“Judith,” said Jane with the solemnity of a senior, “I really feel we
are facing a momentous year. Sports must be revived with vigor——”
“Oh, you will take care of that, Janie dear,” interrupted Judith. “Even
when I want to sleep a bit late o’ morning, and have been reading a
little after hours the night before, I recall you have a knack of
getting me out to practice. Now remember, girl, I positively refuse to
hike a la empty. I must have my porridge first.”
“But as I was saying about sports,” returned Jane, “I am ambitious for
this year. We ought to make it the banner year for basketball.”
“And we shall,” declared her chum. “With the skill you developed last
season, and the wonderful team work we marshalled, I don’t see why we
shouldn’t be able to go out, and simply eat up the other colleges. I’ve
been playing bean bag with the Jap cook in Los Angeles to keep in
trim.”
“Thought beans were too costly to toss around,” joked Jane. “Judy, look
at that dear little old lady over there,” indicating a chair near the
rear of the car. “Just see the sampler she is working.”
“Yes,” and Judith swung a bit towards the aisle. “I have been watching
her. She is working a family tree. Wonder for whose hope chest.”
“I was surprised to know that mothers are now making samplers for their
sons,” Jane followed. “Seems rather queer for boys to encroach on the
girls’ fancies. I know a mother who has two boys, and she has a family
sampler made for each. Also, she has a wonderfully stocked hope chest
for them. Seems to me she must have had some difficulty in choosing the
hopefuls.”
“Suppose she made it all face cloths, and socks and neckties. But
really, I don’t see what she could collect that would keep in style. A
hope chest for boys! Ridiculous!” sneered Judith.
“Some boys are very sentimental, you know,” Jane reminded her.
“But mothers should not encourage such weakness,” protested Judith.
“Well, I hope your boy has a chest full of—chocolates,” and Jane helped
herself to the disappearing confection.
“I haven’t had a chance to show you my new vanity case,” Judith broke
in. “Don’t you think it pretty?” and she produced what looked like a
little medicine emergency kit. It was of black stiff leather and made
square, absolutely contrary in effect to the soft velvet pouches so
long in vogue.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” enthused Jane. “And such a mirror!”
“Yes, I can almost see how my skirt hangs with it. I found it at a fair
in Frisco. It was a prize sample. And, Jane dear, I have one for you,
in a brown that matches your hair, but I was so disappointed that the
initials were not on it, and I had to send it back. It will be ready,
though, by the time we get to New York once again.”
“Oh, how—wonderful!” and Jane squeezed the hand that still brushed the
candy box. “Judy, I have held off from a ‘vanity’ because I have been
too vain to invest in one. Do you know, I think, honestly, that when we
deliberately ignore conventions we usually do it through pride? Too
proud to depend on a traveling boudoir.”
“Oh, no, dearie, not at all,” contradicted Judith. “Only, you can
depend on your looks staying—regular Yale. There, that’s a joke. Jane
Allen has Yale locks of copper and—iron. Warranted not to yield, nor
break, nor open without the registered key. But I know, Janie, you will
like your bag. I was no end disappointed not to bring it along with
me.”
“But it is rather nice to have one surprise saved,” Jane insisted. “We
have been using up a lot of joys lately, don’t you think?”
“Yes, we have been joying extravagantly,” agreed Judith. “But
Wellington has a reserve stock, you know. Just think of our little
Helka. Did we decide she had blue or gray eyes?”
“Oh, they must be blue, we have too many grays,” Jane replied. “But
what concerns me most of all is the adorable task of fitting her out in
school togs. Wasn’t it lovely dad’s scholarship went to a real
little—primitive? That is, I suppose she is unspoiled, although how do
we know? She may not deign to look at us,” and Jane smiled at the
incongruity.
“Wouldn’t it be a joke,” soliloquized Judith. “What if she is a pre-war
aristo’? And suppose she only touches Wellington at the extreme
corners? Might even be a little nobility snob, for all we know.”
“The more fun in store at the discoveries,” Jane said. “But I feel she
will be just as I picture her. A little blonde, with blue eyes and a
name no one can pronounce.”
“What does Helka mean?”
“Oh, that is Helen in Polish. As she is a ‘Helen’ I think she will be
pretty. They mostly are,” Jane reflected.
“But Helen Bender is a bit cross-eyed,” Judith had to recall, whereat
they both laughed, for Helen had a trick of blaming her eyes for every
school mistake. Her uncertain eyes had stood her in good stead at
difficult tests, etc.
“Soon night will be upon us,” Judith prophesied, noting the shadows
that fell in ripples over the revolving rills. “Just see the sunset.
How different from the red blaze we used to have on the Lake.”
“And the smoke of the approaching city,” Jane reminded. “Shall we get
off for a little rest at St. Paul? We can, if you wish.”
“When do we get to the great city?”
“To-morrow afternoon. But between here and there we will glimpse the
Middle West. Very different from the scenery on the other end of the
trip.”
“Yes, indeed, but it is all America, so of course we love it,” Judith
orated. “But, Janie dear, we might lose ourselves in St. Paul. I have
heard such horrible tales of the girls at railway stations being picked
up by bandits and carried off for ransom,” and she doubled up at the
joyous thought of such an escapade.
“Well, if you feel that way about it we had best keep to our bunks,”
Jane decided. “I am acquainted with the station and the big park with
the sun dial——”
“And the big dry goods store where you bought my silkies,” recalled
Judith. “But, Jane dear, perhaps we had better keep to the rail. You
know what the Indian woman told us? She might be out there on hand just
to work out the fortune.”
