FRATERNITY GIRLS
SCARCELY had Janet become accustomed to her new surroundings, before
she found herself the object of special attention from certain girls
in the college, and she quite plumed herself upon being so popular
with these students in the upper classes. She took pains, however, to
hide her elation, for she had wit enough to discover that most of the
freshmen were very well satisfied with themselves, and that it was the
aim of the sophs to take them down, a wholesome discipline, to be sure,
for the majority of them. Indeed, it was in talking to Rosalie Trent, a
junior who had selected Janet for special attention, that she learned
what was expected of the freshmen, and how far many of them failed in
meeting the expectation.
"They know it all," exclaimed Rosalie. "I don't mean you, Janet dear,
for even if you think yourself a star of the first magnitude you have
sense enough to keep your opinions to yourself. But the consequential
airs of some of the new girls actually put me in a temper. I met one of
these important individuals waiting for the elevator awhile ago; Nell
Deford was there, too; you know how we all regard Nell, and even if she
were not a senior, we'd show her deference. Well, what does this little
whipper-snapper do, but push herself into the elevator ahead of Nell."
"What did you do?" asked Janet, appalled at such an impertinence on the
part of a freshman.
"I swept her back and said, 'Miss Deford first, if you please.' Then I
stepped in after Nell, and let Miss Fresh enter last. I must say that
she had the grace to look abashed. You see why we have to sit on such
creatures once in awhile, or they would simply run the whole place. You
are going to the tea with me, aren't you, Janet? Becky Burdett is a
girl worth knowing."
"And she is a senior? I think it is lovely of her to want me to come,
and I shall surely go."
"You will meet some of our nicest girls there, and Becky has a very
pleasant home."
"I think it just dear of you to take me," said Janet gratefully. She
was a little bewildered by Rosalie's evident desire to please her, and
wondered why she should have so attracted her. It was after Rosalie
left the room and Cordelia came in that she found out.
"I see Rosalie Trent is rushing you," she said.
"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Janet.
"Wasn't she just here, and haven't you been walking with her and
meeting her after class to walk home with her?"
"Why, yes, I have sometimes."
"They say that it is a great compliment to be asked to join the
fraternity that Nell Deford and Becky Burdett belong to, and you ought
to feel flattered."
"Fraternity? Rosalie has never mentioned the word to me."
"Of course not. It would be the greatest breach of etiquette to think
of doing that, and Rosalie would rather die than mention it to you; all
the same she is rushing you, it is very plain to be seen. You didn't
suppose she was showering her attentions upon you simply because she
loved you for yourself alone, did you?"
"I didn't know. Some of the others have done the same."
"They are frat girls, too, and nothing is too much for a rushee."
"Well I think it is very nice to be a rushee. I like all this attention
whether they want me in their fraternity or not. Any way you put it, it
is a compliment, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course, for they are supposed to be very particular whom they
ask. Shall you join that one, Janet, or any at all?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. Shall you?"
"No, I think not. I rather think I shall be a non-frat. It takes up
such a lot of time and there are expenses for one thing and another,
and I would rather spend my money some other way."
"But there are advantages," said Janet. "You meet a lot of nice girls,
and you may make acquaintances that will be a pleasure and a benefit to
you all your life."
"That is true, but I can get along without that, I think. Is Ted going
to join?"
"I don't know. We haven't discussed it."
"What do you talk about, pray?"
"Oh, a thousand things. Heaven knows there is enough to talk about,
isn't there?"
"Well, yes, if one wants to merely say words. It doesn't appear to me
that there are many girls here worth holding a real conversation with."
"Another argument for a frat," said Janet. "You might meet a kindred
soul, if you joined one," she continued, searching in her bureau drawer
for a pair of light gloves. "There's Ted now! If you want to talk frats
to her, you can do it, and I will ask to be excused while I complete my
toilet, for I am going with Rosalie to the halls of the rich and the
great."
Teddy and Cordelia soon left her, and she started off with Rosalie for
the tea, which proved to be an occasion for a perfect ovation. Every
girl present seemed to want to make herself as agreeable as she knew
how, and lavished compliments upon Janet till she might well have
become vain.
"I have wanted so much to meet you," said Becky Burdett. "Rosalie has
been talking of Janet Ferguson till we all feel that not to know you is
to have lost something. Nell Deford has been asking about you. Will you
let me bring her over to talk to you?"
