A DRAMATIC CHAPTER
The Chapin house girls decided not to spend the proceeds of the dancing
class for an elaborate supper, as they had first intended, but to turn
their "spread" into the common college type, where "plowed field" and
chocolate made with condensed milk and boiling water are the chief
refreshments, and light-hearted sociability ensures a good time for
everybody.
"But do let's have tea too," Betty had proposed. "I hate the chocolate
that the girls make, and I don't believe tea keeps many of us awake. Did
I tell you that mother sent a big box of cheese crackers?"
The spread was to be in Betty's room, partly because she owned the only
chafing-dish in the house, and partly because eighteen girls--the nine
hostesses and the one guest asked by each--could get into it without
uncomfortable crowding. Eleanor had lent her pile of floor cushions and
her beloved candlesticks for the occasion, everybody had contributed
cups and saucers. Betty and Helen had spent the afternoon "fixing up,"
and the room wore a very festive air when the girls dropped in after
dinner to see if the preparations were complete.
"I think we ought to start the fudge before they come," said Betty,
remembering the procedure at Miss King's party.
"Oh, no," protested Eleanor. "Half-past eight is early enough. Why, most
of the fun of a spread is mixing the things together and taking turns
tasting and stirring."
"It would be awkward to finish eating too early, when that's the only
entertainment," suggested Rachel.
"Or the candy might give out before ten," added Mary Rich.
The majority ruled, and as some of the girls were late, and one had some
very amusing blue-prints to exhibit, it was considerably after half-past
eight before the fudge was started. At first it furnished plenty of
excitement. Betty, who had been appointed chief fudge-maker, left it for
a moment, and it took the opportunity to boil over. When it had settled
down after this exploit, it refused to do anything but simmer. No amount
of alcohol or of vigorous and persistent stirring had any effect upon
it, and Betty was in despair. But Eleanor, who happened to be in a
gracious mood, came gallantly to the rescue. She quietly disappeared and
returned in a moment, transformed into a gypsy street singer. She had
pulled down her black hair and twisted a gay scarf around it. Over her
shirt-waist she wore a little velvet jacket; and a short black skirt, a
big red sash, an armful of bangles and bracelets, and the guitar hung
over her shoulder, completed her disguise.
"Sing a lil'?" she asked, smiling persuasively and kissing her hand to
the party.
Then she sat down on the pile of cushions and played and sang, first a
quaint little folk-song suited to her part, and then one or two dashing
popular airs, until the unaccommodating fudge was quite forgotten,
except by Betty, who stirred and frowned, and examined the flame and
tested the thickness of the rich brown liquid, quite unnoticed. Eleanor
had just shrugged her shoulders and announced, "I no more sing, now,"
when somebody else knocked on the door, or rather pushed it open, and a
grotesque figure slouched in.
At least half of it was head, black and awful, with gruesome green
features. Short, unjointed arms came out of its waist, with green claws
dangling where the hands should have been; and below its short skirt
flapped the tails of a swallow-tail coat. The girls were too much
astonished to speak, as the creature advanced silently into the room,
and without a word began dancing something that, as Katherine expressed
it afterward, was a cross between a double-shuffle and a skirt-dance.
When it had succeeded in reducing its audience to a state of abject and
tearful mirth, the creature stopped suddenly, announced, "You've seen
the Jabberwock," in sepulchral tones, and flopped on to the end of a
couch, saying breathlessly, "Mary Brooks, please help me out of this.
I'm suffocating."
"How did you do it, Miss Lewis?" inquired the stately senior, who was
Mary's guest, wiping her eyes and gasping for breath as she spoke.
"It's perfectly simple," drawled Roberta indifferently. "The head is my
black silk petticoat. I painted on the features, because the children
like to have me do it at home, and it's convenient to be ready. The arms
are a broom-handle, stuck through the sleeves of this old coat, which is
buttoned around my waist."
"And now you're going to do the Bandersnatch, aren't you?" inquired the
senior craftily, perceiving that the other side of the petticoat was
decorated with curious red spots.
"I--how did you--oh, no," said Roberta, blushing furiously, and stuffing
the telltale petticoat under a convenient pillow. "I don't know why I
brought the things for this. I never meant to do it up here. I--I hope
you weren't bored. I just happened to think of it, and Eleanor couldn't
sing forever, and that fudge----"
"That fudge won't cook," broke in Betty in tragic tones. "It doesn't
thicken at all, and it's half-past nine this minute. What shall I do?"
Everybody crowded around the chafing-dish, giving advice and suggesting
unfailing remedies. But none of them worked.
"And there's nothing else but tea and chocolate," wailed Adelaide.
"But you can all have both," said Betty bravely, "and you've forgotten
the crackers, Adelaide. I'll pass them while you and Katherine go for
more cups."
"And you can send the fudge round to-morrow," suggested Mary Brooks
consolingly. "It's quite the thing, you know. Don't imagine that your
chafing-dish is the only one that's too slow for the ten-o'clock rule."
