MID-YEARS AND A DUST-PAN
Viewed in retrospect the tragic experiences of one's freshman year seem
often the most insignificant of trifles; but that does not prevent their
being at the time momentous as the fate of empires. There are mid-year
examinations, for instance; after one has survived them a few times she
knows that being "flunked out" is not so common an experience as report
represents it to be, and as for "low grades" and "conditions," if one
has "cut" or been too often unprepared she deserves and expects them,
and if she has done her best and still finds an unwelcome note or two on
the official bulletin board, why, she must remember that accidents will
happen, and are generally quite endurable when viewed philosophically.
But in freshman year one is inexperienced and easily the dupe of
mischievous sophomores. Then how is one to prepare for the dreadful
ordeal? The distinction is not at all clear between the intelligent
review that the faculty recommend and the cramming that they abhor.
There is a disconcerting little rhyme on this subject that has been
handed down from generation to generation for so long that it has lost
most of its form and comeliness; but the point is still sharp. It is
about a girl who followed the faculty's advice on the subject of
cramming, took her exercise as usual, and went to bed each night at ten
o'clock, as all good children should. The last stanza still rhymes,
thus:
"And so she did not hurry,
Nor sit up late to cram,
Nor have the blues and worry,
But--she failed in her exam."
Mary Brooks took pains that all her "young friends," as she called them,
should hear of this instructive little poem.
"I really thought," said Betty on the first evening of the examination
week, "when that hateful rumor was contradicted, that I should never be
scared again, but I am."
"There's unfortunately nothing rumorous about these exams.," muttered
Katherine wrathfully. "The one I had to-day was the real article, all
right."
"And I have my three worst to-morrow and next day," mourned Betty, "so
I've got permission to sit up after ten to-night. Don't all the rest of
you want to come in here and work? Then some one else can ask Mrs.
Chapin for the other nights."
"But we must all attend strictly to business," said Mary Rich, whereat
Helen Adams looked relieved.
And business was the order of the week. An unwonted stillness reigned
over the Chapin house, broken occasionally by wild outbursts of
hilarity, which meant that some examination or other was over and had
not been so bad after all. Every evening at ten the girls who felt it
necessary to sit up later assembled in one room, comfortably attired in
kimonos--all except Roberta, who had never been seen without her
collar--and armed with formidable piles of books; and presently work
began in earnest. There was really no reason, as Rachel observed, why
they should not stay in their own rooms, if they were going to sit up at
all. This wasn't the campus, where there was a night-watchman to report
lights, and Mrs. Chapin was very accommodating about giving permission.
"This method benefits her gas bill though," said Katherine, "and
therefore keeps her accommodating. Besides, it's much easier to stick to
it in a crowd."
Eleanor never went through the formality of asking Mrs. Chapin's
permission to do anything, and she did not care for the moral support of
numbers. She was never sleepy, she said, pointing significantly to her
brass samovar, and she could work best alone in her own room. She held
aloof, too, from the discussions about the examinations which were the
burden of the week's table-talk, only once in a while volunteering a
suggestion about the possible answer to an obscure or ambiguous
question. Her ideas invariably astonished the other freshmen by their
depth and originality, but when any one exclaimed, Eleanor would say,
sharply, "Why, it's all in the text-book!" and then relapse into gloomy
silence.
"I suppose she talks more to her friends outside," suggested Rachel,
after an encounter of this sort.
"Not on your life," retorted Katherine. "She's one of the kind that
keeps herself to herself. She hates us because we have to know as much
about her as we do, living here in the house with her. I hope she gets
through all right."
"She's awfully clever," said Mary Rich admiringly. "She'd never have
said that a leviathan was some kind of a church creed, as I did in
English."
"Yes, she's a clever--blunderer, but she's also a sadly mistaken young
person," amended Katherine.
It was convenient to have one's examinations scattered evenly through
the week with time for study between them, but pleasanter on the whole
to be through by Thursday or Friday, with several days of delicious
idleness before the new semester began. And as a certain faction of the
college always manages to suit its own convenience in such matters, the
campus, which is the unfailing index of college sentiment, began to wear
a leisurely, holiday air some time before the dreaded week was over.