“Moved and carried that we omit the stop over,” Jane answered. “Now,
Judy, let us brush up a little. I have a premonition we are going to
meet someone very interesting in the dining car. I saw that
yellow-haired woman smuggle a little poodle in her hand bag. It will
surely be interesting if she carries him into the diner. It always is.
The porters know a dog by the bends in the bag. And they go through a
regular screen play in getting the lady, the bag, and the poodle out of
the car. Dogs must eat in the baggage car. They have a co-operative
refectory there.”
“Oh, yes, and the yellow-haired lady has some paper plates. I saw her
drop a brace of them, and one rolled way down to the young man with the
specks. It was too funny to see him jerk up and look. Guess he thought
he was having a fit of eye stigmatis,” and Judith bit her red lips with
the afore-mentioned pearly teeth. “See, the dear boy is reading
something like a dictionary. Wonder if he is a new prof going East to
try his luck in some co-ed college? Thank goodness we can’t get
anything like that. The dear old ladies are bad enough, but can you
picture Percy handling Mazie?”
“In math for instance,” assisted Jane. “I wonder if she will know any
more about cubes this year?”
“More likely she has become proficient in cubes for the complexion,”
Judith put in. “But honestly, Jane, I am so anxious to see them all,
good, bad and indifferent, that I would just like to fall asleep and
wake up at Wellington. Wouldn’t you?”
“Well, I am anxious to get back. But between here and there I hope to
pick up a good time or two. Now let’s to the primping room. No line
there yet. Wait until we get around Chicago. Then we will have to take
our turn. I wonder what daddy is doing just now? I always feel a tiny
bit lonesome first night——”
“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie, as the chorus girls say. It is my special
privilege to have the glumps,” and Judith’s smile, filtering through
the alleged gloom made comedy of her words. “There, I had to leave El
Capitan just when I passed my first test in serenades, and when I was
becoming expert in cowboy phraseology. Fedario admitted I ‘sabied’
beautifully, and Pedro declared the horses knew my yodel. Then I had to
tear myself away for hard work at Wellington!”
“I’ll be good,” begged off Jane, who realized the effort at regrets was
being made to offset her “glumps.” Judith would not have Jane other
than smiling. “First at the big mirror,” as they made for the dressing
room. “See the little old lady with the sampler! Let us greet her in
passing,” whispered the youthful junior.
But the best laid plans of school girls may be upset by the exigencies
of rail travel, for in passing the little old lady, both young ladies
were all but precipitated into her black silk lap. The apologies that
followed served as fitting introduction, with the result of both girls
falling victims to the charm of her complaisant culture, rounded out
with satisfying years. The little lady was a thoroughbred, an old
school new method graduate. And the girls, keen of perception and
generous with appreciation, became acquainted at once with a promise of
developing interest along the route.
“I am going to be like that when I grow old,” predicted Judith. “And I
am going to make samplers for—well, maybe for the cowboys of El
Capitan! Just now they fill my vision and my vocabulary.”
“Judy, do be careful, dear,” admonished Jane, “you almost knocked off
the—‘prof’s’ glasses,” and Jane could not suppress a titter as her chum
just escaped the student, her hand bag swinging with an unexpected
lurch of the car. It was fun to roll through the aisle, for every step
gave the sensation of a sea voyage on land. Only the big velour chairs
stood between the travellers and damage to their fellow passengers.
“What a roomy room!” commented Judith, entering the ladies’ dressing
compartment. “And all to ourselves. I feel almost like dressing for
dinner. Do you suppose, Janie, we will meet any interesting—persons at
table? I have kept my rainbow georgette waist within call. Shall I don
it?”
“As to interesting persons, I expect to spend my time interviewing the
specked professor,” Jane surprised Judith by declaring. “I feel he can
impart information that may be very useful when I tackle my new year
stuff. He looks wise enough to possess tabloid codes, and trots, that
might put us through the most difficult forensics,” said Jane with
characteristic deliberation. Of course the threat to take up with the
queer looking young student (he was surely a student) was made to tease
Judith, who wanted fun and frolic even aboard the Limited.
“As you like,” replied Judith, surveying her tall form in its
close-fitting blue velveteen. “But I think I shall find the little
blonde lady quite talkable. I shall offer to exchange recipes for her
shade of hair. I should love to try hers on Marian’s.”
All of which was pure nonsense really, as neither girl had any idea of
speaking to the strangers mentioned.
“I am so glad we wore these gowns,” Jane remarked critically. “Most
tourists seem to select the very dingiest, drabest, hatefullest old
travelling togs, when it is bad enough to look well at the very best,
under railroad conditions.”
“Yes, that was your happy thought, _ma chère_. I should have worn the
aforesaid hateful thing in tan, if I had not espied your lovely brown
velveteen waiting to be donned. That led me to my one best, the blue.”
They were all primped and freshened, and now inspecting the result in
the long mirror, while the train rumbled and rolled over the hills and
valleys leading into the Middle West. Their personally expressed
satisfaction at the picture reflected was pardonable, for the two
girls, the one light enough to all but blaze, the other dark enough to
all but glitter, arms entwined and heads close together, filled the
mirror frame with as pretty a study as any artist might wish to paint.
Eventually, out in the car, as the tourists were making their way to
the diner, many critical eyes, all of them surely approving, followed
the two Wellington girls, Jane and her chum, Judith.