counted a classic of its kind. Even Jane Townall had been known to laugh
at its merry strains.
The song told of a young man who was invited to a Radcliffe tea, who,
when he reached Fay House, saw only women in sight:
“The poor young man stood trembling there,
And looked about for aid,
He’d never been afraid before,
But now he was afraid.
He gave one long, last lingering look,
Then rushed out at the door.
I think that he’ll think twice before
He comes here any more-ore-ore.
“Now all you Harvard men attend!
If ever you get a bid
To a Radcliffe tea, be sure and see
If any others did.
Do you think that you could face the fate,
From which our hero ran,
Among four hundred Radcliffe girls,
To be the only man-an-an?”
There were several other stanzas, and as the hero was described as a
particularly brave athlete, the refrain following each stanza was
particularly entertaining, for it went somewhat in this fashion:
“He could face the Yale rush line,
He’d been captain of the nine,
He was not afraid to dine
On the new Memorial plan;
But he’d never thought to be,
At a full-fledged Radcliffe tea,
The only—only—only—only—man.”
III
THE FIRST “IDLER”
“Who’s going to the Idler?” cried Clarissa one morning to a group around
the bulletin board.
Then a little Freshman spoke up timidly, “Why, can any of us go? I
thought that it was a club meeting.”
“Oh, the Idler is the only unexclusive institution that I’ve struck in
this part of the world. Just sign the constitution and you’re in it for
life. Come, you must join; we must make our class felt.”
Pressing nearer the board, one of the group read aloud that all
Radcliffe students, regular or special, were invited to a meeting of the
Idler Club on Friday afternoon at half-past four in the Auditorium.
Accordingly, they were all in their places before the appointed hour.
The Auditorium was overflowing, and some girls even had chairs in the
aisles. Ruth and Julia leaned on the ledge of the window opening from
the conversation room.
“Why don’t they begin?” asked Ruth impatiently, at quarter of five. But
even as she spoke there was a lull in the conversation, and a rather
commanding figure rose on the platform.
“That is the President of the Idler,” whispered Ruth, “Mary Witherspoon.
I had her pointed out to me the other day.”
Miss Witherspoon made an address that was clear and to the point. She
congratulated the old students on the prospect of a successful year for
the Idler; she welcomed the new students very heartily, and expressed
the hope that all present would at the close of the meeting enroll
themselves on the Idler’s membership list. She alluded to the fact that
nothing was imposed on them beyond signing the club’s very simple
constitution and paying the small annual dues.
“I hope, however, that all Radcliffe girls who can do anything to
entertain us, who are willing to act or sing, or even write plays, will
speak with me or with some of the Idler officers on the subject. We
cannot afford to let any talent lie hidden; and if a girl is too modest
to let us know what she can do, some one else will be sure to tell us,
and then we shall be obliged to issue some kind of a mandamus to compel
her to be amusing.”
All laughed at this, and when quiet was restored Miss Witherspoon
announced as the entertainment of the afternoon a farce written by two
Idler members, who for the present preferred to be anonymous. Thereupon
the curtain rose on a pretty stage set for a drawing-room scene. In the
background were two tall plants and a bookcase and a fine water-color on
an easel; in the foreground a tea-table, daintily spread, and beside it
two young girls drinking tea, and discussing the advantages and
disadvantages of a college education.
It was clear as the dialogue proceeded why the authors wished to be
anonymous; for there were many local hits, and the applause showed that
the audience recognized the college types depicted. The college partisan
also created much amusement by describing the homeless creature
constantly roaming the world in search of culture.
Julia and Ruth, moving about after the play, saw many of the ushers of
the Freshman reception. Now, as then, Elizabeth Darcy was one of the
most conspicuous. The refreshments served were very simple,—a punch bowl
filled with lemonade stood on a table in the conversation room,
surrounded by plates of cakes.
Ruth was soon seized by some of her own special friends, and Julia
wandered over toward the Garden Street windows. She probably would not
have noticed the girl sitting in a corner behind the periodical case had
not a nervous voice exclaimed, “Oh, I am so glad to see you!”
As she recognized Pamela, Julia felt a pang of conscience. Absorbed in
her own affairs, she had hardly remembered the Vermont girl. Now she
greeted her most cordially, and as Pamela came out of her corner she saw
that her face as well as her clothes had a dejected expression. Her
dull-brown hair was brushed back tightly, her linen collar was fastened
with an old-fashioned brooch. There was no useless furbelow about her
non-descript grayish gown, and she wore an expression to match her
attire.
But Pamela brightened as Julia held her hand. “Oh, I’m so glad to see
you,” she repeated; “I have been very lonely.”
“Lonely! with all these girls about you?” and Julia glanced toward the
girls swarming over the lemonade table, and toward the hall where there
were still girls, and girls, and girls.
“I’m lonely because there _are_ so many girls here,” responded Pamela.
“I know so few, and every one else seems to have a special friend.”
Again Julia felt that twinge of conscience. She herself had not been
altogether guiltless.
“Why, I am your friend, and I’m going to call on you at once, and you
must come to see us some Monday soon. We are to be at home Mondays after
four.”
This cordial invitation was cordially accepted, but Julia noticed that
Pamela did not give her own address.
“You know every one,” the latter exclaimed, as she and Julia walked
toward the Auditorium.
“Well, between us Ruth and I have met most of our class. But you ought
to know them, too.”
“Oh, I never dare speak first to a girl.”
“But you ought not to feel timid in the presence of mere Freshmen, like
yourself or myself.”
“I never can make up my mind to speak to them. I don’t see how I ever
dared speak to you.”
“A drop of ink, don’t you remember? That did it”
“Oh, of course it was my duty to apologize.”
“Well, then, just spill a glass of lemonade over one or two of those
pretty gowns, and you’ll be justified in speaking to the wearers of
them.”
Though Pamela wondered if Julia was quizzing her she was not offended.
Julia, realizing that Pamela was more serious than most Freshmen,
thought that she might enjoy meeting some of the older and more studious
girls. Looking around to see whom among them she could introduce to her,
she quickly saw Elizabeth Darcy. But Elizabeth was a conscientious
usher, and as soon as she had attended to the wants of one girl she flew
toward another. Her eye fell on Julia just when the latter, after
following her across the room, had half despaired of a chance to speak
to her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Bourne,” she said, holding out her hand. “Won’t
you let me get you something, lemonade or chocolate?”
“Oh, thank you,” responded Julia, “but I wish to ask a favor. May I not
introduce you to a Freshman who has not many friends? She is near the
door.”
Elizabeth glanced toward Pamela, standing in a limp and uninteresting
attitude. Her quick eye undoubtedly noted every detail of clothes that
showed unmistakably the stamp of the country dressmaker.
Elizabeth smiled sweetly, as she would have smiled under even more
trying circumstances.
“I am ever so sorry, but I am frightfully busy this afternoon. Some
other time, Miss Bourne, but now I could not give a minute to your—your
friend; and besides, I haven’t time for any new girl unless I should
happen to take a very great fancy to her as I have to you.”
In spite of the touch of this flattery, Julia justly felt annoyed with
Elizabeth. “After all,” she reflected, “ushers ought to make themselves
as agreeable as possible to all Freshmen, and it isn’t quite right for
one of them to decline an introduction.”
Elizabeth had hastened off with polite excuses, and Julia saw her join a
group of lively girls at the other side of the room. “She is not working
very hard now,” she thought, moving toward Pamela. She had gone only a
few steps when a rather shrill voice called her by name. Turning, she
recognized a bright little Southerner who sat near her in English.
“Where are you bound? You look like you had something on your mind,”
cried the Southerner, whose name, Julia vaguely remembered, was Porson.
“Why, I have a fellow Freshman on my hands; she knows hardly any one,
and I would like to introduce her, and—”
“Well, I am at your service if you think that I will fill in the blank.
You know this is my second year, though my first as a Freshman, and I
always like to meet new girls.”
“Why, thank you,” responded Julia, “I should be delighted. She is in
English ‘A,’ too, so you will have one bond of interest with her.”
Pamela was still standing where Julia had left her, but as the two girls
approached she held out her hand with a “Good-bye” to Julia.
“I must go now, it is past five o’clock,” she said.
“But that is early,” responded Julia. “I wish that you could stay
longer, for I have brought Miss Porson to meet you. She is in our
English class.”
But even after the introduction Pamela would not linger.
“I really must go,” she said nervously. “It is past five o’clock.”