Betty insisted upon sitting up to finish the fudge, but she ended by
getting up before breakfast the next morning to cook it on Mrs. Chapin's
stove.
"Nobody seemed to care much about its being so slow, except me," she
said to Helen, as they did it up in neat little bundles to be handed to
the guests of the evening at chapel. "Weren't Eleanor and Roberta fine?"
"Yes," agreed Helen enthusiastically. "But isn't it queer that Roberta
won't let us praise her? She seems to be ashamed of being able to be so
funny."
Betty laughed. "That's Roberta," she said. "It will be months before
she'll do it again, I'm afraid. I suppose she felt last night as if she
had to do what she could for the honor of the house, so she came out of
her shell."
"She told Rachel that she did it on your account. She said you looked as
if you wanted to cry."
Betty flushed prettily. "How nice of her! I did want to cry. I felt as
if I was to blame about the fudge. I wish I had a nice stunt like that
of Eleanor's to come to people's rescue with."
"Were those what you call stunts?" inquired Helen earnestly. "I didn't
know what they were, but they were fine."
"Why, Helen Chase Adams, do you mean that you've been in college two
months and don't know what a stunt is----" began Betty, and stopped,
blushing furiously and fearing that she had hurt Helen's feelings. For
the reason why she did not know about stunts was obvious.
Helen took it very simply. "You know I'm not asked to things outside,"
she said, "and I don't seem to be around when the girls do things here.
So why should I know?"
"No reason at all," said Betty decidedly. "They are just silly little
parlor tricks anyway--most of them--not worth wasting time over. Do you
know Miss Willis told us in English class that a great deal of slang
originated in college, and she gave 'stunt' as an example. She said it
had been used here ever so long and only a few years outside, in quite a
different meaning. Isn't that queer?"
"Yes," said Helen indifferently. "She told my division too, but she
didn't say what it meant here. I suppose she thought we'd all know."
Betty, stealing a glance at her, saw her wink back the tears. "She does
care about the fun," thought Betty. "She cares as much as Rachel or I,
or Eleanor even. And she is left out. It isn't a bit fair, but what's to
be done about it?"
Being young and very happy herself, she speedily forgot all about the
knotty problem of the unequal distribution of this world's goods,
whether they be potatoes or fudge parties. Occasionally she remembered
again, and gave Helen a helping hand, as she had done several times
already. But college is much like the bigger world outside. The fittest
survive on their own merits, and these must be obvious and well
advertised, or they are in great danger of being overlooked. And it is
safer in the long run to do one's own advertising and to begin early.
Eleanor understood this, but she forgot or ignored the other rules of
the game. Betty practiced it unconsciously, which is the proper method.
Helen never mastered its application and succeeded in spite of it.
* * * * *
Several evenings after that one on which the fudge had refused to cook,
Alice Waite was trying to learn her history lesson, and her "queer"
roommate, who loved to get into her bed as well as she hated to make it,
was trying to go to sleep--an operation rendered difficult by the fact
that the girl next door was cracking butternuts with a marble
paper-weight--when there was a soft tap on the door.
"Don't answer," begged the sleepy roommate.
"May be important," objected Alice, "but I won't let her stay. Come in!"
The door opened and a young gentleman in correct evening dress, with an
ulster folded neatly over his arm, entered the room and gazed, smiling
and silent, about him. He was under average height, slightly built, and
had a boyish, pleasant face that fitted ill with his apparent occupation
as house-breaker and disturber of damsels.
The roommate, who had sat up in bed with the intention of repelling
whatever intruder threatened her rest, gave a shriek of mingled terror
and indignation and disappeared under the bedclothes. Alice rose, with
as much dignity as the three heavy volumes which she held in her lap,
and which had to be untangled from her kimono, would permit. She moved
the screen around her now hysterical roommate and turned fiercely upon
the young gentleman.
"How dare you!" she demanded sternly. "Go!" And she stamped her foot
somewhat ineffectively, since she had on her worsted bedroom slippers.
At this the young gentleman's smile broke into an unmistakably feminine
giggle.
"Oh, you are so lovely!" he gurgled. "Don't cry, Miss Madison. It's not
a real man. It's only I--Betty Wales."
"Betty!" gasped Alice. "Betty Wales, what are you doing? Is it really
you?"
"Of course," said Betty calmly, pulling off her wig by way of further
evidence, and sitting down with careful regard for her coattails in the
nearest chair. "I hope," she added, "that I haven't really worried Miss
Madison. Take the screen away, Alice, and see what she's doing."
"Oh, I'm all right now, thank you," said Miss Madison, pushing back the
screen herself. "But you gave me an awful fright. What are you doing?"
"Why, we're going to give a play at our house Saturday," explained
Betty, "and to-night was a dress rehearsal. I wanted to bring Alice a
ticket, and I thought it would be fun to come in these clothes and
frighten her; so I put on a skirt and a rain-coat and came along. I left
my skirt in your entrance-way. Get it for me please, Alice, and I'll put
it on before I send any one else into hysterics."
