WHOSE PHOTOGRAPH?
The dancing class went briskly on; so did the Livy class and the
geometry, the English 1, the French required and the history elective.
The freshmen were getting acquainted with one another now, and seldom
confused their classmates with seniors or youthful members of the
faculty. They no longer attempted to go out of chapel ahead of the
seniors, or invaded the president's house in their frantic search for
Science Hall or the Art Gallery. For October was fast wearing away. The
hills about Harding showed flaming patches of scarlet, and it was time
for the sophomore reception and Mountain Day. Betty was very much
excited about the reception, but she felt also that a load would slip
off her shoulders when it was over. She was anxious about the progress
of the dancing pupils, who had increased to five, besides Helen and
Adelaide, and for whom she felt a personal responsibility, because the
Chapin house girls persisted in calling the class hers. And what would
father say if they didn't get their money's worth? Then there was
Helen's dress for the reception, which she was sure was a fright, but
couldn't get up the courage to inquire about. And last and worst of all
was the mysterious grind-book and Dorothy King's warning about father's
telegram to the registrar. She had never mentioned the incident to
anybody, but from certain annoying remarks that Mary Brooks let fall she
was sure that Mary knew all about it and that the sophomores were
planning to make telling use of it.
"How's your friend the registrar?" Mary would inquire solemnly every few
days. And if Betty refused to answer she would say slyly, "Who met you
at the station, did you tell me? Oh, only Dottie King?" until Betty
almost decided to stop her by telling the whole story.
Two days before the reception she took Rachel and Katherine into her
confidence about Helen's dress.
"You see if I could only look at it, maybe I could show her how to fix
it up," she explained, "but I'm afraid to ask. I'm pretty sure she's
sensitive about her looks and her clothes. I should want to be told if I
was such a fright, but maybe she's happier without knowing."
"She can't help knowing if she stays here long," said Rachel.
"Why don't you get out your dress, and then perhaps she'll show hers,"
suggested Katherine.
"I could do that," assented Betty doubtfully. "I could find a place to
mend, I guess. Chiffon tears so easily."
"Good idea," said Rachel heartily. "Try that, and then if she doesn't
bite you'd better let things take their course. But it is too bad to
have her go looking like a frump, after all the trouble we've taken with
her dancing."
Betty went back to her room, sat down at her desk and began again at her
Livy. "For I might as well finish this first," she thought; and it was
half an hour before she shut the scarlet-covered book with a slam and
announced somewhat ostentatiously that she had finished her Latin
lesson.
"And now I must mend my dress for the reception," she went on
consciously. "Mother is always cautioning me not to wait till the last
minute to fix things."
"Did you look up all the constructions in the Livy?" asked Helen. Betty
was so annoyingly quick about everything.
"No," returned Betty cheerfully from the closet, where she was rummaging
for her dress. "I shall guess at those. Why don't you try it? Oh, dear!
This is dreadfully mussed," and she appeared in the closet door with a
fluffy white skirt over her arm.
"How pretty!" exclaimed Helen, deserting her Livy to examine it. "Is it
long?"
"Um-um," said Betty taking a pin out of her mouth and hunting
frantically for a microscopic rip. "Yes, it's long, and it has a train.
My brother Will persuaded mother to let me have one. Wasn't he a brick?"
"Yes," said Helen shortly, going back to her desk and opening her book
again. Presently she hitched her chair around to face Betty. "Mine's
awfully short," she said.
"Is it?" asked Betty politely.
There was a pause. Then, "Would you care to see it?" asked Helen.
Betty winked at the green lizard. "Yes indeed," she said cordially. "Why
don't you try it on to be sure it's all right? I'm going to put on mine
in just a minute."
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the dress. It was a simple
white muslin. The sleeves were queer, the neck too high to be low and
too low to be high, and the skirt ridiculously short. "But it might have
been a lot worse," reflected Betty. "If she'll only fix it!"
"Wait a minute," she said after she had duly admired it. "I'll put mine
on, and we'll see how we both look dressed up."