“Why, you speak like Cinderella,” cried Miss Porson gaily; “she had to
go home at some unheard-of early hour—or was it a late hour? At any
rate, nobody ought to be a slave to time.”
The little Southerner with her allusion to Cinderella did not know how
nearly she hit the truth. But Pamela, unduly sensitive, winced at the
comparison. After bidding the two good-bye, she hastened up North Avenue
toward Miss Batson’s.
“Isn’t she a little—just a little odd?” inquired Miss Porson, after
Pamela had gone away.
“I cannot say,” responded Julia, “I know her so slightly. I ran across
her a day or two before college opened, and in some way I feel drawn
toward her, although I have seen little of her.”
IV
PAMELA’S PERSEVERANCE
When Pamela Northcote first found herself in Cambridge it seemed, as the
children say, “too good to be true.” It had long been her dream to study
some day under Harvard professors, but in this world dreams so seldom
are realized that she was genuinely surprised that her dream had come to
pass. Yet Pamela herself had been her own fairy godmother, and to her
own efforts she owed her appearance at Radcliffe.
Pamela had been but a little girl when women first began to study at
Cambridge. Even then she made up her mind that if she could she would
sometime be an Annex student. The road had been a hard one, but here she
was. “It’s worth all I’ve been through to come here, worth it all.” Yet
she sighed, thinking of her difficulties in getting enough money to
warrant her entering Radcliffe.
Pamela had been early left an orphan, and an uncle and aunt had given
her a home, if not grudgingly, at least not always cheerfully. They did
what they could for her physical comfort, but they would not encourage
her in her desire to go to college; and had they been willing to
encourage her, they could not have helped her. They had no money to
spare for superfluous things, and a college education—at least for a
woman—was certainly a superfluity.
That she should go to college had seemed to Pamela a filial duty. Her
father, whom she remembered but dimly, had worked his way through a
small New England college and later through the Harvard Divinity School.
In a trunk of old letters Pamela had found one of her father’s written
to her mother when Pamela was a baby. “If our boy had lived I should
count no sacrifice too great that would enable me to send him to
college.” A diary of her father’s in the same trunk showed Pamela how
prayerfully he had dedicated his baby boy to the ministry. But the boy
had lived only a year, and Pamela knew that he felt this loss keenly.
“If my father had lived he would have wished me to go to college; he
would have had me study with him until I was ready. It is my duty to
make the most of myself, to be as nearly as I can like what his son
might have been.” So Pamela worked and struggled to get a little money
together for her college education. Although her desire for a Harvard
course seemed presumptuous, Cambridge was her goal. There was a good
academy in the town where she lived, and this simplified her
preparation. In the vacations she taught a country school, and she
decided that when she had three hundred dollars she would venture it all
on a year at Cambridge,—provided, of course, that she could pass the
examinations. Now it happened that the very year in which she was to be
graduated from the academy, a prize was offered by a rich townswoman to
be awarded to the student, boy or girl, in the Classical Department who
should pass the best examination. Pamela wore herself almost to a shadow
studying. She won the prize, a scholarship of two hundred dollars, given
on the condition that the winner should spend the money on a college
course. Colleges were recommended to Pamela in which this sum would have
paid almost the whole cost of tuition and board, but the young girl
would have none of these. She saw in the winning of the prize a
dispensation that she was to attain her long-cherished hope of going to
Cambridge. She passed most of her entrance examinations that spring,
drawing somewhat on her slender capital for the journey to Boston, and
in September she passed the remainder. On entering Radcliffe, therefore,
her assets consisted of three honors from the examinations and three
hundred dollars in money. Two-thirds of this money was the academy prize
and one-third was her savings of several years. The brain that she had
inherited from her father and the courage that had come to her from her
mother were not backed by great physical strength. She was stronger,
however, than she looked, and she did not fear her course at Radcliffe.
Yet Radcliffe does not offer unalloyed bliss even to a girl as earnest
as Pamela, if she has to cogitate too long on the best way of making
both ends meet. Out of her three hundred dollars Pamela knew that she
must spend two hundred dollars for tuition, and she wondered how she was
to make one hundred dollars cover board, lodgings, and incidentals for
the year. She made no account of clothes, as she did not intend to add
to her slender wardrobe for another twelve months. Half of her tuition
would not be due until February, and if worse came to worse she thought
that she might draw on her tuition money for her board of the first
half-year. Yet this was a resource only if everything else failed. She
felt that if she could carry herself through the first half-year, some
way of earning the money to make up the deficit would present itself in
the second half-year.
The day before college opened Pamela went to see an elderly woman who
had been a friend of her mother’s who kept a small millinery shop in one
of the northern suburbs of Boston.
“I admire your spirit,” said Mrs. Dorkins when Pamela had described her
efforts to find a cheap boarding-place. “I knew you’d have a hard time
to find a place you could afford; and if you won’t be offended, I’ll
tell you how you might be comfortable without its costing you much.”
“Why should I be offended, Mrs. Dorkins? I know that you wouldn’t
propose anything that wasn’t right.”
“Well, a thing may be right without being exactly what you’d like. I
can’t forget that your father was my minister; and when I remember what
a good man he was it seems’s if you ought to have everything you want
and not humble yourself.”
“But you haven’t told me, Mrs. Dorkins, what it is that you have in
mind.”
“Well, a cousin of my late husband’s lives in North Cambridge; she takes
young women lodgers, who get their breakfast with her and their tea.
They have dinner in the City in the middle of the day, for they are all
of them employed—bookkeepers, or sales-ladies, or something of that
kind. There’s only four or five and they’re real nice girls, and steady
pay, though they can’t afford big prices. Now she wants some one to help
her with her work—my cousin does. Not a regular servant, for she does
the cooking and hard work herself. But she’d like some one to set the
table and wait on them morning and evening a little. She said that if
she could get some one that didn’t want much pay, she’d give them a good
home, and they could have all the day to themselves and most of the
evenings. Now Pamela, if you was willing to do this you wouldn’t have to
pay board and—”
Pamela’s heart beat violently while Mrs. Dorkins talked. This was just
the kind of thing she wanted. Her subconsciousness immediately set down
as wrong the feeling of pride which at first threatened to stand in the
way of her accepting it.
“Oh, Mrs. Dorkins, you are very kind; that is really the kind of thing I
have been looking for, only—only—”
“Yes, I know just how you feel, Pamela, but remember what Holy Writ says
about pride. Not that I don’t think you’ve a right to feel as you do.
Your father was a perfect gentleman, though he never had much money, and
was born at Bearfield where I was born, too.”
“Oh, it really isn’t that, Mrs. Dorkins, it really isn’t pride,” and
Pamela meant what she said. “Only—”
“Well, then,” said the practical Mrs. Dorkins, “I’ll go over to
Cambridge to-morrow and take you to Miss Batson’s. I’m sure you’ll suit,
and I hope that you’ll like her. She has a neat little place, and she’ll
treat you well.”
It happened, therefore, that on the very day after the opening of
college Pamela found herself moving her possessions to Miss Batson’s
French-roof cottage. She was to do certain work in consideration of room
and board, and she was to have a fair amount of time to herself. Miss
Batson did not offer her, nor did she desire, any money payment for her
services. Indeed, she considered herself almost rich. She had room and
board provided for her for the year, and after paying her tuition fees
of two hundred dollars she would have one hundred dollars left for
books, clothes, and incidentals. This to her seemed a very large sum.
Yet there was one thing that troubled her. She would have liked a room
to herself, and she found it hard instead to regard as a bedroom the
sofa-bed in Miss Batson’s little plush-trimmed parlor. But in a few days
she became fairly contented with this arrangement, and toward nine
o’clock each evening would close the folding-doors so that she might go
to bed without disturbing Miss Batson’s boarders, who often entertained
visitors in the little front room.
For her study she had a corner of the dining-room table; and though her
work was often interrupted by questions and comments from Miss Batson,
who would look in upon her occasionally, she still reflected that she
might have been much worse off. Yet sometimes she sincerely pitied
herself. “It isn’t exactly pleasant to be living in a house without a
single corner that I can call my own. I can never invite any one here to
see me. For although Miss Batson is very kind, I know that she regards
me as ‘help,’ a refined species of ‘help’ to be sure, but still only
‘help.’”
She had felt strongly drawn to Julia Bourne, and she hoped that she
might be able to see much more of her. Yet she reddened as she thought
of Julia in much the same way that she reddened whenever the subject of
her boarding-place came up. Although she was a minister’s daughter,
although she realized the sin as well as the folly of false pride, she
yet felt uncomfortable whenever she reflected that to the unprejudiced
observer, indeed to any one except Mrs. Dorkins, she might seem to be
only Miss Batson’s “help.”
