A DISTURBING NOTE
Miriam and Grace sprang to their feet, regarding the sobbing, moaning
girl in blank amazement.
"What on earth is the matter, Elfreda," said Miriam.
The answer was another long wail that made the girls glance
apprehensively toward the door.
"She'll have to be more quiet," said Grace, "or else every girl in the
house will hear her and come in to inquire what has happened." Going
over to the couch, she knelt beside Elfreda and said almost sharply,
"Elfreda, stop crying at once. Do you want all the girls in the house to
hear you?"
"I don't care," was the discouraging answer, but in a lower tone,
nevertheless; but she continued to sob heart-brokenly.
"Tell me about it, Elfreda," said Grace more gently, taking one of the
girl's limp hands in hers. "Something dreadful must have happened. Have
you had bad news from home?"
"No-o-o," gasped the stout girl. "It's the sophomores. I can't go to the
reception. They won't let me." Her sobs burst forth afresh.
Grace rose from her knees, casting a puzzled glance toward Miriam. "I
wonder what she means." Then placing her hands on Elfreda's shoulders
she raised her to a sitting position on the couch and dropping down
beside her put one arm over her shoulder. Miriam promptly sat down on
the other side, and being thus supported and bolstered by their
sympathetic arms, Elfreda gulped, gurgled, sighed and then said with
quivering lips, "I wish I had taken your advice, Grace."
"About what?" asked Grace. Then, the same idea occurring to them
simultaneously, Miriam and Grace exchanged dismayed glances. Elfreda had
come to grief through reporting the two mischievous sophomores to the
registrar.
"About telling the registrar," faltered Elfreda, unrolling her
handkerchief from the ball into which she had rolled it and wiping her
eyes.
"I'm so sorry," Grace said with quick sympathy.
"You're not half so sorry as I am," was the tearful retort. "I'll write
to Pa and Ma that I want to go home next week. They'll make a fuss, but
they'll send for me."
"Are your father and mother very anxious that you should stay here?"
asked Miriam.
"A good deal more anxious than I am," responded Elfreda. "Ma picked out
Overton for me long before I left high school. She thinks it the only
college going and so does Pa."
"Then, of course, they will be disappointed if you go home without even
trying to like college."
"I can't help that," whined Elfreda. "I can't stay here and have the
whole college down on me, and that's what will happen. You girls don't
know how serious it is."
"I think you had better begin at the beginning and tell us everything,"
suggested Miriam, a trifle impatiently.
"It was the night of the freshman hop that they began to be so mean,"
burst forth Elfreda. "I went to the dance with Virginia Gaines, that
sophomore who sits next to me at the table."
"Who do you mean by 'they'?" asked Grace.
"Alberta Wicks, the tall red-haired girl, and Mary Hampton, the short
dark one. They took me over to the court house," was the prompt answer.
"The registrar reported them to the dean. She sent for them the very day
of the dance and gave them an awful talking to and they were perfectly
furious with me for telling. They found out that Virginia had invited me
to the dance, and told her the whole story. She was horrid to me, and
hardly spoke to me all the way to the gymnasium or coming home. They
must have told every girl I know, for not one of them would come near
me. I had to sit around all evening, for I didn't know half a dozen
girls, and you three were too busy to look at me. You can imagine I had
a slow old time, and I was glad to get home. Maybe you noticed I wasn't
very talkative that night after we got back to the house, Miriam?"
Miriam nodded.
"After that, Virginia and I didn't speak. I didn't care much anyhow, for
she made me tired," continued Elfreda. "But when the talk about the
sophomore reception began I saw that they were going to hand me a whole
block of ice. It was bad enough to have them cut me in classes and on
the street, but I had set my heart on the reception and wrote to Ma to
send me a new dress. It came yesterday. It's pale blue with pearl
trimmings and it's a dream. But what good does it do me now?" She stared
gloomily ahead of her for an instant, then went on:
"Of course, I knew no one would invite me, but I made up my mind to ask
if I could go along with you folks, and I was going to ask you to-night,
when just before dinner a boy came here with this note." From the inside
of her white silk blouse she drew forth an envelope addressed to "Miss
J. Elfreda Briggs." Handing it to Grace she said briefly: "Read it."
Grace drew a sheet of paper from the envelope, unfolded it and read:
"Miss Briggs:
"In reporting to the registrar two members of the sophomore class you
have offended not merely those members, but the class as well. You have
shown yourself so entirely incapable of understanding the first
principles of honor, that Overton would be much better off without you.
Do not attempt to attend the sophomore reception. If you are wise you
will leave Overton and enter some other college.
"The Sophomore Class."
Grace handed the note to Miriam.
"What do you think of it?" asked Miriam, looking up from the last line.
"I don't know what to think," rejoined Grace. "It doesn't seem as though
a whole class would rise up to settle what is really a personal affair.
Even though the sophomores are angry, they have no right to threaten
Elfreda and advise her to leave Overton. If the dean knew of this affair
I am afraid there would be war indeed."
"Shall I tell her?" asked Elfreda eagerly. "I think I'd better; then
they won't dare to make me leave college."
