A LITERARY EVENING.
The entertainment designed to bring Miss Minerva Higgins to a true
understanding of her position as a freshman took place one Friday
evening in the rooms of Margaret and Jessie. It was called on the
invitation "A Literary Evening," and was to be in the nature of a spread
and fudge affair. There had been two rehearsals beforehand, and the
girls were now prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
Molly was loath to take part in the literary evening.
"I can't bear to see anybody humiliated even when she ought to be," she
said, but she consented to come and to give a recitation.
Several study tables had been united for the supper, the cracks
concealed by Japanese towelling contributed by Otoyo. There was no Mrs.
Murphy in the Quadrangle from whom to borrow tablecloths. All the chairs
from the other rooms were brought in to seat the company, who appeared
grave and subdued. Most of the girls were dressed to resemble famous
poets and authors. Judy was Byron; Margaret Wakefield, George Eliot;
Nance, Charlotte Bronte; Edith Williams, Edgar Allan Poe; and Molly was
Shelley. Shakespeare, Voltaire and Charles Dickens were in the company,
and "The Duchess," impersonated by Jessie Lynch.
The unfortunate Minerva was a little disconcerted at first when she
found herself the only girl at the feast in her own character.
"Why didn't you tell me, so that I could have come in costume, too?" she
asked Margaret.
"But you had your medals," was Margaret's enigmatic answer.
Minerva looked puzzled. Then her gaze fell to the shining breastplate of
silver and gold trophies. She had worn them all this evening. The
temptation had been too great. The medals gleamed like so many solemn
eyes. She wondered if the others could read what was inscribed on them,
or if it would be necessary to call attention to the most choice ones:
"THE HIGHEST GENERAL AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS"; "REGULAR ATTENDANCE";
"MATHEMATICS"; "THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAY"; "ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION."
Edith opened the evening by delivering a speech in Latin which was
really one of Virgil's eclogues mixed up with whatever she could recall
of Livy and Horace, and filled out occasionally with Latin prose
composition. It was so excruciatingly funny that Judy sputtered in her
tea and was well kicked on her shins under the table.
Minerva, however, appeared to be profoundly impressed, and the company
murmured subdued approvals when, at last, the speaker took breath and
sat down, gazing solemnly around her with dark, melancholy eyes very
much blacked around the lids.
Margaret then delivered a learned discourse on "Poise of Body and Poise
of Mind," which was skillfully expressed in such deep and intricate
language that nobody could understand what she was talking about.
"Very, very interesting, indeed," observed Edith.
"Remarkable; wonderful; so clearly put," came from the others.
Minerva rubbed her eyes and frowned.
Nance recited "The Raven," translated into very bad French. This was
almost more than their gravity could endure, and when she ended each
verse with "_Dit le corbeau: jamais plus,_" many of the girls stooped
under the table for lost handkerchiefs and Japanese napkins.
But it was not until Judy had sung a lullaby in Sanskrit--so
called--that Minerva became at all suspicious. Even then it was the
wrong kind of suspicion. She thought that perhaps she should have
laughed, and the others had politely refrained because she hadn't.
After a great deal of learned talk, Molly stood on a soap box and
recited "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night."
This was the crowning joy of that famous evening, but still Minerva
appeared seriously impressed.
"I recited that once at Mill Town High School," she remarked.
"Can't you give us something to-night?" asked Molly kindly, feeling that
in some way the unfortunate Minerva ought to be allowed to join in.
"I don't know that I ought to give another poem by the same man," she
replied, "except that Miss Oldham gave 'The Raven' in French."
"Don't tell us you know 'The Bells'?" demanded Edith Williams, in a
trembling whisper.
"Oh, yes. I've given it at lots of school entertainments."
"We had better turn down the lights," said Margaret. "The room should be
in darkness except the side light where Miss Higgins will stand. That
will be the spot light."
This was a fortunate arrangement because, while Minerva recited "The
Bells," with all proper gestures, intonations and echoes, according to
Cleveland's recitation book, the girls silently collapsed. When she had
finished, they were reduced to that exhausted state that arrives after a
supreme effort not to laugh.
At last the entertainment came to an end. Minerva departed with some of
the others, while those who lived close by remained to chat for a few
minutes.
"I give up," exclaimed Margaret Wakefield. "Minerva is beyond teaching.
She must remain forever the smartest girl in Mill Town High School."
"The only pity of it is that it was all wasted on one humorless person.
We really furnished her with a most delightful entertainment and she
never even guessed it," declared Nance.
"I'm glad she didn't," remarked Molly. "It was cruel, I think. Suppose
she had caught on? Do you think it would have helped her? And we would
have been uncomfortable."
"Suppose she did understand and pretended not to. The joke would have
been decidedly on us," put in Katherine.
Later events of that evening would seem to bear out this suggestion,
although just how deeply, if at all, Minerva was implicated in what
followed no one could possibly tell. It was a question long afterwards
in dispute whether one person had managed the sequel to the Literary
Evening, or whether there had been a confederate. Certainly it seemed
that every imp in Bedlam had been set free to do mischief, and if
Minerva, as arch-imp, was looking for revenge, she found it.