"You look like a regular princess out of a story-book," said Helen
solemnly, when Betty turned to her for inspection.
Betty laughed. "Oh, wait till to-morrow night," she said. "My hair's all
mussed now. I wonder how you'd look with your hair low, Helen."
Helen flushed and bit her lip. "I shan't look anyhow in this horrid
short dress," she said.
"Then why don't you make it longer, and lower in the neck?" inquired
Betty impatiently. Helen was as conscientiously slow about making up her
mind as she was about learning her Livy. "It's hemmed, isn't it? Anyhow
you could piece it under the ruffle."
"Do you suppose mamma would care?" said Helen dubiously. "Anyway I don't
believe I have time--only till to-morrow night."
"Oh I'll show you how," Betty broke in eagerly. "And if your mother
should object you could put it back, you know. You begin ripping out the
hem, and then we'll hang it."
Helen Chase Adams proved to be a pains-taking and extremely slow sewer.
Besides, she insisted on taking time off to learn her history and
geometry, instead of "risking" them as Betty did and urged her to do.
The result was that Betty had to refuse Mary Brooks's invitation to
"come down to the gym and dance the wax into that blooming floor" the
next afternoon, and was tired and cross by the time she had done Helen's
hair low, hooked her into the transformed dress, and finished her own
toilette. She had never thought to ask the name of Helen's junior, and
was surprised and pleased when Dorothy King appeared at their door.
Dorothy's amazement was undisguised.
"You'll have to be costumer for our house plays next year, Miss Wales,"
she said, while Betty blushed and contradicted all Helen's explanations.
"You're coming on the campus, of course."
"So virtue isn't its only reward after all," said Eleanor Watson, who
had come in just in time to hear Miss King's remark. "Helen Chase Adams
isn't exactly a vision of loveliness yet. She won't be mistaken for the
college beauty, but she's vastly improved. I only wish anybody cared to
take as much trouble for me."
"Oh, Eleanor!" said Betty reproachfully. "As if any one could improve
you!"
Eleanor's evening dress was a pale yellow satin that brought out the
brown lights in her hair and eyes and the gleaming whiteness of her
shoulders. There were violets in her hair, which was piled high on her
head, and more violets at her waist; and as she stood full in the light,
smiling at Betty's earnestness, Betty was sure she had never seen any
one half so lovely.
"But I wish you wouldn't be so sarcastic over Helen," she went on
stoutly. "She can't help being such a freak."
Eleanor yawned. "I was born sarcastic," she said. "I wish Lil Day would
hurry. Did you happen to notice that I cut three classes straight this
morning?"
"No," said Betty aghast. "Oh, Eleanor, how dare you when--" She stopped
suddenly, remembering that Eleanor had asked her not to speak of the
entrance conditions.
"When I have so much to make up already, you mean," Eleanor went on
complacently. "Oh, I shall manage somehow. Here they come."
A few moments later the freshman and sophomore classes, with a
sprinkling of juniors to make the numbers even, were gathered _en
masse_ in the big gymnasium. All the afternoon loyal sophomores had
toiled thither from the various campus houses, lugging palms, screens,
portieres and pillows. Inside another contingent had arranged these
contributions, festooned the running-track with red and green bunting,
risked their lives to fasten Japanese lanterns to the cross-beams, and
disguised the apparatus against the walls with great branches of spruce
and cedar, which still other merry, wind-blown damsels, driving a
long-suffering horse, had deposited at intervals near the back door. By
five o'clock it was finished and everybody, having assured everybody
else that the gym never looked so well before, had gone home to dress
for the evening. Now the lights softened what Mary Brooks called the
"hidjous" greens of the freshman bunting, a band played sweet music
behind the palms, and pretty girls in pretty gowns sat in couples on the
divans that lined the walls, or waited in line to speak to the receiving
party. This consisted of Jean Eastman and the sophomore president, who
stood in front of the fireplace, where a line of ropes intended to be
used in gym practice had been looped back and made the best sort of
foundation for a green canopy over their heads. Ten of the prettiest
sophomores acted as ushers, and four popular and much envied seniors
presided at the frappe bowls in the four corners of the room.