"Listen to me, Elfreda," said Grace firmly. "No one can make you leave
college unless you fail in your studies or do something really
reprehensible, but there is one thing you must make up your mind to do
if you wish to stay here, and have the girls like you."
"What is it?" inquired Elfreda suspiciously.
"You mustn't tell tales," was Grace's frank answer. "No matter what the
girls do or say to you, don't carry it to the officials of the college."
"Do you mean that I'm to submit to all kinds of insults and not take my
own part?" demanded Elfreda, forgetting her grief and assuming a
belligerent air.
"You are not fighting your own battles when you carry your grievances to
the dean, the registrar, or any other member of the faculty," said Grace
gravely. "You are merely giving them unpleasant information to which
they dislike to listen."
"Humph!" was the contemptuous ejaculation. "The dean made it hot for the
girls just the same. I guess she didn't object much to hearing about
it."
"You are not looking at things in their true light, Elfreda," put in
Miriam. "I'll venture to say that when the members of the faculty were
students they were just as careful not to tell tales as are the girls
here to-day. Of course, if students are reported to them, they are
obliged to take action in the matter, but I'm sure that they'd rather
not hear about the girls' petty difficulties."
"'Petty difficulties!'" almost screamed Elfreda. "Well, I like your
impudence." Jerking herself from the girls' embrace she stood up and
walked to the other side of the room. Stumbling over one of her shoes
she kicked it viciously aside, then, leaning her head against the door,
her sobs broke forth afresh.
In a twinkling Miriam was beside her. "Poor Elfreda," she soothed. "You
are tired and worn out. Take off your hat and coat and bathe your face.
You'll feel ever so much better after you've done that. You mustn't be
cross with Grace and me. We are only trying to help you. While you are
bathing your face, I'll make some chocolate and we'll have a cozy little
time. Won't that be nice?"
Elfreda nodded, winked back her tears, and slowly drawing the pins from
her hat, flung it on the foot of her bed. Her coat followed, and seizing
her towel from the rack she stalked out of the room and down the hall to
the bath room.
"Miriam, you're a darling and a diplomat!" exclaimed Grace, closing the
door, which the stout girl had left wide open. "Chocolate is the one
thing calculated to reduce J. Elfreda to reason. We will feed her, then
renew our lectures on tale-bearing. Never call me a reformer. I am
certain that before the year is over J. Elfreda won't know herself."
"Nonsense," scoffed Miriam. "She is an interesting specimen, and
furnishes variety, of a certain kind," she added with an impish grin,
glancing comprehensively at the disordered room. "As long as I have
taken her unto myself as a roommate I might as well do what I can for
her. What seems so strange to me is that with all her money she is so
crude and slangy. She doesn't seem to have any ideals or much principle
either. Yet there is something sturdy and frankly independent about her,
too, that makes one think she's worth bothering with after all."
"How did her father make his money?" asked Grace.
"Lumber," replied Miriam. "They own tracts of timber land in Michigan.
Elfreda can have anything she asks for."
Grace sat down on Miriam's bed, her chin in her hands. She was thinking
of the note she had just read and wondering what had better be done.
Miriam, despite her avowal that she was tired of picking up her
roommate's scattered clothing, busied herself with reducing Elfreda's
half of the room to some semblance of order. Going to the closet, she
took down an elaborate Japanese silk kimono and laid it across the foot
of Elfreda's bed.
"What had we better do about this note?" Grace asked, picking it up from
the table and re-reading it.
"What do you think?" questioned Miriam.
"I think we had better ask the advice of some upper class girl," said
Grace. "I'm going to see Mabel Ashe to-morrow morning. I'll tell her
about it. Elfreda mustn't be cheated out of her right to go to the
reception."
"But if the whole sophomore class objects to her, what then?"
"I don't believe the whole sophomore class does object to her," returned
Grace. "I have a curious conviction that not many of them know her even
by sight. I think that this note was written for spite."
"Do you think Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton wrote it?" queried Miriam.
"I don't want to accuse any one of writing it, but they are the only
students who would have an object in doing so," declared Grace. "I hear
Elfreda coming down the hall. Don't say anything more about it just
now," she added in a lower tone.
"My goodness, I forgot all about the chocolate!" exclaimed Miriam,
scurrying to a little oak cabinet in one corner of the room and taking
out the necessary ingredients. "Here, Grace, open this can of evaporated
cream with the scissors. You can use that paperweight for a hammer."
Fifteen minutes later, wrapped in the folds of her kimono, J. Elfreda
sat drinking chocolate and devouring cakes as though her very existence
depended upon it.
"You girls are ever so much nicer than I thought you'd be," she said
reflectively, between cakes. "I must say that I'm agreeably disappointed
in you, Miriam. I was pretty sure you were a regular snob, but you're
nothing like one. I couldn't help thinking about what you said, Grace,
while I was bathing my face," she continued. "It made me mad for a
minute, but I've come to the conclusion that you were talking sense, and
from now on the faculty will have to go some to get any information from
me."