PAYING THE PIPER
"I feel as if there were about three days between Thanksgiving and
Christmas," said Rachel, coming up the stairs, to Betty, who stood in
the door of her room half in and half out of her white evening dress.
"That leaves one day and a half, then, before vacation," laughed Betty.
"I'm sorry to bother you when you're so pressed for time, but could you
hook me up? Helen is at the library, and every one else seems to be off
somewhere."
"Certainly," said Rachel, dropping her armful of bundles on the floor.
"I'm only making Christmas presents. Is the Kappa Phi dance coming off
at last?"
"Yes--another one, that is; and Mr. Parsons asked me, to make up for the
one I had to miss. Now, would you hold my coat?"
"Betty! Betty Wales! Wait a minute," called somebody just as Betty
reached the Main Street corner, and Eleanor Watson appeared, also
dressed for the dance.
"Why didn't you say you were going to Winsted?" she demanded
breathlessly. "Good, here's a car."
"Why didn't you say you were going?" demanded Betty in her turn as they
scrambled on.
"Because I didn't intend to until the last minute. Then I decided that
I'd earned a little recreation, so I telegraphed Paul West that I'd come
after all. Who is your chaperon?"
"Miss Hale."
"Well please introduce me when we get down-town, so that I can ask if I
may join her party."
Ethel Hale received Betty with enthusiasm, and Eleanor with a peculiar
smile and a very formal permission to go to Winsted under her escort. As
the two were starting off to buy their tickets, she called Betty back.
"Aren't you going to sit with me on the way over, little sister?" she
asked.
"Of course," said Betty, and they settled themselves together a moment
later for the short ride.
"You never come to see me, Betty," Miss Hale began, when they were
seated.
"I'm afraid to," confessed Betty sheepishly. "When you're a faculty and
I'm only a freshman."
"Nonsense," laughed Miss Hale. Then she glanced at Eleanor, who sat
several seats in front of them, and changed the subject abruptly. "What
sort of girl is Miss Watson?" she asked.
Betty laughed. "All sorts, I think," she said. "I never knew any one who
could be so nice one minute and so trying the next."
"How do you happen to know her well?" pursued Miss Hale seriously.
Betty explained.
"And you think that on the whole she's worth while?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand----" Betty was beginning to feel as if
she was taking an examination on Eleanor's characteristics.
"You think that on the whole she's more good than bad; and that there's
something to her, besides beauty. That's all I want to know. She is
lovely, isn't she?"
"Yes, indeed," agreed Betty enthusiastically. "But she's very bright
too. She's done a lot of extra work lately and so quickly and well.
She's very nice to me always, but she dislikes my roommate and she and I
are always disagreeing about that or something else. I don't think--you
know she wouldn't do a dishonorable thing for the world, but I don't
approve of some of her ideas; they don't seem quite fair and square,
Ethel."
"Um," assented Ethel absently. "I'm glad you could tell me all this,
Betty. I shouldn't have asked you, perhaps; it's rather taking advantage
of our private friendship. But I really needed to know. Ah, here we
are!"
As she spoke, the train slowed down and a gay party of Winsted men
sprang on to the platform, and jostled one another down the aisles,
noisily greeting the girls they knew and each one hunting for his
particular guest of the afternoon. They had brought a barge down to take
the girls to the college, and in the confusion of crowding into it Betty
found herself separated from Ethel. "I wish I'd asked her why she wanted
to know all that," she thought, and then she forgot everything but the
delicious excitement of actually being on the way to a dance at Winsted.
Most of the fraternity house was thrown open to the visitors, and
between the dances in the library, which was big enough to make an
excellent ball-room also, they wandered through it, finding all sorts of
interesting things to admire, and pleasantly retired nooks and corners
to rest in. Mr. Parsons was a very attentive host, providing partners in
plenty; and Betty, who was passionately fond of dancing and had been to
only one "truly grown-up" dance before, was in her element. But every
once in awhile she forgot her own pleasure to notice Eleanor and to
wonder at her beauty and vivacity. She was easily belle of the ball. She
seemed to know all the men, and they crowded eagerly around her, begging
for dances and hanging on her every word. Eleanor's usually listless
face was radiant. She had a smile and a gay sally for every one; there
was never a hint of the studied coldness with which she received any
advances from Helen or the Riches, nor of the scornful ennui with which
she faced the social life of her own college.