The ground was covered deeply with snow which a sudden thaw and as
sudden a freeze had coated with a thick, hard crust. This put a stop to
snow-shoeing and delayed the work of clearing the ice off Paradise pond,
where there was to be a moonlight carnival on the evening of the holiday
that follows mid-year week. But it made splendid coasting. Toboggans,
"bobs" and hand sleds appeared mysteriously in various quarters, and the
pasture hills north of the town swarmed with Harding girls out for fresh
air, exercise and fun.
On Friday afternoon an ingenious damsel who had no sled conceived the
idea of substituting a dust-pan. So she borrowed one of an obliging
chambermaid and went out to the little slope which divides the front
from the back campus to try her experiment. In twenty minutes the hill
was alive with girls, all the available dust-pans had been pressed into
service, and large tin pans were found to do nearly as well. Envious
groups of girls who could get neither the one nor the other watched the
absurd spectacle from the windows of the nearest campus houses or
hurried down-town to buy tinware. Sleds were neglected, toboggans
despised; the dust-pan fad had taken possession of the college.
Betty, who had the happy faculty of being on hand at interesting
moments, was crossing the campus on her way home from the Hilton House.
She had taken her last examination, had helped Alice Waite finish up a
box of candy, and now had nothing to do until dinner time, so she
stopped to watch the novel coasting, and even had one delicious ride
herself on Dorothy King's dust-pan.
Near the gate she met Mary Brooks and Roberta and asked them if they had
been through the campus.
"No," said Mary, "we've been having chocolate at Cuyler's." And she
dragged her companions back to within sight of the hill. Then she
abruptly turned them about and hurried them off in the other direction.
"Let's go straight down and buy some dust-pans," she began
enthusiastically. "We have just time before dinner, and we can slide all
to-morrow afternoon."
"Oh, no," demurred Roberta. "I couldn't."
Betty laughed at her expression of alarm, and Mary demanded, "Why not?"
"Oh, I couldn't," repeated Roberta. "It looks dangerous, and, besides, I
have to dress for dinner."
"Dangerous nothing!" jeered Mary. "Don't be so everlastingly neat and
lady-like, child. What's the use? Well," as Roberta still hung back,
"carry my fountain pen home, then, and don't spill it. Come on, Betty,"
and the two raced off down the hill.
Roberta looked after them admiringly, wishing she were not such a "muff"
at outdoor sports.
The next afternoon Betty and Mary hurried over to the campus directly
after luncheon to try their new toys. The crust was still firm and the
new sport popular as ever.
"You see it's much more exciting than a 'bob,'" a tall senior was
explaining to a group of on-lookers. "You can't steer, so you're just as
likely to go down backward as frontward; and being so near the ground
gives you a lovely creepy sensation."
"The point is, it's such a splendid antidote for overstudying. It just
satisfies that absolutely idiotic feeling that every one has after
mid-years," added an athletic young woman in a gray sweater, as she
joined the group with her dust-pan tucked scientifically under her arm.
She was Marion Lawrence, sophomore vice-president, and Mary Brooks's
best friend. Betty, fearing to be in the way, joined another lone
freshman from the Belden House.
"Do you suppose you could sit up to study to-night if you had to?"
inquired the freshman as they stood waiting their turns to go down.
"No, only it seems as if you always could do what you have to," answered
Betty, starting off.
She decided presently that dust-pan coasting was not so much fun as it
looked. Mary Brooks, coming to find her and ask her to join a racing
tournament captained by herself and Marion Lawrence, declared noisily
that she was having "the time of her gay young life," but Betty after
the first coast or two began to think of going home. Perhaps it was
because she was so tired. It seemed so much trouble to walk up on the
slippery crust and such a long way round by the path. So she refused to
enter the tournament. "I'm not going to stay long enough," she
explained. "I shall just have two more slides. Then I'm going home to
take a nap. That's my best antidote for overstudy."
The next coast was nicer. Perhaps the dust-pan had been too new. The
Belden House freshman said that hers went better since her roommate had
used it and scraped off all the paint in a collision.
"I wonder there aren't more collisions," said Betty, preparing for her
last slide.
Half-way down she discovered that the other freshman and the rest hadn't
started--that the hill was almost clear. Then somebody called shrilly,
"Look out, Miss Wales." She turned her head back toward the voice, the
dust-pan swirled, and she turned back again to find herself slipping
rapidly sidewise straight toward a little lady who was walking serenely
along the path that cut the coast at right angles. She was a
faculty--Betty hadn't the least idea what her name was, but she had
noticed her on the "faculty row" at chapel. In an instant more she was
certainly going to run into her. Betty dug her heels frantically into
the crust. It would not break.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I can't stop!" she called.