Would she let her? Janet was overwhelmed, for of all persons whom she
desired to meet, the stately Miss Deford was the one; and when she
found herself listening to pretty speeches from this paragon, she was
in the seventh heaven of delight. That she, Janet Ferguson, a country
girl, a freshman, with nothing special to recommend her, should be
receiving friendly advances from the star of the senior class, who
had written clever stories, who had an enviable record for brilliant
work in more than one course, who was editor-in-chief of the college
magazine, and who, altogether, was a person of importance—this was a
privilege that Janet never expected to come her way.
She went home in a transport of delight. "I've had the loveliest time,"
she exclaimed as she drew off her gloves. "I wish you could have gone,
Teddy. Just think, I met Nell Deford and Becky Burdett, and some of the
loveliest girls, and they were so sweet to me. I think it is perfectly
delicious to be rushed."
"One of the seniors invited me to go to a lecture with her," said Edna.
"Which one of the girls was it?"
"I forget her name, but she wears a hat trimmed with a centrepiece and
a feather duster."
Janet laughed. "Oh, that's Theresa McGarvey. She is great fun. She had
that hat on this afternoon, and she certainly looks like a guy, but she
is so droll and so full of life, nobody cares how she looks. I hope you
are going to accept her invitation, for if we join any frat it should
be that one; the very nicest and brightest of the girls belong to it.
How did you happen to meet Miss McGarvey?"
"She came up and spoke to me after Latin this morning. She asked if
the nice fresh-looking girl with dark hair whom she saw so often with
Rosalie Trent were not my roommate. I replied that she was. Then she
asked your name and I told her. Then she asked if I had many friends
here, and I said, yes, that I had numbers, that I believed I had as
many as six; then she invited me to go to the lecture with her."
"Oh, I do hope she means to rush you, Ted. You don't know what fun it
is. I must confess, however, that it plays havoc with one's outside
plans, but Cordelia says they don't keep it up very long. I wish you
could go to Miss Burdett's; she has such a lovely home. I noticed that
she had several awfully good casts in her room. I mean to get some, a
Barrye lion, I think, and one of those fascinating heads like hers."
"Has she a fascinating head? It didn't strike me so when you pointed
her out to me in chapel."
"Goose, I mean her cast of a head, of course. Say, Teddy, don't forget
that it is as much as your life's worth to mention the word frat to any
of these girls. One of the freshmen didn't know she oughtn't to, and
she asked one of the rushers when pledge day would be; they dropped
her instantly, and she couldn't imagine why. We must never give them a
suspicion of a hint that we know why they are nice to us. Cordelia told
me all that. I don't know what we should do without Cordelia; she is so
well posted, you know, because her sister was graduated here last year."
A knock at the door interrupted their talk, and Janet admitted a
stylishly dressed girl who asked, "Isn't this Miss Ferguson?"
"Yes, I am Janet Ferguson," was the reply.
"My friend, Effie Chandler, told me to be sure to look you up," said
the stranger as Janet ushered her into the room.
"Oh, then you must be Hester Reeves," said Janet. "Effie told me I
should see you here. Do let me call Teddy. This is Effie's friend, Miss
Reeves, Ted. It is nice to meet friends of your friends when you are
away from home, isn't it?" she said turning to the visitor.
Hester smiled. "It is for me in this case. What lovely rooms you have.
Aren't those portières the quaintest things. I always envy the girls
who can have a sitting room and a bedroom, too."
"We like it so, though I do sleep in the sitting room," said Janet. "We
thought it would be better to do that way, and then if one must sit up
late studying, the other, who may not have to, can go to bed early and
need not be disturbed. Are you in one of the dormitories, Miss Reeves?"
"No," was the answer, "I board outside. I tried Hopper Hall for two
years and got tired of it, so this year I concluded to go to one of the
boarding houses. It gives me a little more freedom, I find."
"Then if you have been here two years, you are a junior, aren't you?"
said Edna. "Dear me, it seems a long time before we shall be in your
shoes."
Hester laughed. "It always seems long at the start, but when I think
that next year will be my last I cannot realize it, and begin to feel
very regretful that the time is so short."
Then followed a lot of personal talk, and at length Hester invited both
the girls to go to a matinée with her the next Saturday, and shortly
took her leave.
"Well," said Janet, when the door had closed after their guest, "there
is one girl who has no axe to grind, and who is going to be nice to us,
Teddy. Do you like her?"
"Yes," returned she, "but I should say she was a person fond of her own
way."
"Who isn't fond of it?" laughed Janet. "I'm sure I am."