Miss Batson’s boarders could not understand her. They were young women
who earned fairly good pay, as expert bookkeepers or clerks. They knew
that Pamela was a student, and one or two of them were sorry that so
delicate a looking girl should be obliged both to work and to study.
“It isn’t that the work is so hard,” said the youngest of the
bookkeepers, “but to think of a little thing like her studying those
great books. I’ve noticed her coming in in the evenings, and she’s
always loaded down with books. Anybody’d have to wear glasses if they
spent all their time looking into books. I wouldn’t do it myself. Why,
it must be most as hard as school teaching, and I always thought that
that was dreadful.” Yet Miss Batson’s young ladies (for in this way did
their landlady always speak of them) in spite of these occasional
criticisms were proud to have a college student living in the house.
They were inclined to be very friendly, and Pamela sometimes reproached
herself for keeping them at a distance. Their well-meant familiarities
annoyed her, and she found it hard to conceal her feeling. In
consequence she was much lonelier at Miss Batson’s than she need have
been.
It was rather an understanding than an arrangement that she should be at
home in the afternoon in time to help Miss Batson prepare her half-past
six tea. This meant that Pamela should be at home by half-past five; and
as she always walked home from the Square, she had to leave Fay House by
five o’clock. There was really no hardship in this, since all
recitations were over by half-past four. On the other hand, Pamela had
decided that to do her duty by Miss Batson she ought to refrain from any
part in the social life of the college, for she had learned that nearly
all the clubs and receptions were held between half-past four o’clock
and six.
It was on this account that she had given up the Freshman reception. In
spite of her Spartan resolve, Pamela had just a little longing for the
fun that certainly formed a legitimate part of college life. Although
she had had more than her share of care, although of a more serious
temperament than many of her classmates, she was still girl enough to
see the possibility that Radcliffe offered for social enjoyment. Yet
with this perception came a sense of her own lack of adaptability to
people; instead of attracting them, she felt that she rather repelled
those whom she met.
V
COLLEGE CALLERS
One afternoon as Julia and Ruth were walking toward Elmwood a human
whirlwind stormed past them, composed, as it seemed, chiefly of woollen
sweaters and legs in knee breeches.
“There,” said Ruth, “what geese boys can make of themselves! Actually, I
think that I recognized Philip among them.”
“Yes, I believe he’s in training.”
“Well, I’m glad that he has something to do. But I wonder that he and
Will haven’t called on us.”
“Seeing us may remind them. I know that they have been intending to
call.”
Julia’s surmise proved correct, and that very evening the cards of the
two Seniors were brought to them. When Julia and Ruth went downstairs to
see them, Philip said in half apology:
“We’ve often wandered in this direction in our evening strolls, but we
have never had the courage to come in.”
“What in the world made you so courageous tonight?”
“Well, you see,” said Will, “Philip came back to the club after dinner
with glowing accounts of you both. He said that he could not see that
you had changed a hair since coming to Radcliffe.”
“What in the name of common sense did he expect?” Ruth’s voice had a
note of indignation.
“Why, we expected a great alteration. In the first place, to be typical
Radcliffe girls you ought to wear glasses. Then I am sure that you ought
to have had a huge bundle of books under your arm, and your clothes—it
gets on my nerves to see the clothes most of the Cambridge girls wear; I
suppose they are Radcliffe girls. But I could see that you looked as
up-to-date as Edith.”
Philip, almost out of breath with the exertion of explaining himself,
was disconcerted by the laughter that greeted his words.
“It is greatly to be feared,” said Ruth, “that the typical Radcliffe
girl would be as hard to find as the average Harvard student. I haven’t
seen either of them yet. But it’s really too funny for you to have
expected Julia and me to develop our college peculiarities so soon. Give
us time and we may become typical.”
“Ah, well, of course now,” said Philip, “I did not expect to find you
entirely changed, although you know yourself that college might make a
difference.”
“Naturally we’d rather not belong to the tiresome class of persons who
are always the same, yet we do not wish our friends to find us altered.”
“No, you were well enough before,” and Will glanced toward Ruth.
“So you thought it best to let well enough alone?”
“Now, really you are severe! But not to dwell on personalities—how do
you like your rooms here? They seem very domestic.”
“These are not our special rooms,” explained Julia; “our study is
upstairs.”
“When are we to see your study, or ‘den,’ as I suppose you will come to
call it?”
“I’m afraid that you would not think it typical enough to be called a
den.”
“But when _are_ we to see it?”
“Oh, later we’ll give you a tea, with Aunt Anna or Mrs. Blair to
chaperon us. You’ll have a chance then to offer any amount of advice.”
“We’ll give you points that may be useful next year.”
“Ah! next year we’ll be Sophomores, and Sophomores know everything,”
retorted Julia.
“Yes, and sometimes more than everything. _We_ did, didn’t we, Philip?”
“I should say so! I’ve never since been so wise as I was in that
Sophomore year. I’d almost like to be a Sophomore again.”
“You may have the chance,” interposed Will, “if you drop down a class at
a time.”
Philip looked uncomfortable.
“Be careful, please; no twitting on facts.”
“On facts?” queried Ruth. “Is it as bad as that?”
“Oh, the Faculty has a wretched habit of giving a fellow warnings,
especially at the beginning of the Senior year, just to see how he will
take them.”
“Why,” said Julia, “I should take them as warnings.”
She saw by Philip’s expression that there was more than a mere
suggestion of truth in what Will had said, and she resolved at the first
favorable opportunity to have a serious talk with him. She remembered
that the preceding year he had spoken of one or two conditions to be
worked off before the close of his Senior year, and she began to fear
that he had neglected to do this. In spite of his little affectations,
Philip had a charm for Julia. At least she felt a genuine interest in
him, partly on his own account, and partly because she was so fond of
Edith. She hoped that he would make more of himself than some of the
young men in his set had thought it worth while to make of themselves.
While her thoughts were wandering, the conversation of the other three
went straight on.
“If we only knew what you would like,” Philip was saying, “we might give
you something more substantial than points for your room. I have a fine
‘To Let’ sign that was hung out originally somewhere down in the ‘Port.’
I haven’t really room for it, and—”
“Oh, that’s only black and white. When you make a present, you ought not
to be mean,” said Will. “What’s the matter with that barber’s pole that
you cherish so carefully in a corner of your room? I hear that its
former owner is still searching for it. A Radcliffe room would really be
a safer retreat for it than yours.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t get these girls into trouble. If I present them with
anything it must be something ennobling,—a tidy, or—or—a picture-scarf,
or something of that kind.”
“We haven’t a tidy in our room,” interposed Ruth triumphantly.
“Then it must have a very unfeminine appearance,” responded Philip. “I
am sorry that Radcliffe influences are so hardening. It wasn’t that way
when you helped in that Bazaar. Don’t you remember what work I had to
find something suitable for a college room, and there was nothing to be
had but tidies, and dolls, and things like that? Your minds were all
feminine enough then.”
“I remember that I found just what I wanted,” said Will, smiling at
Ruth. “A very beautiful sofa pillow, with a crimson ‘H’ embroidered upon
it.”
As it was Ruth who had made this pillow for the Bazaar given by the Four
Club, and as Will had insisted on buying it as soon as he learned that
it was the work of her hands, she naturally looked conscious at this
reminiscence.
Thus the conversation of the four young people flowed on; and although
the girls tried not to be too serious, they really did glean some useful
information from the two Seniors. The gossip of undergraduates about
professors, their fancied insight into the methods of their instructors
is harmless enough. Yet critical listeners might have questioned the
correctness of some of the judgments so glibly put forth by Philip and
Will.
Philip, to tell the truth, was surprised to find himself encouraging the
girls in their college career by even these scraps of information. He
liked Julia so well that he could not reconcile himself to her going to
college.
“It is different,” he had said to her magnificently one day at Brenda’s,
“it is different, of course, in the case of a man. If he doesn’t go to
college he doesn’t amount to much. People think it’s because he can’t
get in, and that kind of thing. But for a girl, why you know that it
really hurts her in the opinion of most people if she goes to college.”
Like his sister Edith, Philip was occasionally rather tactless, although
both had the best intentions in the world.
“I hope that I won’t be hurt, at least in the opinion of my friends, by
going to college,” said Julia quietly.
“Of course not,” rejoined Philip. “I might feel that way about some
other girl, but not about you.”