"Aren't you glad you came?" said Betty, when they met at the frappe
table.
"Rather," said Eleanor laconically. "This is life, and I've only existed
for months and months. What would the world be like without men and
music?"
"Goodness! what a wise-sounding remark," laughed Betty.
Just then Miss Hale came up in charge of a very young and callow
freshman.
"Please lend me your fan, Betty," she said. "I was afraid it would look
forward for a chaperon to bring one, and I'm desperately warm."
Eleanor, who had turned aside to speak to her partner, looked up quickly
as Ethel spoke, and meeting Miss Hale's gray eyes she flushed suddenly
and moved away.
Betty handed Ethel the fan. "I wish----" she began, looking after
Eleanor's retreating figure. But as she spoke the music started again
and a vivacious youth hurried up and whisked her away before she had
time to finish her sentence; and she could not get near Ethel again.
"Men do make better partners than girls," she said to Mr. Parsons as
they danced the last waltz together. "And I think their rooms are
prettier than ours, if these are fair samples. But they can't have any
better time at college than we do."
"We certainly couldn't get on at all without you girls across the
river," Mr. Parsons was saying gallantly, when the music stopped and
Eleanor, followed by Mr. West, hurried up to Betty.
"Excuse me one moment, Mr. Parsons," she said, as she drew Betty aside.
"I've been trying to get at you for ever so long," she went on. "I'm in
a dreadful fix. You know I told you I hadn't intended to come here
to-day, but I didn't tell you the reason why. The reason was that to-day
was the time set for my math. exam, with Miss Mansfield. I tried to get
her to change it, but I couldn't, so finally I telephoned her that I was
ill. Some one else answered the 'phone for her, saying that she was
engaged and, Betty--I'm sure it was Miss Hale."
Betty looked at her in blank amazement. "You said you were ill and then
came here!" she began. "Oh, Eleanor, how could you! But what makes you
think that Miss Hale knows?"
"I'm sure I recognized her voice when she asked you for the fan, and
then haven't you noticed her distant manner?" said Eleanor gloomily.
"Are they friends, do you know?"
"They live in the same house."
"Then that settles it. You seem to be very chummy with Miss Hale, Betty.
You couldn't reconcile it with your tender conscience to say a good word
for me, I suppose?"
"I--why, what could I say after that dreadful message?" Then she
brightened suddenly. "Why, Eleanor, I did. We talked about you all the
way over here. Ethel asked questions and I answered them. I told her a
lot of nice things," added Betty reassuringly, "though of course I
couldn't imagine why she wanted to know. What luck that you hadn't told
me sooner!"
Eleanor stared at her blankly. "I suppose," she said at last, "that it
will serve me right if Miss Hale tells Miss Mansfield that I was here,
and Miss Mansfield refuses me another examination; but do you think she
will?"
Betty glanced at Ethel. She was standing at the other end of the room,
talking to two Winsted men, and she looked so young and pretty and so
like one of the girls herself that Betty said impulsively, "She
couldn't!" Then she remembered how different Ethel had seemed on the
train, and that the girls in her classes stood very much in awe of her.
"I don't know," she said slowly. "She just hates any sort of cheating.
She might think it was her duty to tell. Oh, Eleanor, why did you do
it?"
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders expressively. Then she turned away with a
radiant smile for Mr. West. "I am sorry to have kept you men waiting,"
she said. "How much more time do we have before the barge comes?"
Whatever Miss Hale meant to do, she kept her own counsel, deliberately
avoiding intercourse with either Ethel or Betty. She bade the girls a
gay good-bye at the station, and went off in state in the carriage they
had provided for her.
"I suppose it's no use asking if you had a good time," said Betty
sympathetically, as she and Eleanor, having decided to go home in
comfort, rolled away in another.