For the next two weeks, Hester saw a great deal of the two girls and
was constantly asking them out to dinner, to drive, to walk, and
showered so many attentions on them, that they were convinced that she
was really very fond of them. Then came pledge day, and both girls,
who had decided to join the fraternity to which Becky Burdett, Nell
Deford, and Rosalie Trent belonged, donned their pledge pins and came
out ardent frat girls.
It was the same day that Janet came in to the room where Edna was hard
at work over her daily theme.
"Weren't we to go somewhere this afternoon?" asked Janet.
"We were, but we are not," replied Edna without looking up. "There's a
note there on the table from Hester Reeves asking us to excuse her from
going to Mrs. Talbot's tea."
"That's funny," returned Janet. "I met Hester in the library just now
and she barely spoke to me. What have we done, Ted?"
"I'm sure I don't know," responded Edna, looking puzzled. "I am
quite sure I haven't made fun of any of her relations, and I did not
monopolize her best young man at the reception the other night."
"I cannot plead guilty to either of those crimes, nor to having been
anything but most amiable. It's sort of awkward, isn't it, Ted, to be
treated as if you were guilty when you are in a state of conscious
innocence? What are these?" She took up two notes lying on the table.
"Oh those? I suppose yours is the same as mine. I am glad we have
settled on our fraternity."
Janet glanced at her note. "Ted," she exclaimed, "I do believe this
accounts for it. Hester Reeves has been rushing us after all, and we
silly-billies didn't see through it. We thought it was all for our own
sweet sakes, or for the sake of Effie Chandler." She sat down and began
to laugh.
"I wonder if that is it," said Edna after a moment's thought.
"I certainly believe it is."
"Well, I said she looked like a person who was bound to have her own
way. I'll bet she is furious."
"Dear me, then let her be," said Janet. "We can't help it. I'd rather
it were that, than something else, though I can't help laughing to
think how we have been fooled, and how she has been, too, for that
matter. I like the girls in our frat so much the best of any, and even
if we hadn't pledged, I wouldn't change, would you?"
"Indeed, I would not," replied Edna. "We must not breathe a word of
this to any of the other girls, though," she said, as she went back to
her theme.
Their conjectures proved to be quite true, for from that time, Hester
dropped them, and not only she but several others, who had been
particularly agreeable to Janet and Edna in the interest of their
fraternity, after this had no more attentions for them.
However, with their new friends, the girls were content, and felt that
their fraternity privileges were very great, since it gave them an
intimacy with those of the seniors whom it would have been difficult in
any other way to meet.
It was to Becky Burdett's pretty home that the girls liked specially
to go, for Becky was a city girl and could eschew boarding houses,
dormitories and regulations, and was much sought after because of this,
and because she was a thoroughly generous-hearted, loyal and lovable
girl. She was friendly, too, with a number of the faculty, and visited
Professor Newcomb's wife and Professor Satterthwaite's daughters, so
that she seemed to the innocent little freshmen a person living within
a charmed circle.
"Could you ever, ever imagine yourself on jocose terms with your
professor of mathematics?" said Janet as the two girls settled down one
afternoon for hard work. "I nearly have nervous prostration if I happen
to come face to face with him on the street, and to sit at his right
hand at table would finish me completely."
"Well, since you don't have to sit at his right hand," said Edna, "why
these remarks?"
"I was thinking of something Becky Burdett told me; of a joke Mr.
Satterthwaite told her, and I couldn't imagine his condescending to
anything so light."
"My dear, he is but a man, and probably his wife finds him very human,"
returned Edna sagely. "I am not half so much afraid of him as of Miss
Drake. She is so terribly dignified and stately that she freezes me
to an icicle. Imagine kissing her, or having little quips with her.
Gracious! I'd as soon try to tickle an iceberg or a polar bear."
"Who's a polar bear?" asked some one putting her head in at the door.
"I knocked, but you didn't hear. I came to borrow some alcohol."
"Goodness, Lee, we haven't a drop," Janet told her. "What do you want
with it?"
"Gwine mek a cup o' tea fo' Miss Meadows an' de gals," returned Lee;
"by Miss Meadows meaning Miss Drake."
"Not Miss Drake, the instructor in Latin? We were just talking about
her."
"It was not she whom you were calling a polar bear, was it?"
"Oh, but we said first an iceberg; she's so very dignified, you know."
Lee laughed. "Come in and have a cup of tea with us. Ted said you were
going to Mrs. Talbot's tea or I would have asked you before."
"With Miss Drake there?" ejaculated both the girls.