Julia accepted the apology, but she remembered the incident. She thought
of it again, as she sat before her fire that evening, and then her
thoughts travelled toward Brenda. Brenda, too, had never really approved
of Julia’s going to college.
“It was funny, although not exactly amusing,” reflected Julia, “when she
let Belle persuade her that it was an affront to the family when I
wished to study anything so unconventional—for a girl—as Greek. Yet
all’s well that ends well, and Brenda is so different now that I can
hardly believe that it is only two years since she was so pettish and
inconsiderate.”
Yet although Brenda had certainly improved in the past two years she was
still as far from perfection as most young girls of sixteen or
seventeen. She was still impulsive, and disinclined to receive advice.
But remembering her past mistakes, she was less ready than formerly to
find fault with Julia.
One thing that had brought the two girls together was a common interest
in a poor Portuguese family. The helpless Rosas living at the North End
had appealed very strongly to Julia, and for a time she had feared that
she might not be able to do much for them, because Brenda and her three
most intimate friends had undertaken to make the mother and children
their especial protégés. At length Julia’s opportunity had come, and she
had not only shared in the Bazaar by which “The Four” had raised money
for Mrs. Rosa, but she had also assisted in moving the family from the
North End to a healthier home in the pretty village of Shiloh.
Since then the Rosas had apparently prospered, and Julia could think of
them with satisfaction. Her interest in them had a double thread, for
besides sympathizing with their helplessness, she felt that but for the
Rosas, and the events connected with their removal to Shiloh, she could
hardly have had so complete an understanding with Brenda.
Yet in her heart Julia realized that as they grew older she and Brenda
were likely to see less rather than more of each other, their tastes
were so very different. Brenda had still a year more of school before
her, and when that was completed she would enter society. For a few
years life would be a whirl of pleasure, and she would give
comparatively little time to serious things. She was bound to be a
butterfly of fashion, though her father and mother would have encouraged
her had she wished to take life more seriously. On the other hand, they
would have been glad had Julia, their niece, shown some interest in
other things besides her studies.
“I do care for other things,” said Julia to herself, as she sat before
the fire this evening. “I do care for other things, though it is hard to
make Aunt Anna and Uncle Robert believe that I am not entirely bound up
in my studies. I really believe that I should enjoy a year of society
almost as much as Brenda. But the trouble is, I might grow to care for
it too much. I love study, too, and I should be afraid that if I were to
put aside my plans for college, even for a single year, I might in the
end regard college work as a task, and wake up too late to find society
all hollow. No, it is better as it is, although Aunt Anna feels that she
has failed in her duty to me, because she cannot introduce me formally
to society.”
To some girls situated as Julia was, the line of work that she had laid
out would have been hard to follow; for although not a great heiress,
she had inherited fortune enough to make her perfectly independent. Her
purpose in going to college was not to fit herself to earn her living.
“I should like to feel that I _could_ earn my own living if I should
ever lose my money. It is not pleasant to feel that one is only a
consumer, a cumberer of the ground, and not a helper.”
Now Julia had already discovered that not all the girls in college were
there to carry out the loftiest aims. Some were as evidently bent on
enjoying themselves as the girls of Brenda’s set. Even thus early in her
Freshman year Julia had noted the difference between the two classes,
the workers and the shirkers. Of course, in her short time at Radcliffe,
she had not attempted to put all her acquaintances into one or the other
of these classes. But she had already seen considerable difference in
the methods of her classmates. Some sat dreamily, even idly, through a
lecture, making only occasional notes. Others hung on the words of their
instructor, writing pages and seeming fearful of losing a word.
Some took down the names of any books the instructor named as useful for
further reference. Others seemed absolutely indifferent to everything of
this kind.
Julia was not really a severe critic, and she made allowances. “I must
not forget to tell Brenda that there are, at least, two or three girls
at Radcliffe who really enjoy frivolity.”
VI
SETTING TO WORK
Pamela never for a moment felt any lack of liberty in Cambridge, in
spite of the fact that she had less of real leisure than most of her
classmates. Her life at Radcliffe was so much nearer her ideal than
anything she had previously known that she was in a state of constant
thankfulness. Clarissa, on the contrary, found the very atmosphere of
the college restraining.
So few were the rules at Radcliffe that Clarissa had a breezy way of
forgetting that any existed. She disregarded, for example, the notice in
the catalogue that students could board only in houses approved by the
Dean. She was therefore surprised when the request came that she should
call at the office to explain why she had chosen a house where several
Harvard men were boarding.
“What funny ideas they have here in Cambridge,” she had said when
describing the interview. “Why, Archibald is my third cousin, and we
grew up together. My mother and father would just as soon have him in
the same house. They’d know that he would look after me. He’s horribly
serious. I wonder if the powers that be here in Cambridge ever heard of
co-education?”
“Oh, the rule is intended for the greatest good of the greatest number,”
replied Julia, to whom she had told her tale of woe. “With fascinating
youths in every house where Radcliffe girls board, think of the hours
that might be wasted in matching wits!”
“Fascinating!” responded Clarissa disdainfully; “there’s little chance
that I would waste time over them. Of course Archibald offered to move,
but there were two other Freshman youths in the house, and so I had to
go. My present abode is most domestic with ‘Home, sweet home’ worked in
worsted on the walls, and a plush-covered album and two Radcliffe
students as the chief adornments of the parlor. That ought to suit you,
Julia—oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Bourne.”
“Why not Julia?”
“Oh, I notice that people here are so afraid to call one another by
their first names. For my part, I always think of the Christian name
first. It has so much more character.”
“So few people call me ‘Julia’ that I am always pleased to add a new
friend to the list.”
“Well, then, since you are so very kind,” responded Clarissa, smiling,
“perhaps you’ll let me give you some suggestions about the approaching
mid-years. I believe that I am on the high road to success.”
“Then do tell us,” cried Ruth, who had just entered the room.
“Well, I show a frantic interest in all the reference books mentioned,
and I’ve even bought one or two of them. I also make a special note of
any witticism—alleged witticism—of my instructor. Then I’m building up a
scholarly reputation by adorning my room with books and plaster casts.
When I have a brass tea-kettle I shall be ready for company. But it will
be tiresome to keep that tea-kettle polished.”
“It’s less trouble than you might think,” said Julia, laughing. “That’s
the advantage of owning a roommate.”
“Well, you are an angel. Miss Roberts, do you do all the polishing in
this establishment?”
“Ah! it wouldn’t be becoming to disclose how much work I do.”
“Oh, well,” said Clarissa, “it’s a fair division of labor after all for
you to do the rubbing and scrubbing, while Julia does the æsthetic and
ornamental for the two.”
Ruth colored at this remark, and Julia looked up in surprise at the
careless Clarissa. But the Western girl, unconscious of offence, was
looking at the photographs on the mantle-piece.
Before Clarissa turned around, Ruth, gathering up her books, had left
the room.
“Why did she leave us?” asked Clarissa, discovering her absence.
“Oh, she often studies in her own room. Only on Monday afternoon does
she feel perfectly free.”
“I see,” responded Clarissa, “I am a little in the way to-day.”
“Not as far as I am concerned,” responded Julia. “I’ve been studying and
I am glad to have a little rest.”
“A little intellectual rest,” responded Clarissa, “as the Bostonian says
when he goes to New York. Well, I ought to come on Mondays, only there’s
always some one else here.”
Julia was accustomed to Clarissa’s badinage, but Ruth unfortunately did
not like Clarissa as well. Julia therefore regretted her ill-considered
remark.
Clarissa spent much time bewailing the fact that she had to be a
Freshman at Radcliffe when she had already spent a year in a Western
university.
“Pa promised me,” she said, “eight hundred dollars a year for three
years, and I suppose that I ought to save out of that for my fourth
year. I never imagined that I should have to spend four years at
Radcliffe; it’s just ridiculous to have to begin all over again.
However, what can’t be cured must be endured. But Pa will always think
it was my fault in some way that I didn’t get admitted a Sophomore.”
“But you’ve made it clear to him?”
“Oh, yes; but it’s hard to make any one not on the spot understand just
how things are. I might get through in three years, just as some of the
boys do, but I can’t make up my mind to grind. There are so many
interesting things to see and do in Boston. I really can’t pin myself
down to hard study. In the first place, I can’t get used to the methods.
It seems as if there is nothing to do but listen to lectures and take
notes. I’m only beginning to understand how to take notes.”
“It’s a science in itself,” said Julia.