"Oh, not yet," begged Miss Madison. "I want to look at you. Please stand
up and turn around, so I can have a back view."
Betty readjusted her wig and stood up for inspection.
"What's the play?" asked Alice.
Betty considered. "It's a secret, but I'll tell you to pay for giving
you both such a scare. It's 'Sherlock Holmes.' Mary Brooks saw the real
play in New York, and she wrote this, something like the real one, but
different so we could do it. She could think up the plot beautifully but
she wasn't good at conversation, so Katherine helped her, and it's
fine."
"Is there a robbery?" inquired Alice.
"Oh, yes, diamonds."
"And a murder?"
"Well, a supposed murder. The audience thinks it is, but it isn't
really. And there's a pretend fire too, just as there is in the real
play."
"And who are you?"
"I'm the villain," said Betty. "I'm to have curling black mustaches and
a fierce frown, and then you'd know without asking."
"I should think they'd have wanted you for the heroine," said Alice, who
admired Betty immensely.
"Oh, no," demurred the villain. "Eleanor is leading lady, of course. She
has three different costumes, and she looks like a queen in every one of
them. Katherine is going to be Sherlock Holmes, and Adelaide Rich is Dr.
Watson and--oh, I mustn't tell you any more, or Alice won't enjoy it
Saturday."
"We had a little play here," said Miss Madison, "but it was tame beside
this. Where did you get all the men's costumes?"
"Rented them, and the wigs and mustaches and pistols," and Betty
explained about the dancing-school money which the house had voted to
Roberta's project instead of to the spread.
"I wish I could act," said Alice. "I should love to be a man. But my
mother wouldn't let me, so it's just as well that I'm a perfect stick at
it."
"Roberta's father wouldn't let her either," said Betty, "but mother
didn't mind, as long as it's only before a few girls. I presume she
wouldn't like my coming over here and frightening you. But I honestly
didn't think you'd be deceived."
"I'm so glad you came," said Miss Madison lying back luxuriously among
her pillows. "Does the story of the play take place in the evening?"
"Yes, all of it. I'm dressed for the theatre, but I'm detained by the
robbery."
"Then I have something I want to lend you. Alice, open the washstand
drawer, please--no, the middle one--in that flat green box. Thank you.
Your hat, sir villain," she went on, snapping open an opera hat and
handing it to Betty with a flourish.
"How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "But how in the world did you
happen to have it?"
"Why, I stayed with my cousins for two weeks just before I came up here,
and I found it in their guest-chamber bureau. It wasn't Cousin Tom's nor
Uncle Dick's, and they didn't know whose it was; so they gave it to me,
because I liked to play with it. Should you really like to use it?"
"Like it!" repeated Betty, shutting the hat and opening it again with a
low bow. "Why it will be the cream of the whole performance. It would
make the play go just of itself," and she put it on and studied the
effect attentively in the mirror.
"It's rather large," said Alice. "If I were you, I'd just carry it."
"It is big," admitted Betty regretfully, "or at least it makes me look
very small. But I can snap it a lot, and then put it on as I exit. Miss
Madison, you'll come to the play of course. I hadn't but one ticket
left, but after lending us this you're a privileged person."
"I hoped you'd ask me," said Miss Madison gratefully. "The play does
sound so exciting. But that wasn't why I offered you the hat."
"Of course not, and it's only one reason why you are coming," said Betty
tactfully. "Now Alice, you must bring in my skirt. I have to walk so
slowly in all these things, and it must be almost ten."
When Sir Archibald Ames, villain, had been transformed into a demure
little maiden with rumpled hair and a high, stiff collar showing above
her rain-coat, Betty took her departure. A wave of literary and dramatic
enthusiasm had inundated the Chapin house. The girls were constantly
suggesting theme topics to one another--which unfortunately no one but
Mary Brooks could use, at least until the next semester; for in the
regular freshman English classes, subjects were always assigned. And
they were planning theatre parties galore, to see Jefferson, Maude
Adams, and half a dozen others if they came to Harding. Betty, who had a
happy faculty of keeping her head just above such passing waves, smiled
to herself as she hurried across the dark campus.
"Next week, when our play is over it will be something else," she
thought. Rachel was already interested in basket-ball and had prospects
of being chosen for the freshman class team. Eleanor had been practicing
hard on her guitar, hoping to "make" the mandolin club; and was
dreadfully disappointed at finding that according to a new rule freshmen
were ineligible and that her entrance conditions would have excluded her
in any case.
"So many things to do," sighed Betty, who had given up a hockey game
that afternoon to study history. "I suppose we've got to choose," she
added philosophically. "But I choose to be an all-around girl, like
Dorothy King. I can't sing though. I wonder what my one talent is.
"Helen," she said, as she opened her door, "have you noticed that all
college girls have one particular talent? I wonder what ours will turn
out to be. See what I have for the play."
Helen, who looked tired and heavy-eyed, inspected the opera hat
listlessly. "I think your talent is getting the things you want," she
said, "and I guess I haven't any. It's quarter of ten."