"I don't like to appear inhospitable, girls, but it's five minutes of
ten and I think you'd better chase along," said Margaret Wakefield.
But when Judy laid hold of the knob and tried to open the door, it would
not budge.
"It won't open," she exclaimed. "What's to be done?"
What was to be done? They pulled and jerked and endeavored to pry it
open with a silver shoe horn and a pair of scissors, and at last Jessie,
as the smallest, was chosen to climb over the transom and go for help.
It was five minutes past ten, and they prudently turned out the lights.
"Let me get at that knob just once before we work the transom scheme,"
ejaculated Margaret, who was very strong and athletic.
"People always think they can open tin cans and doors and pull stoppers
when other people can't," observed Judy sarcastically.
Margaret treated this remark with contemptuous indifference. Seizing the
knob with both hands, she turned it and, putting her knee to the jamb,
pulled with all her force. The arch fiend on the other side must have
turned the key at this critical moment, for the door flew open and the
president tumbled back as if she had been shot from a catapult, knocking
a number of surprised poets and authors into a tumbled heap. They were
all considerably bruised and battered, and Margaret bit her tongue; a
severe punishment for one whose oratory was the pride of the class.
"Hush," whispered Jessie, who alone had escaped the tumble, "here comes
the house matron."
Softly she closed the door, and the girls waited until the danger was
over. Then Margaret hastened to examine the keyhole.
"There's no key in it," she whispered, speaking with difficulty, because
her tongue was bleeding from the marks of two teeth.
Whoever played the trick must have unlocked the door, jerked the key out
and fled the instant the matron appeared at the end of the corridor.
There was no time to discuss the mystery, however. She would be coming
back in two minutes. Again they waited in silence until they heard the
swish of her dress as she went past the door, now left open a crack in
order that Judy, lying flat on her stomach on the floor, and enjoying
herself immensely, might be on the lookout.
"Come on," she hissed, as the large, rotund figure of Mrs. Pelham was
lost in the darkness, and out they scuttled like a lot of mice loosed
from the trap.
But the evening's adventures were not over.
As Judy, in advance of Molly and Nance, pushed open their door, already
ajar, a small pail of water, placed on the top of the door by the
arch-imp, whoever she was, fell on Judy's head and deluged her. It
contained hardly a quart of water, but it might have been a gallon for
the wreck it made of Judy's clothes and the room.
"Oh, but I'll get even with somebody," exclaimed that enraged young
woman.
They turned on the green-shaded student's lamp and drew the blinds, the
night watchman being very vigilant at the dormitories, and began
silently mopping up the floor with towels.
Judy removed her wet clothes, and unbound her long hair, light in color
and fine as silk in quality.
"I can't go to bed," she announced, "until I find out what's happened to
the Gemini," and without another word she crept into the corridor.
"Nance," whispered Molly, when they were alone, "if Minerva Higgins did
this, she's about the boldest freshman alive to-day. But, after all, we
can't exactly blame her, considering what we did to her."
"She is taking great chances," replied Nance, who had a thorough respect
for college etiquette and class caste. "Every pert freshman must be
prepared for a call-down; and if she doesn't take it like a lamb, she'll
just have to expect a freeze-out. It's much better for her in the end.
If Minerva were allowed to keep this up for four years, she would be
entirely insufferable. She's almost that now."
"Don't you think she could find it out without such severe methods?"
"Severe methods, indeed," answered Nance indignantly. "Do you call it
severe to be asked to sup with the brightest girls in Wellington?
Margaret's speech alone was worth all the humiliation Minerva might have
felt; but she didn't feel any. Do you consider that rough, crude jokes
like this are going to be tolerated?"
"But we don't know that Minerva played them, yet," pleaded Molly. "I do
admit, though, that it must have been a very ordinary person who could
think of them. Margaret might have been badly hurt if she hadn't fallen
on top of the rest of us."
Presently Judy came stalking into their bedroom.
"It's just as I expected," she announced. "The Williamses' bed was full
of carpet tacks and Mabel Hinton fell over a cord stretched across her
door and sprained her wrist. She has it bound with arnica now."
"I don't see how Minerva could have had time to do all those things,"
broke in Molly.
There are some rare and very just natures--and Molly's was one of
them--which will not be convinced by circumstantial evidence alone.
"She would have had plenty of time," argued Judy. "It would hardly have
taken five minutes provided she had planned it all out beforehand.
Besides, it's easy for you to talk, Molly. You didn't bite your tongue,
or sprain your wrist, or get a ducking; or undress in the dark and get
into a bedful of tacks. You escaped."
"Disgusting!" came Nance's muffled voice from the covers.
"It is horrid," admitted Molly. "Whoever did it----"
"Minerva!" broke in Judy.
"--must have a very mistaken idea of college and the sorts of amusement
that are customary."
So the argument ended for the night.