“I should say so,” continued Clarissa. “I shouldn’t like to have any one
see what a hodge-podge I made of my note-books the first three or four
weeks. I couldn’t make head nor tail of them until I had borrowed the
notes of one of the model girls to interpret them by.”
“It was hard for all of us,” said Julia, “at least it was for me.”
“Well, our first hour examination showed that we must remember the
instructor’s words, that it wasn’t enough to imbed them in
hieroglyphics. Allusions that I had considered mere ornaments I soon
found ought to have been taken seriously. Little innocent references to
some reserved book were of more importance than hours of lectures. Alas!
alas!”
Julia smiled at her expression of sorrow.
“You need not laugh,” said Clarissa. “I had meant to do most of my
reading next summer, and I had not even taken the trouble to note the
names of the books referred to. But I find that having electives does
not mean that you can elect to study or not, just as you please. The
mid-years will be serious enough, judging by the samples we have had.”
Clarissa was not the only Freshman to find difficulty in accustoming
herself to Radcliffe methods. Many others, unused to the lecture system,
had rested too securely in the hope that before the mid-years they could
make up all deficiencies. As the college year went on they were bound to
find, like all preceding Freshmen, that lectures in the end were far
more stimulating than recitations from even the best of text-books, and
in the course of time, too, even the dullest was likely to acquire the
art of successful note-taking.
The hour examinations at irregular intervals before Christmas were often
rude awakeners for careless girls. Others were agreeably surprised to
find their marks better than they had hoped.
“It’s uncertainty that kills one,” said Clarissa. “I mean to work so
that my mid-years will give me ‘B,’ or at any rate ‘C’ in English. The
warning, you will see, shall not have been in vain. I used to think that
I knew something about Rhetoric, but it seems that I was wrong, though I
studied it years ago in the High School.”
Although Clarissa’s rather original manner of expressing herself did not
wholly meet the approval of her English instructor, since the first
examination he had expressed a certain restrained approval of some of
her written work.
In November even the shyest Freshmen had begun to find their place at
Radcliffe, and to feel that they had some individuality. The classes,
relatively small compared with Harvard, enabled the members of each
class to know one another by sight and name, even if the acquaintance
went no further. But the new girls were impressed by the fact that
intimacies in no way followed class lines. The elective system made it
possible in many courses for Freshmen and Seniors to sit side by side,
nor did a Senior lose dignity by associating with the lower classes.
Clarissa constantly commented on this evidence of a spirit so different
from that to which she had been accustomed at her Western college.
Pamela accepted everything at Cambridge as a matter of course. Nothing
seemed strange to her because she had expected everything to be strange.
Whatever was, was right for Pamela, so far as Radcliffe and Cambridge
were concerned, and she lacked Clarissa’s bubbling energy, which
constantly sought some object to reform.
“I can’t say that I disapprove of the present state of things, though I
really cannot understand it. Here we are in the same town with
hundreds—yes, thousands—of students, and yet we see few of them at close
range, and then those we know are only our brothers or cousins or
something of that kind.”
“‘Something of that kind’ is delightfully indefinite,” said Polly
Porson, the little Georgian whose condescension as a Sophomore had won
Julia’s gratitude at the beginning of the term. “You speak like you were
disappointed,” continued Miss Porson, “but if you stop to think, it’s
well that we have so little to distract us. We are not forbidden to
cross the college yard if we really wish to. But only think what a
nuisance if they were permitted to walk about our little campus!”
“Do you suppose that there is any rule against it?” asked Clarissa
mischievously.
Polly laughed in reply. “Well, the average undergraduate would almost
rather be suspended for three months than find himself within our
grounds. Some of them make a virtue of not knowing just where Fay House
is, and you’d be surprised to find that many explain with pride that
they’ve never met a Radcliffe girl.”
“We must change all that,” cried Clarissa. “Not that we are anxious to
have the acquaintance of those callow youths,—for they must be callow to
look at us in that tone of voice,—but we must do something or have
something here that will make them anxious to know us better.”
“We can get along very well without their society,” interposed Elspeth
Gray, who happened to be passing through the conversation room where
Clarissa and Polly and one or two others were talking. “We’re not
exactly cloistered here in Cambridge, as girls are at some colleges.
Most of us have the society, more or less, of real men, and we do not
depend on undergraduates.”
“All the same,” said Clarissa, “we might have a little more fun here.
Now, Polly Porson, you must admit that it’s a trifle slow here for a
college town.”
“Most of us were not looking for fun when we undertook to come to
Radcliffe. Cambridge never had the reputation of being very amusing. But
I’ll tell you something to raise your spirits. Rumors of the charm and
wit of the Idler theatricals have begun to penetrate the brick walls of
Harvard, and last year we heard of sorrow in college halls because men
were not admitted to the performances. What we couldn’t attain through
our work we have accomplished by our play. They wouldn’t lift their
hands to read one of our examination books, but they would give more
than the admission fee to see us act.”
“Aren’t they permitted to come?”
“No, indeed, although we really ought to find some way of letting them
reciprocate our interest in the yearly Pudding theatricals.”
“We ought to be able to get up something to interest them,” said
Clarissa.
“Can you act?” asked Polly abruptly.
“Why, yes, after a fashion,” responded Clarissa.
“Well, then, do give your name to Miss Witherspoon. It isn’t the easiest
thing in the world to find girls willing to do their part. But there!
you must have heard the invitation given at the first meeting.”
“I heard it without taking it to myself. I’m not the person of talent
for whom the Idler is looking.”
Whatever her other faults, Clarissa could not be accused of vanity.
VII
ALL KINDS OF GIRLS
Among the girls in her Latin course one had a particular charm for
Julia. She was tall, slight, and graceful, with waving brown hair. Lois
lived in Newton, and often for exercise she walked at least as far as
Watertown after lectures. Sometimes Julia walked with her; and although
Lois was not too confidential, Julia had gradually learned many things
about her. She knew that Lois made her own clothes, and that home duties
prevented her spending much time in Fay House frivolities.
So far as she could, Lois had elected studies that would count toward
her proposed medical course. She was bright and cheerful, and always
ready to help others.
“She is certainly very clever,” Ruth had said appreciatively one day
after Lois had given her a suggestion as to the proper translation of a
very difficult passage. Julia was glad that Ruth liked Lois so well, for
she had not smiled on her friendship with Clarissa and Pamela.
Polly Porson liked Lois, too, although she was in the habit of saying
that her energy tired her.
“You look as fresh as a rose!” she exclaimed one morning, as Lois, with
cheeks pink from exercise, came into one of the smaller recitation rooms
where two or three girls were studying together.
“Well, I ought to have a color,” said Lois. “I’ve walked over from
Newton.”
“Why, Lois Forsaith,” cried Polly, and “Lois Forsaith!” echoed Ruth.
“Why in the world do you walk on a day like this?”
“This is just the kind of day for a walk. I had to stay indoors
yesterday because my mother was ill, and on Sundays there is so much to
attend to. I hadn’t time even to go to church. But the walk to-day has
set me up again, and I feel equal to anything.”
“Walking is as bad as the gym.,” cried Polly Porson; “in the South we
wouldn’t think either exactly ladylike. Why, until I came North I’d
never walked a mile, really I never had, just for the sake of walking, I
mean.”
“That’s nothing to be proud of,” commented Ruth. “Besides, I’d like to
see any one try to walk on your Georgia roads—those red clay roads. I
was in Atlanta once, and I know them. We were there two days on our way
from Florida, and the roads were so bad that I wondered that feet in
Georgia hadn’t become rudimentary from disuse.”
“Now, it isn’t so bad as that,” said Polly.
“Bad!” repeated Ruth. “Why, we started to drive one afternoon and our
wheels sank deep into red clay until we were nearly buried alive.”
“Now, it isn’t so bad as that everywhere,” reiterated Polly. “You ought
to have gone out Peach Tree Street; that’s a right good road, with a
fine sidewalk, too.”
“Oh, I’ve seen Peach Tree Street, too, and I’ll admit that there’s no
excuse for your not walking there.”
Polly sank back in her chair. “I never could see the sense in walking
where a horse could carry you.”
“Or even an ox cart,” added Ruth mischievously; “that seemed to be the
favorite Atlanta vehicle.”
“I wonder that you stand her teasing,” said Lois; “you are more amiable
than I should be.”
“Well,” responded Polly, “this is my second year at Cambridge, and if I
would I could tell a tale of Cambridge mud that would make Atlanta shine
in contrast.”