"I had a lovely time until it flashed over me about that telephone
message. After that of course I was worried almost to death, and I would
give anything under the sun if I had stayed at home and passed off my
math. like a person of sense."
"Then why don't you tell Miss Mansfield so?" suggested Betty.
"Oh, Betty, I couldn't. But I shan't probably have the chance," she
added dryly. "Miss Hale will see her after dinner. I hope she'll tell
her that I appeared to be enjoying life."
The next morning when Eleanor presented herself at Miss Mansfield's
class-room for the geometry lesson, another assistant occupied the desk.
"Miss Mansfield is out of town for a few days," she announced. Eleanor
gave Betty a despairing glance and tried to fix her attention on the
"originals" which the new teacher was explaining. It seemed as if the
class would never end. When it did she flew to the desk and inquired if
Miss Mansfield would be back to-morrow.
"To-morrow? Oh no," said the young assistant pleasantly. "She's in
Boston for some days. No, not this week; next, I believe. You are Miss
Watson? No, there was no message for you, I think."
The next week was a longer and more harassing one than any that Eleanor
could remember. She had not been blind to Betty's scorn of her action.
Ever since she came to Harding she had noted with astonishment the high
code of honor that held sway among the girls. They shirked when they
could, assumed knowledge when they had it not, managed somehow to wear
the air of leisurely go-as-you-please that Eleanor loved; but they did
not cheat, and like Betty they despised those who did. So Eleanor, who a
few months before would have boasted of having deceived Miss Mansfield,
was now in equal fear lest Miss Hale should betray her and lest some of
her mates should find her out. She wanted to ask Lil Day or Annette
Gaynor what happened if you cut a special examination; but suppose they
should ask why she cared to know? That would put another knot into the
"tangled web" of her deception. It would have been some comfort to
discuss the possibilities of the situation with Betty, but Eleanor
denied herself even that outlet. No use reminding a girl that she
despises you! If only Betty would not look so sad and sympathetic and
inquiring when they met in the halls, in classes or at table. At other
times Eleanor barricaded herself behind a "Don't disturb" sign and
studied desperately and to much purpose. And every morning she hoped
against hope that Miss Mansfield would hear the geometry class.
The suspense lasted through the whole week. Then, just two days before
the vacation, Miss Mansfield reappeared and Eleanor asked timidly for an
appointment.
"Come to-day at two," began Miss Mansfield.
"Oh thank you! Thank you so much!" broke in Eleanor and stopped in
confusion.
But Miss Mansfield only smiled absently. "Most of my belated freshmen
don't express such fervent gratitude for my firmness in pushing them
through before the vacation. They try to put me off." She had evidently
quite forgotten the other appointment.
"I shall be so glad to have it over," Eleanor murmured.
Miss Mansfield looked after her thoughtfully as she went down the hall.
"Perhaps I've misjudged her," she told herself. "When a girl is so
pretty, it's hard to take her seriously."
She said as much to Ethel Hale when they walked home to lunch together,
but Ethel was not at all enthusiastic over Miss Watson's earnestness.
"She's very late in working off a condition, I should say," she observed
coldly.
"Yes, but I've been away, you know," explained Miss Mansfield. "Oh,
Ethel, I wish you could meet him. You don't half appreciate how happy I
am."
Ethel, who had decided after much consideration to let Eleanor's affairs
take their course, made a mental observation to the effect that an
engagement induces shortness of memory and tenderness of heart. Then she
said aloud that she also wished she might meet "him."
* * * * *
Time flies between Thanksgiving and Christmas, particularly for freshmen
who are looking forward to their first vacation at home. It flies faster
after they get there, and when they are back at college it rushes on
quite as swiftly but rather less merrily toward the fateful "mid-years."
None of the Chapin house girls had been home at Thanksgiving time, but
they were all going for Christmas, except Eleanor Watson, who intended
to spend the vacation with an aunt in New York.