At that the little lady, who was walking rapidly with her head bent
against the wind, looked up and apparently for the first time noticed
the dust-pan coasters. Mirth and confusion overcame her. She stopped an
instant to laugh, then started back, then changed her mind and dashed
wildly forward, with the inevitable result that she fell in an
undignified heap on top of Betty and the dust-pan. The accident took
place on the edge of the path where the crust was jagged and icy. Betty,
who had gone head-first through it, emerged with a bleeding scratch on
one cheek and a stinging, throbbing wrist. Fortunately her companion was
not hurt.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" sighed Betty, trying to brush the snow off her
victim with one hand. "I do hope you'll forgive me for being so
careless." Then she sat down suddenly on the broken crust. "It's only
that my wrist hurts a little," she finished abruptly.
The girls had gathered around them by this time, sympathizing and
lamenting that they had not warned Betty in time. "But we thought of
course you saw Miss Ferris," said the tall senior, "and we supposed she
was looking out for you."
So this was Miss Ferris--the great Miss Ferris. Rachel had sophomore
zoology with her and Mary Brooks had said that she was considered the
most brilliant woman on the faculty. She was "house-teacher" at the
Hilton, and Alice Waite and Miss Madison were always singing her
praises.
She cut Betty's apologies and the girls' inquiries short. "My dear
child, it was all my fault, and you're the one who's hurt. Why didn't
you girls stop me sooner--call to me to go round the other way? I was in
a hurry and didn't see or hear you up there." Then she sat down on the
crust beside Betty. "Forgive me for laughing," she said, "but you did
look so exactly like a giant crab sidling along on that ridiculous
dust-pan. Have you sprained your wrist? Then you must come straight over
to my room and wait for a carriage."
Betty's feeble protests were promptly overruled, and supported by Mary
Brooks on one side and Miss Ferris on the other she was hurried over to
the Hilton House and tucked up in Miss Ferris's Morris chair by her open
fire, to await the arrival of the college doctor and a carriage. In
spite of her embarrassment at having upset so important a personage, and
the sharp pains that went shooting up and down her arm, she was almost
sorry when doctor and carriage arrived together. Miss Ferris was even
nicer than the girls had said. Somehow she made one feel at home
immediately as she bustled about bringing a towel and a lotion for
Betty's face, hot water for her wrist, and "butter-thins" spread with
delicious strawberry jam to keep her courage up. Before she knew it,
Betty was telling her all about her direful experiences during
examination week, how frightened she had been, and how sleepy she was
now,--"not just now of course"--and how she had been all ready to go
home when the spill came. And Miss Ferris nodded knowingly at Mary and
laughed her little rippling laugh.
"Just like these foolish little freshmen; isn't it?" she said, exactly
as if she had been one last year too. And yet there was a suspicion of
gray in her hair, and she was a doctor of philosophy and had written the
leading article in the learned German magazine that lay on her table.
"You must come again, both of you, when I can make tea for you
properly," she said as she closed the carriage door.
Betty, leaning whitely back on Mary's shoulder, with her arm on Miss
Ferris's softest down pillow, smiled happily between the throbs. If she
was fated to have sprained her wrist, she was glad that she had met Miss
Ferris.
Saturday night and Sunday were long and dismal beyond belief. The wrist
ached, the cheek smarted, and a bad cold added its quota to Betty's
miseries. But she slept late Monday morning, and when she woke felt able
to sit up in bed and enjoy her flowers and her notoriety. Just after
luncheon the entire Chapin house came in to congratulate and condole
with her.
"It's too windy to have any fun outdoors," began Rachel consolingly.
"Who sent you those violets?" demanded Katherine.
"Miss Ferris. Wasn't it dear of her? There was a note with them, too,
that said she considered herself still 'deeply in my debt,' because of
her carelessness--think of her saying that to me!--and that she hopes I
won't hesitate to call on her if she 'can ever be of the slightest
assistance.' And Mary, she said for us not to forget that Friday is her
day at home."