“Yes, Atlanta mud is red,” murmured Ruth. But Polly took no notice of
the interruption, and the conversation drifted from Atlanta and
Cambridge mud to a more general putting forth of opinions of New England
weather, a never-failing topic when two or more persons from outside New
England are gathered together.
“Give me the bleak New England climate before any other,” cried Lois. “I
haven’t travelled, but I have seen the products of the other climates,
and ours has the greater staying power every time.”
“You’re right smart cruel,” cried Polly; “I will never lend you my
note-books again.” Whereat all the others laughed, for it was Polly and
not Lois who was ever the borrower. The note-books of Lois, were models
of conciseness and neatness, and she was ever ready to lend them to
those girls who needed, or thought that they needed, assistance. The
borrowers were not always shiftless. Some were simply careless girls,
who found it easier to sit idle during a lecture than to write. Some,
indeed, had difficulty in following the lecturer and filling their
note-books at the same time. To such girls the loan of a note-book like
that of Lois was a great boon. They could copy her work in a time that
was short compared with what would have been necessary to decipher,
expand, and rewrite their own half-intelligible notes.
As for Lois herself, she often found it hard to lend the note-book which
she liked to have by her side when preparing for the class-room. It was
equally hard to refuse when a girl asked the favor in particularly
beseeching tones. On reflection, however, it seemed selfish to Lois
generally to refuse merely because she might wish to refer to the book,
and it happened that her note-books for one or two of the courses were
travelling half the time. While Polly Porson was one of the most
persistent of the borrowers, Lois never refused her requests. She was
fond of Polly, although it would be hard to imagine two girls more
unlike than the ease-loving little Southerner and the self-restrained
Massachusetts girl. The two were, nevertheless, the best of friends,
though Lois was a girl who had few intimates. For one thing she was too
busy, and for another she had little inclination to spend all her spare
time talking or walking with other girls.
Even on this brisk, cool morning, although she had no lecture for half
an hour, Lois did not sit down with Ruth and Polly and the others. She
lingered scarcely five minutes, and almost before they had missed her
she was up in the library, with books and writing material before her,
ready for a half-hour’s work.
“Why, where’s Lois?” cried Polly, suddenly discovering her absence.
“Hard at work somewhere, I’ll warrant you. She never wastes a minute,”
replied one of the group.
“As if it would be a waste of minutes to stay here and talk with us! I’m
sure we have just finished a most enlightening discussion of the
difference between Southern and Northern mud. We might have progressed
to a discussion of the difference in Fauna, Flora, and other natural
features of the two regions.”
“You forget that _I_ am here,” retorted Ruth; “it was I with whom you
were chiefly carrying on the discussion. If the others permit it and you
still wish it, we can continue.”
“Oh, no, indeed,” answered Polly, “I assure you that I do not wish it.
You can see that I bear no malice, for I had forgotten that it was you
who had said all those dreadful things about my native State.”
“Could contempt go further?” sighed Ruth. “You would have been willing
to prolong the discussion with Miss Forsaith, but you think it isn’t
worth while with me.”
“Speaking of Lois,” responded Polly, “I wish that she would amuse
herself more. It’s only frivolous persons like me who can sing and act
and study, too.”
“Oh, but Lois can act splendidly, if she only _will_,” said one of the
Sophomore by-standers. “I do wish that she could be induced to help us
with the Emmanuel play this spring.”
“The trouble is,” said a deep voice, “that Radcliffe girls are too
indifferent to fame.”
The other girls looked up and saw Clarissa slipping into a seat beside
the table.
“It seems ridiculous that there should be such trouble to get girls for
the theatricals.”
“Perhaps many would not think it fame, even if they should distinguish
themselves on our Auditorium stage.”
“Then they look at things with a jaundiced eye. Already there are
traditions—I have heard them myself—about girls who have acted in our
college plays,” said Clarissa, “and the greatest were the girls who made
up best in men’s parts.”
“There, Polly,” cried the Sophomore, “you must be on the high road to
glory, for,” turning to Clarissa, “you have probably heard that she is
our very best man. Last year she just brought down the house. You really
ought to see her; she’s immense.”
“That’s more than you are most of the time,” and Clarissa turned to
Polly. “What do you wear, seven league boots, or something of that
kind?”
“Not exactly,” replied Polly, “though if you’ll come round to my room
sometime I’ll show you some of my properties.”
“They’d be worth seeing,” said the Sophomore, “especially if you’ve kept
that gold-laced coat, Polly, and the high boots.”
“’Deed I have,” replied Polly; “the boots are likely to be in more than
one play before summer. I’m promised for at least two.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” cried Clarissa. “You are the very kind of girl
to act well. I’ve overheard you taking people off once or twice in the
conversation room, and you hit them to the life.”
Polly reddened a trifle at Clarissa’s words. It flashed through her mind
that she had sometimes mimicked Clarissa, and she hoped that this was
not what the Western girl had overheard.
There was no trace of resentment in Clarissa’s face, though Polly made a
mental note that after this she would not entertain her friends with her
impersonations outside of her own room.
It was time, indeed, for Polly to make this resolve, for without
intending it she had gained the ill-will of several by using her powers
of mimicry too freely. “Ill-will” is perhaps too strong a word, although
it takes more than the average amount of philosophy to make a girl proof
against ridicule. Comparatively few persons really care to see
themselves as others see them, and annoyance, if nothing stronger, is
apt to be felt against the individual, whether friend or foe, who
attempts to portray us as we appear to those about us.
It was now late in December, and the greater number of Freshmen had
become known to the girls in the upper classes. Here and there was one
who, like Pamela, had little to say to her fellow-students, and had as
little to do with those in her own class as with those above her. The
majority, perhaps, were like Julia and Ruth, friendly toward all with
whom they came in touch, yet never forgetful of the fact that they were
at Radcliffe first of all to study, and that other things must be
secondary.
Clarissa was in many ways unusual. She seemed always ready for pleasure,
and she spent so much time exploring the historic streets and buildings
of Boston that her friends wondered how she contrived to keep up with
her college work. Nevertheless, although there was no ranking in the
classes at Radcliffe, and although there were no recitations to give a
girl a chance to distinguish herself, Clarissa made it perfectly evident
that she did not neglect her work. She asked intelligent questions in
the class-room, and it was rumored that her marks in the hour
examinations had been particularly good. These hour examinations, held
occasionally without much warning, were tests covering a limited ground.
They gave a girl a chance to recover herself, if she found that she had
not been thorough in her subject, before the severe mid-years.
Some girls did not care for Clarissa. They thought her too pushing; and
although partly right in this, they would have been more correct had
they said that she was merely no respecter of persons. If she wished to
speak to a girl she addressed her without hesitation, regardless of the
fact that she had not been introduced. Strange though it may seem, some
girls objected to this, preferring, as they said, “to choose their
acquaintances.” Not many, however, were so foolishly formal, and
Clarissa’s chief fault consisted in a certain harmless officiousness, a
readiness to do things which really were within the province of some
other girl. She had promptly joined the Emmanuel Society, for example,
and had been a member hardly a month when she told the President of
Emmanuel that she had invited Mrs. Skillington Squails, of Chicago, to
speak before the Society on her approaching visit to Boston.
Now it happened that both meetings of the Society that were to be held
during Mrs. Squails’ visit had been already provided with speakers whom
it was impossible to put aside. Moreover, it was decidedly out of place
for a new member like Clarissa to make a suggestion of this kind. There
was an executive committee of the Society whose duty it was to make all
arrangements regarding speakers, and Clarissa ought at least to have
consulted this committee before writing to Mrs. Squails.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she said when the matter was explained to her. “But
it seemed to be such a good chance to get Mrs. Squails, that I thought
that I ought to secure her as soon as I heard that she was coming East.
You know that she’s in great demand, and she never gets less than fifty
dollars a lecture. But she knows me very well; she stayed at our house a
week the last time she came down into our State, and she would have
spoken before our Society for nothing to oblige me, and she’d consider
it an honor to speak at Radcliffe.”
Mrs. Skillington Squails was an effective speaker, and her subject, “The
Organization of Women Workers,” might have come within the scope of the
Emmanuel programmes. But unfortunately, Mrs. Squails had recently been
speaking on the stump for a very unpopular political party, and to
invite her to address Radcliffe girls would have drawn considerable
adverse criticism on the college.
The President of the Society thought it fortunate that the other
speakers could not be put aside for the Chicagoan, and in the end
Clarissa was spared the embarrassment of having to explain that her
invitation was not official by hearing from the latter that for the time
being she had given up her visit to Boston. Although the President of
the Emmanuel and her committee had been very careful not to speak of
this officiousness of Clarissa’s, in some way, possibly through Clarissa
herself, the story had leaked out, and nearly every one who had not met
her asked to have her pointed out. They were all anxious to see the
audacious Western Freshman.