"There's not much excitement about a manless dance, but it's a
fascinating thing to watch," said Eleanor to her partner, as they stood
in the running-track looking down at the dancers.
"I'm afraid you're blase, Miss Watson," returned the sophomore. "Only
seniors are allowed to dislike girl dances."
Eleanor laughed. "Well, I seem to be the only heretic present," she
said. "They're certainly having a good time down there."
They certainly were. The novelty of the occasion appealed to the
freshmen, and the more sophisticated sophomores were bound to make a
reputation as gallant beaux. So although only half the freshman could
dance at once and even then the floor was dreadfully crowded, and in
spite of the fact that the only refreshment was the rather watery frappe
which gave out early in the evening, 190-'s reception to 190- was voted
a great success.
At nine o'clock the sophomore ushers began arranging the couples in a
long line leading to the grind table, and Betty knew that her hour had
come. The orchestra played a march, and as the girls walked past the
table the sophomore officers presented each freshman with a small
booklet bound in the freshman green, on the front cover of which, in
letters of sophomore scarlet, was the cryptic legend: "Puzzle--name the
girl." This was explained, however, by the inside, where appeared a
small and rather cloudy blue-print, showing the back view of a girl in
shirt-waist and short skirt, with a pile of books under her arm, and the
inevitable "tam" on her head. On the opposite page was a facsimile
telegraph blank, filled out to the registrar,
"Please meet my dear young daughter, who will arrive on Thursday by the
6:15, and oblige,
"Thomas ----."
Everybody laughed, pushed her neighbors around for a back view, and
asked the sophomores if the telegram had truly been sent, and if this
was the real girl's picture. So no one noticed Betty's blushes except
Mary Brooks, upon whom she vowed eternal vengeance. For she remembered
how one afternoon the week before, she and Mary had started from the
house together, and Mary, who said she was taking her camera down-town
for a new film, had dropped behind on some pretext. Betty had been sure
she heard the camera click, but Mary had grinned and told her not to be
so vain of her back.
However, nobody recognized the picture. The few sophomores who knew
anything about it were pledged to secrecy, as the grinds were never
allowed to become too personal, and the freshmen treated the telegram as
an amusing myth. In a few minutes every one was dancing again, and only
too soon it was ten o'clock.
"Wasn't it fun?" said Betty enthusiastically, as she and Helen
undressed.
"Oh yes," agreed Helen. "I never had such a good time in my life. But,
do you know, Miss Watson says she was bored, and Roberta thought it was
tiresome and the grind-book silly and impossible."
"Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes," said Betty sagely,
smothering a laugh in the pillows.
She was asleep in five minutes, but Helen lay for a long while thinking
over the exciting events of the evening. How she had dreaded it! At home
she hated dances and never went if she could help it, because she was
such a wall-flower. She had been afraid it would be the same here, but
it wasn't. What a lovely time she had had! She could dance so well now,
and Miss King's friends were so nice, and college was such a beautiful
place, though it was so different from what she had expected.
Across the hall Roberta had lighted her student lamp and was sitting up
to write an appreciative and very clever account of the evening to her
cousin, who was reporter on a Boston paper and had made her promise to
send him an occasional college item.
And Eleanor, still in the yellow satin, sat at her desk scribbling
aimlessly on a pad of paper or staring at a clean sheet, which began,
"My dear father." She had meant to write him that she was tired of
college and wanted to come home at once; but somehow she couldn't begin.
For she thought, "I can see him raise his eyebrows and smile and say,
'so you want to throw up the sponge, do you? I was under the impression
that you had promised to stay out the year,' as he did to the private
secretary who wouldn't sit up with him till three in the morning to
write letters."
Finally she tore up "My dear father," and went to bed in the dark.