They prepared for the flitting in characteristic ways. Rachel, who was
very systematic, did all her Christmas shopping, so that she needn't
hurry through it at home. Roberta made but one purchase, an illustrated
"Alice in Wonderland," for her small cousins, and spent all her spare
time in re-reading it herself. Helen, in spite of Betty's suggestions
about leaning back on her reputation, studied harder than ever, so that
she could go home with a clear conscience, while Katherine was too
excited to study at all, and Mary Brooks jeered impartially at both of
them. Betty conscientiously returned all her calls and began packing
several days ahead, so as to make the time seem shorter. Then just as
the expressman was driving off with her trunk, she remembered that she
had packed her short skirt at the very bottom.
"Thank you ever so much. If he'd got much further I should have had to
go home either in this gray bath robe that I have on, or in a white duck
suit," she said to Katherine who had gone to rescue the skirt and came
back with it over her arm.
She and Katherine started west together and Eleanor and Roberta went
with them to the nearest junction. The jostling, excited crowd at the
station, the "good-byes" and "Merry Christmases," were great fun. Betty,
remembering a certain forlorn afternoon in early autumn, laughed happily
to herself.
"What's the joke?" asked Katherine.
"I was thinking how much nicer things like this seem when you're in
them," she said, waving her hand to Alice Waite.
At the Cleveland station, mother and Will and Nan and the smallest
sister were watching eagerly for the returning wanderer.
"Why, Betty Wales, you haven't changed one bit," announced the smallest
sister in tones of deepest wonder. "Why, I'd have known you anywhere,
Betty, if I'd met you on the street."
"Three months isn't quite as long as all that," said Betty, hugging the
smallest sister, "but I was hoping I looked a little older. Nobody ever
mistakes me for a senior, as they do Rachel Morrison. And I ought to
look years and years wiser."
"Nonsense," said Will with a lordly air. "Now a college girl----"
Everybody laughed. "You see we all know your theories about intellectual
women," said mother. "So suppose you take up the suit case and escort us
home."
The next morning a note arrived from Eleanor.
"DEAREST BETTY," it ran:
"As you always seem to be just around the corner when I get into a box,
I want to tell you that I rode down to New York with Miss Hale. She
asked me to sit with her and I couldn't well refuse, though I wanted to
badly enough. She knew, Betty, but she will never tell. She said she was
glad to know me on your account. She asked me how the term had gone with
me, and I blushed and stammered and said that I was coming back in a
different spirit. She said that college was the finest place in the
world for a girl to get acquainted with herself--that cowardice and
weakness of purpose and meanness and pettiness stood out so clearly
against the background of fineness and squareness; and that four years
was long enough to see all sorts of faults in oneself, and change them
according to one's new theories. As she said it, it didn't sound a bit
like preaching.
"I didn't tell her that I was only in college for one year. I sent her a
big bunch of violets to-day--she surely couldn't regard it as a bribe
now--and after Christmas I'll try to show her that I'm worth while.
"Merry Christmas, Betty.
"Eleanor."
Nan frowned when Betty told her about Eleanor. "But she isn't a nice
girl, Betty. Did I meet her?"
"Yes, she's the one you thought so pretty--the one with the lovely eyes
and hair."
"Betty," said Nan soberly, "you don't do things like this?"
"I!" Betty flushed indignantly. "Weren't there all kinds of girls when
you were in college, Nan? Didn't you ever know people who did 'things
like this'?"
Nan laughed. "There certainly were," she said. "I'll trust you, Betty.
Only don't see too much of Miss Watson, or she'll drag you down, in
spite of yourself."
"But Ethel's dragging her up," objected Betty. "And I gave her the first
boost, by knowing Ethel. Not that I meant to. I never seem to accomplish
things when I mean to. You remember Helen Chase Adams?"
"With great pleasure. She noticed my youthful appearance."
"Well, I've been all this term trying to reform her clothes, but I can't
improve her one bit, except when I set to work and do it all myself. I
should think you'd be afraid she'd drag me into dowdiness, I have to see
so much of her."
Nan smiled at the dainty little figure in the big chair. "I don't notice
any indications yet," she said. "It took you an hour to dress this
morning, exactly as it always does. But you'd better take care. What are
you going to do to-day?"
"Make your friend Helen Chase Adams a stock for Christmas," announced
Betty, jumping up and pulling Nan after her. "And you've got to help,
seeing you admire her so much."