Polly Porson, when she heard the story, had entertained a group of girls
with a mock interview between Clarissa and Ernestine Dunton, the very
serious and conscientious President of the Emmanuel. She remembered that
this portrayal had taken place late one afternoon in the conversation
room; and although she had glanced out into the hall to make sure that
there were no listeners besides those whom she had undertaken to
entertain, there was the possibility that Clarissa might have passed
through the hall unobserved. The thought of such a possibility made the
careless Polly rather uncomfortable, and in consequence she was now
especially cordial to Clarissa.
VIII
THE MID-YEARS
“It’s comical, isn’t it, to see those woe-begone faces erstwhile so gay
and cheerful?” said Clarissa, meeting Julia one morning in January at
the foot of the main stairs of Fay House. “Let us stand here and watch
the martyrs pass.”
“Laughing at your fellow sufferers!” responded Julia; “surely you are
not out of misery yourself.”
“No, indeed, I have two more; but I’d rather die with my boots on, as
the miners say, than be killed by inches. Now just look there!”
As Clarissa spoke two girls approached, one stumbling along with her
eyes fixed on a book, the other wearing dark green glasses that made her
pale face look almost ghostly.
“You can’t pass without speaking!” Clarissa’s voice compelled attention,
and the girl with the book looked up, showing the usually bright face of
Elspeth Gray, while the girl in glasses responded in the accents of
Polly Porson.
“I’m nearly dead, I really am, with one examination to-day and another
to-morrow! I had a perfectly lovely time the first week, for not one of
my mid-years came early. I went to two matinées and a Symphony Concert,
had a girl from New York over to spend the week with me; but the next
week when I began to study I found I’d lost the taste for cramming, and
I’ve sat up nights since. It was three A.M. when I went to bed last
night, or this morning—which was it?—and my eyes are nearly wrecked.”
Polly from a seat on the stairs looked up at Clarissa, who was standing
in front of her.
“I’m glad that I can’t see very well,” she continued. “I should hate to
discover that you were laughing at me, Clarissa.”
“Well, I do think that you are very silly.” Clarissa drew herself up.
“Look at me! I’ve gained two pounds since the first of January.”
“Why! haven’t you had to work? You are an exception, and this is only
your first year, too.”
“Certainly I have been working,” responded Clarissa, “but I haven’t been
worrying. There’s little difference to me ’twixt ‘A’ and ‘B’ and ‘C’ and
‘D.’”
“Very well,” said a Junior, overhearing, “we shall see. I felt that way
myself when I was a Freshman. But a change came over the spirit of my
dream when I received my marks. I’d always thought myself a pretty
bright person before that, but when I found that I had nothing higher
than a ‘B,’ and that in only one course, while ‘C’s’ were alarmingly
prevalent on my record, I made up my mind after that to take
examinations seriously. I did better in June—I really did.”
“Yes, indeed,” interposed Polly. “I mean to do better in June myself.”
“According to your own account, you did not plan well for these
mid-years. Wouldn’t it have been better to have spent an hour or two
earlier in the year in study instead of cramming it into a week?
Wouldn’t that have been more consistent?” asked Julia.
“It might have been more consistent,” responded Polly, “but it wouldn’t
have been half as pleasant. I never _did_ believe that consistency was a
diamond of the first water. Besides, it’s _much_ more exciting to leave
most of your work to the last. If I were running a race I’d always make
my greatest effort on the last round. To be sure, I’d feel a little
better now if my eyes weren’t so troublesome. But I must go on. Elspeth
and I have some German to attack—just a trifle, you know: ‘Minna von
Barnhelm,’ ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ ‘Iphigenia,’ and one or two other little
things of that kind,” and she made a gesture of affected carelessness.
“Well, good-bye! Elspeth furnishes eyes for me at present, and looks up
all the words in the dictionary, while I provide the free translations.
Free enough,” she concluded with a laugh, as she disappeared up the
stairs.
“There,” cried Clarissa, “I can see that Polly is worried. She’s been
summoned to the office once or twice for cutting, I hear. She told of it
herself,” she added, lest Julia should wonder how Clarissa had learned
this.
Many Radcliffe girls, undoubtedly, took their examinations too severely.
They withdrew to their rooms at the beginning of the mid-years, and came
out only to get books from the library or for examinations. Yet though
cramming is a bad habit, it is so firmly fixed on all students that
until examinations themselves are abolished it will last. Poor students,
who have wasted the lecture hours and neglected the prescribed reading,
cram because otherwise they might fail outright, and so bring their
college course to an untimely end. Good students, who have neglected
nothing through the term, cram to assure themselves that they have done
the very best by their chosen subjects. Between the men and the women
students of Cambridge, however, there is one marked point of difference.
With the growth of Harvard the profession of tutor is of increasing
importance. Young men of small money and large ability after their
Freshman year often defray the greater part of their expenses by
tutoring. Many, indeed, of the youths who seek the aid of tutors have
never even tried to keep up with the regular lectures. By some occult
reasoning they calculate that it requires less mental effort to wait
until the approach of the examinations for their great spurt. The gist
of the courses they desire is then given them by an expert who in a few
hours covers the work of the half-year. Lazy men, athletic men, and men
lacking the mental momentum to carry them through college are the
mainstay of numbers of impecunious students. Radcliffe as yet has had no
attractions for girls disinclined to study. The majority have had high
standing in the preparatory schools, and they go to college intending to
do their best. If the Polly Porsons have been inattentive to some
lectures, or if they have neglected part of their reading, they work
with a will in the weeks just before examinations. But they scorn the
help of tutors, or of printed notes. At the worst they borrow the
note-books of some other girl, or they meet in little groups of two or
three to put one another to the test with difficult questions. Informal
meetings of this kind are the nearest thing that Radcliffe can show to
the Seminars (disapproved by the Faculty), devised for the smoothing of
the way for Harvard students.
Clarissa was one of those who liked to study in company.
“I am twice as sure of myself when I have done a little thinking aloud.
Come on, Polly, one more hour will make us perfect in English. I need
you to hear me say the ‘Canons,’ and exercise me a little on ‘shall’ and
‘will,’ and then I shall know whole pages of the English Literature
Primer. It’s too bad that we haven’t had more courses together, for we
work together splendidly; don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” said Polly, “especially as you have eyes and I haven’t. I am
going to make up questions out of my head to test you, for I mustn’t
look much on my book.”
“Oh, that will be all right,” responded Clarissa. “Besides, I have some
examination papers—those of the past two or three years—and I am going
to use them for your especial torment. It will strengthen your mind to
answer the questions.”
“Thank you, but if my mind required strengthening I don’t believe that
cramming would help. A cup of good strong coffee would be more to the
point.”
“There,” cried Clarissa, “you’ve given yourself away. I have been
wondering how you kept yourself awake until three A.M. as you boast of
doing. If coffee does it I have only half as much respect for you as I
thought I had. If I could look in upon you some midnight soon, and find
you drinking strong coffee, with your head swathed in wet towels—for
this I am told is the habit with coffee-bibbers—I’d punish you as you
deserve.”
“I plead guilty,” cried Polly, “to the coffee drinking. Why not, since I
have a little gas-stove of my own? But the wet towels, ugh! I could not
stand anything so clammy. But come! time flies, and if you are in
earnest about that symposium, let us hasten to my rooms.”
Many girls studied wholly by themselves. Pamela was one of these, and
Lois another. Pamela in this, as in other things, was solitary from
necessity rather than from choice. She had hardly a speaking
acquaintance with most of the girls in her classes, and it occurred to
none of them to ask her to join them. She for her part was too timid to
make the first advances. Lois, on the other hand, would have been
welcomed by many a little study group. But she was of a decidedly
independent disposition, and she felt that she could accomplish more by
herself, and with a smaller expenditure of time.
Her disinclination to be one of a crowd stood in the way of Lois’
popularity. Her fellow-students admitted that she was bright and
amiable, and that she seldom said sarcastic things. But they felt that
she was not deeply interested in them as individuals, and in consequence
they were inclined to criticise her. It was harmless criticism, but it
tended to increase the feeling that Lois was not exactly popular.
Julia and Ruth, studying together, rejoiced that they had the same
electives. Ruth was unduly flurried and worried, and she and Julia sat
up until midnight many nights when they might better have been in bed.