"You are the luckiest thing, Betty Wales," sighed Rachel, who worshiped
Miss Ferris from afar.
"Now if I'd knocked the august Miss Ferris down," declared Katherine, "I
should probably have been expelled forthwith. Whereas you----" She
finished the sentence with an expressive little gesture.
"Who gave you the rest of this conservatory, Betty?" asked Mary Brooks.
"Clara Madison brought the carnations, and Nita Reese, a girl in my
geometry division, sent the white roses, and Eleanor the pink ones, and
the freshman I was sliding with these lilies-of-the-valley. It's almost
worth a sprained wrist to find out how kind people are to you," said
Betty gratefully.
"Too bad you'll miss to-night," said Mary, "but maybe it will snow."
"I don't mind that. The worst thing is my not being able to get my
conditions off the bulletin," said Betty, making a wry face.
"Goodness! That is a calamity!" said Katherine with mock seriousness.
"Nonsense! You've studied," from Rachel.
"If you should have any conditions, I'll bring them to you," volunteered
Eleanor quietly. Then she looked straight at Rachel and Katherine and
smiled pleasantly. "I'm sorry to say that I haven't studied," she said.
Betty thanked her, feeling more pleased at the apparent harmony of the
household than she had been with all her flowers. It was so difficult to
like Eleanor and Rachel and Katherine and Helen, all four, so well, when
Rachel and Katherine had good reason for disliking Eleanor, and Helen
wouldn't hitch with any of the rest.
"Do you know that Prexy had forbidden sliding on dust-pans?" asked Mary
Rich in the awkward pause that followed.
"Oh, yes," added Mary Brooks, "I forgot to tell you. So it's just as
well that I lost mine in the shuffle."
"But I'm sorry to have been the one to stop the fun," said Betty sadly.
"Oh, it wasn't wholly that. Two other girls banged into each other after
we left."
"But you're the famous one," added Rachel, "because you knocked over
Miss Ferris. She looked so funny and knowing when Prexy announced it in
chapel."
"I wish I could do something for you too," said Helen timidly, after the
rest had drifted out of the room.
"Why you have," Betty assured her. "You helped a lot both times the
doctor came, and you've stayed out of the room whenever I wanted to
sleep, and brought up all my meals, and written home for me."
Helen flushed. "That's nothing. I meant something pretty like those,"
and she pointed to the tableful of flowers, and then going over to it
buried her face in the bowl of English violets.
Betty watched her for a moment with a vague feeling of pity. "I don't
suppose she has ten cents a month to spend on such things," she thought,
"and as for having them sent to her----" Then she said aloud, "We
certainly don't need any more of those at present. Were you going to the
basket-ball game?"
"I thought I would, if you didn't want me."
"Not a bit, and you're to wear some violets--a nice big bunch. Hand me
the bowl, please, and I'll tie them up."
Helen gave a little gasp of pleasure. Then her face clouded. "But I
couldn't take your violets," she added quickly.
Betty laughed and went on tying up the bunch, only making it bigger than
she had at first intended. After Helen had gone she cried just a little.
"I don't believe she ever had any violets before," she said to the green
lizard. "Why, her eyes were like stars--she was positively pretty."
More than one person noticed the happy little girl who sat quite alone
in the running track, dividing her eager attention between the game and
the violets which she wore pinned to her shabby, old-fashioned brown
jacket.
Meanwhile Betty, propped up among her pillows, was trying to answer
Nan's last letter.
"You seem to be interested in so many other people's affairs," Nan had
written, "that you haven't any time for your own. Don't make the mistake
of being a hanger-on."
"You see, Nan," wrote Betty, "I am at last a heroine, an interesting
invalid, with scars, and five bouquets of flowers on my table. I am
sorry that I don't amount to more usually. The trouble is that the other
people here are so clever or so something-or-other that I can't help
being more interested in them. I'm afraid I am only an average girl, but
I do seem to have a lot of friends and Miss Ferris, whom you are always
admiring, has asked me to five o'clock tea. Perhaps, some day----"
Writing with one's left hand was too laborious, so Betty put the letter
in a pigeon-hole of her desk to be finished later. As she slipped the
sheets in, Miss Ferris's note dropped out. "I wonder if I shall ever
want to ask her anything," thought Betty, as she put it carefully away
in the small drawer of her desk that held her dearest treasures.