"Why not?"
"She isn't really in your room, is she?"
"Of course she is. I've known her all my life."
"And you're not scared to death of her?"
"Of Tilly Drake, as mamma calls her? I see myself. You won't be either,
though perhaps it is wise to allow you to retain a little wholesome
fear. Let me tell you something: Tilly's dignity is all assumed. I'm
letting you into a secret, mind. I believe in my heart of hearts that
she is as much scared of the girls as they are of her, and so she takes
refuge in the heavy dignity. You'd better come and see her. I know
Charity Shepherd has some alcohol. It would be against her New England
thrift to allow herself to be out of it, so I'll go there. If I tell
her it is for Miss Drake, she will give it to me. Ordinarily one has to
bind and gag her in order to get it, for she will not succumb to fair
means. She'll let me have it for Miss Drake though."
The girls looked at each other as Lee danced out. "Shall we go?" said
Janet. "I'm willing."
"I'll go if you will keep me in countenance," returned Edna. "If
you see me frozen with fright, just chip in and keep the ball of
conversation rolling. Fortunately it's just the next room, so if we
make any dreadful breaks, we can run and look the door before Miss
Drake can catch us."
Janet laughed. The idea of the dignified Miss Drake phasing them home
was too absurd.
"My teeth are fairly chattering," said Edna in a whisper, as they
reached Lee's door, "and just feel my hands, Janet."
"They're like ice. You poor thing, I believe you actually are rattled,"
Janet returned, and just then the door opened to admit them. "Here are
two frightened doves, Miss Drake," said Lee. "Come up and meet the
ogress, girls."
Miss Drake laughed. She looked very handsome and quite approachable
as she sat there in her plumed hat, wearing a very feminine cloth
skirt, and a white silk waist on which was pinned a bunch of violets.
In the class-room, she dressed severely in a plain black gown with
no ornaments at all, and the effect of the becoming hat and the soft
lace at throat and wrists was to alter her appearance decidedly. She
held out a welcoming hand to the girls. "I'm glad to meet you in this
informal way," she said. "Do I really scare you?"
Edna sat down uneasily on the edge of a chair, but Janet was more
confident. "I think I don't usually come from your class quite as stiff
with fright as Ted does," she answered. "It usually takes me quite an
hour to get her limbered up. Professor Satterthwaite is my Gorgon. When
he turns those penetrating eyes of his upon me, I feel the blood slowly
congealing in my veins, and can't for the life of me tell a theorem
from a broomstick. I think I shall give up mathematics, if I live
through this semester."
"I used to feel just that way about Professor Satterthwaite when I was
a freshman," said Miss Drake, "so you have my warmest sympathies."
Edna settled herself a little more comfortably on her chair. "Dear me,"
she said, "was he ever your professor, Miss Drake?"
Miss Drake smiled. "Why yes, my dear. Back in the dark ages, some ten
or twelve years ago he was."
Edna opened her eyes, yet it certainly was easier to imagine this
Miss Drake as a college student less time ago than that, though
the instructor who sternly conducted the Latin class—in which the
freshman sat, might well have been a fellow student with Professor
Satterthwaite, Edna reflected. She thawed out enough to say:
"It must be pleasant to come back and teach in the college where you
were once a student."
"Yes, it is," returned Miss Drake with a twinkle in her eye, "except
when my girls think me an iceberg."
Edna turned scarlet, and Janet turned indignantly on Lee. "I think that
was horrid of you, Lee Penrose."
"What was horrid?" asked Lee innocently turning from her occupation of
making tea.
"To tell Miss Drake that we called her an iceberg."
"Oh, but I didn't, did I, Miss Drake?" said Lee.
"No, really she did not. That was merely a haphazard hit. When the
girls are scared, they always call me that, and so I guessed that
you did," explained Miss Drake. "Come here, Miss Waite, and see how
comfortable this divan is with three pillows at one's back."
Edna rather timidly came and sat by her, and felt her hand clasped in
the soft warm one of the "iceberg" who smiled down at her and said, "Do
I freeze you?"
"Not a bit," replied Edna taking courage.
"Here, Ted, give her a cup of tea," said Lee, and Edna, only too
willing, jumped up to wait on the woman with whom she was now fast
falling desperately in love. Her conquest was complete when, before she
departed, Miss Drake divided her bunch of violets with her.
"She is simply adorable," said Teddy ecstatically when she and Janet
had returned to their own room. "Oh, Janet, if she should ever kiss me,
I should die of joy."