“The worst of it is,” sighed Ruth, after her last examination, “my
cramming hasn’t helped me an atom. Not one of the four papers had a
question that I could not have answered before I began to cram.”
“Yes, and if you hadn’t sat up so late grinding you would probably have
been in a better state for work. You’ll take things more sensibly in
your Sophomore and Junior years. Only Freshmen and Seniors work
themselves into a fever. Freshmen are inexperienced and nervous, and
Seniors never feel quite sure that they are going to pass in everything;
but Sophomores and—”
“I can’t say that I agree with you, Miss Darcy,” said Jane Townall.
“I’ve always tried to do my duty by all my instructors, but I never went
into an examination, even in my Sophomore and Junior years, without an
enormous amount of preparation. It seems to me that most girls do the
same.”
“Oh,” responded Elizabeth carelessly, “it all depends on the kind of
girls one knows. _Your_ friends, of course, are more serious than mine.
But you all make a mistake. You have lost five pounds, and you look as
if you had lost your last friend, too.”
With this Elizabeth hurried off to join Polly Porson, for they both
belonged to the same clique of rather lively girls just at this time
beginning to promote theatricals, tableaux, and other frivolities,
calculated to show that Radcliffe girls had other talents besides the
purely scholastic.
“It’s easy for Miss Darcy to talk,” said Jane Townall, turning to Ruth,
as Elizabeth moved away. “The loss of a grade would not hurt her; she is
not going to teach, and it will be all the same to her whether she gets
a plain degree, or a _cum laude_.”
“She does pretty well, though,” interposed a girl who had just joined
the group. “She showed me her marks last year, and there was nothing, I
think, below ‘B.’”
“Oh, there’s an art in getting marks, just as there is in achieving
greatness of any other sort. Perhaps you are not aware, Freshmen,” and
the speaker turned toward Ruth and Julia, “that one principle in
selecting courses is to choose those demanding the least work, and at
the same time yielding the highest marks. There’s a curious relation
between the two. The easier the course and the smaller the amount of
work in it, the higher the mark. Elizabeth goes in for such things as
Semitic 12 and Fine Arts 1, and—oh, well, we know the list. They are
studies that make for culture and high marks.”
“Also,” said another girl, “Elizabeth believes in making a good
impression on her instructors. She will break into a lecture three times
in the course of the hour to ask a question which sometimes has only the
slightest connection with the subject. But often it gives the instructor
an opportunity for a series of footnotes to the lecture in the shape of
original remarks, and he ends by believing Elizabeth to be the most
intelligent girl in his class. He keeps this in mind when her blue-book
falls into his hand. This is one secret of her succeeding without
working, for _she_ says that she does not work, and _you_ say that she
gets good marks.”
“In other words, she ‘swipes’ marks,” interposed Clarissa.
Jane Townall looked uncomfortable at the tone of the discussion.
Personalities were distasteful to her.
“Miss Darcy is very pleasant,” she ventured; “every one likes her. I
envy a girl who has the faculty of making herself agreeable to every
one.”
Jane meant to pay Elizabeth a very high compliment, but the two Juniors
in the group laughed heartily.
“That’s just it,” said the taller of the two. “Elizabeth does try to
make herself agreeable to every one. She would rather be called
uneducated than unpopular. I shouldn’t wonder,” she concluded with a
smile, “if she had designs on the Idler. But then, she’d make a fairly
good President.”
“Oh, but what a change after Miss Witherspoon! Besides, I’d rather see a
girl like Lois Forsaith.”
“Oh, well, of course. By the time she is a Senior her turn may come, but
at present it’s out of the question. Indeed, I doubt that she’d ever be
elected, however strongly some of us might wish it. She’s too
independent; and though she doesn’t make enemies, she wouldn’t have
enough people to work for her at an election. She hasn’t many intimate
friends. You’ve got to belong to a clique if you want to hold office, or
else be tremendously and surpassingly beautiful or rich.”
“Well, Lois isn’t that exactly. She’s just a good all-round kind of girl
with considerable talent, and she’s so independent that nobody ever
quite appreciates her.”
“Well, I’m sure,” said Jane Townall primly, as the group broke up, “I
feel as if in some way I had done Miss Darcy an injury. I really did not
mean to make her a subject of discussion when I spoke of the ease with
which she takes her examinations. I hope that I didn’t do her any
injustice. I’m sure that I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course you didn’t, Jane; you wouldn’t hurt a fly, we all know that,”
exclaimed one of the Juniors with a surprising flippancy. Jane was
Julia’s Senior adviser, and her four months at Radcliffe hadn’t lessened
her awe of Seniors in general, and of Jane in particular. For although
Jane was awkward—unused to conventional society—and wrapped up in her
studies, she had more than once gone out of her way to help Julia; and
while she was timid about offering advice, when asked to give it she was
always logical and painstaking in what she said.
IX
TWO CATASTROPHES
One Monday soon after the mid-years Julia and Elizabeth were walking
down Garden Street in the face of a rather sharp wind. Elizabeth, like
all who are not Boston bred, complained of the spring winds as if they
were more vicious than in her native New Jersey. Passing the old
graveyard, she laughingly reminded Julia that Longfellow’s “dust is in
her beautiful eyes,” applied to one who lay buried within the First
Parish enclosure, and that some wit had commented that dust was always
in some one’s eyes in Cambridge.
“Yet it’s an interesting old graveyard,” said Julia, “and sometime I
hope to go inside and study some of the inscriptions.”
“We all _mean_ to do those things,” responded Elizabeth, “when we are
Freshmen. I did myself last year. Christ Church is almost next door to
Fay House, and it’s one of the many that Washington honored. But I doubt
if you go within it before your Senior year, unless you make it your
regular church. But, dear me! What is that?”
A white shower was falling at their feet, and, looking up, the two saw
Pamela, the very picture of despair. The three girls were almost in
front of the old Dane Law School, now given up to the uses of the
Co-operative Society, and the sidewalk was slightly glazed with ice. The
wind, blowing strong in the faces of Julia and Elizabeth, had apparently
carried the slight figure of Pamela before it. Evidently, too, she had
been shopping at some Harvard Square grocer’s, and in her efforts to
keep herself from slipping, her black woollen bag had turned over, and
its contents were scattered. If the grocer had tied up tightly that
five-pound paper bag of granulated sugar there might have been no
catastrophe; but in some way the string had loosened, and Pamela stood
helpless, as the stream of sugar poured itself out on the sidewalk under
the very eyes of the fastidious Elizabeth Darcy. Elizabeth passed on
with a gesture of annoyance. On the steps of the Co-operative she had
seen two or three youths whom she knew, and she did not intend to make
herself one of a ridiculous group. Julia did not follow her, as she
swept up the steps of the Co-operative. Nor did the Harvard youths
accompany her. Elizabeth was accustomed to attention; and though these
three raised their hats politely, and although one stepped forward to
open the door, she noticed that the others hastened toward Julia.
Julia, too, had recognized the young men before she began to help
Pamela, and had she acted on impulse, she might have passed on with
Elizabeth, for she knew that Philip was only too ready to criticise
anything strange in the appearance of a Radcliffe girl. But Julia would
not have been Julia had she deserted Pamela.
The bag itself had slipped from the Vermont girl’s hands, and a
note-book or two, and a number of loose sheets lay on the sidewalk. To
save these papers from a coming gust, Philip and Will rushed forward.
Had Julia not been there they might have hesitated to intrude on Pamela.
Yet their natural chivalry would probably have triumphed.
“Never mind the sugar,” whispered Julia to Pamela, and the young men as
politely ignored it.
Julia, then picking up the bag, replaced the papers and note-books that
had been gathered up. Pamela, thoroughly abashed, tried to take the bag
from her friend, with a feeble “Let me do it,” but Julia, finishing her
self-imposed task, introduced Philip and Will to Pamela.
“We’re going to the car office,” she replied in answer to Philip’s
question. Therefore, across the Square, accompanied by the two young
men, Pamela and Julia threaded their way between two lines of electric
cars.
“We’re evidently dismissed,” said Philip, as Julia bade them good-bye at
the office; and after a word or two more, Will and he went back in the
direction of the Yard.
“That was rather plucky in Julia, wasn’t it?” said Will.
“What?” asked Philip, who sometimes seemed to have the obtuseness of his
sister.
“Why, the way she tried to make that girl feel comfortable—I didn’t
catch her name. But she’s evidently a shy creature, and she had got
herself into a scrape with all that sugar on the sidewalk.”