THE UNDOING OF GEORGIA
All Christmas vacations are alike. Just as you are beginning to
realize that Christmas is really coming, and that it is almost time
to pack to go home, the faculty make a unanimous decision to give
papers or written lessons to all their classes. This seems to be their
idea of making the holiday pleasant, by making the week before the
holidays particularly full of agonies. And no matter what courses you
are taking, the written lesson in the one you know least about is
sure to come on the last day of the term. When it is over, you rush
back to your room, tuck the Christmas packages that you have strict
injunctions not to open until the right day comes into your trunk,
shut the lid--with the assistance of several friends--sweep the débris
that litters your dresser into a suit case, and run for your train.
Probably you think you have failed in your test, but you have no time
to worry about that now. You are going home for Christmas! If you are
lucky enough to live on one of the main-traveled roads you will have
plenty of company on the journey, and you will slip from your friends'
clamorous good-byes straight into the waiting arms of your family.
And before you have settled down to the joyful fact that you are at
home, Christmas is over, everything you wanted most is packed in your
trunk--but with mother's packing there is somehow room enough--and
you are speeding back to college. Glad? Yes--and sorry. But how much
sorrier you would be if the rest were going back without you.
Betty's Christmas was "just perfectly lovely"--so she told her father,
who always sympathized with Betty's raptures. It brought her the furs
she had wanted, and the Temple Shakespeares, and the snow-shoes, and a
copper chafing-dish as nearly like Babbie's as Will had been able to
buy.
"Oh, you extravagant boy!" cried Betty when she saw it. "When I have a
perfectly good nickel one now. But things will taste twice as good in
this! Let's make a rabbit this minute!"
And they did--at ten o'clock on Christmas morning, and the Wales family
unanimously declared that they had never tasted such a rabbit before,
and unanimously laid the credit at the door of Harding College, which
had taught them all that the most impossible things are often the most
amusing.
One thing that made this Christmas vacation seem particularly precious
was because father and mother would not be at home for the Easter one.
Betty's father had overworked, so the doctor said, and must take a
long, restful vacation. So he and Mrs. Wales were going to spend the
remainder of the winter in the West Indies. They had not decided just
when or where they would go.
"We'll attend to all that when we get rid of you, young lady," said Mr.
Wales, playfully pinching Betty's ear. "Don't those look interesting?"
He pointed to a great pile of steamship and railway folders on the
library table. "And if you weren't in college we'd take you along."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Betty. "But I don't believe you would. You and
mother are such old lovers You'd rather go alone."
"We have to go alone," corrected her father laughingly. "Will has his
business to attend to, and Nan has to stay and look after Will, and
Little Sister has to stay and look after Nan. Don't you, Little Sister?"
The smallest sister nodded solemnly. "Nan would be awful lonesome if I
wented wif you," she explained with an air of great importance.
"But if Betty wasn't in college we'd take her," went on Mr. Wales,
"and she could pick oranges and grape-fruits, and sit under spreading
palm-trees, and shin up the trunks for cocoanuts, and pick roses in
January and----"
"Don't!" begged Betty. "Please don't! It sounds just too lovely for
anything. Promise to take me the first winter after I'm through
college."
"Oh, I don't know about that," teased her father. "I don't take a
vacation every winter, you know. The last one I had was--let me
see--twenty years ago, Miss Betty. So you may have to wait twenty years
more if you don't seize your chance and go now."
"Father," said Betty severely, "you know you wouldn't think much of me
if I should give up college in my junior year--even to pick you roses
and oranges in the West Indies."
"No," said Mr. Wales, "I shouldn't. I'm glad that all my children are
the sort that stick to whatever they undertake. It pays in the end--and
perhaps I can manage another vacation in--say ten years, Betty."
"Thank you," said Betty demurely, planting a kiss on his forehead and
running off to see if Will was ready to go skating with the merry crowd
of boys and girls who were just turning in at the front gate.
In the midst of all these Christmas excitements it is small wonder
that Betty forgot Georgia. She entertained the family at breakfast one
morning with an account of her lively adventures, and amused herself by
putting Georgia's picture among her Christmas gifts and listening to
the varied comments of her Cleveland friends, who were much attracted
by Georgia's appearance. The men particularly called her "stunning"
and "a good looker," and inquired anxiously when she was coming to
visit Betty. And Betty laughed and promised to have her "as soon as she
could," thinking what fun she would have at Easter, laughing at them
for getting so excited over a composite photograph.
But Georgia was the merest episode during the vacation, and though
several of "The Merry Hearts" went back on the same train with Betty,
the talk was all of Christmas presents and Christmas gaieties--dances,
dinners, skating and sleighing parties--and Georgia was not even
mentioned. Tom Alison, being a politic youth, had not allowed himself
to be forgotten during the vacation. He sent Betty candy for Christmas
and violets for New Year's, and she was not at all surprised, when
she opened the Belden House door, to see a letter for her on the hall
table, addressed in Tom's sprawling, illegible hand. Betty wondered if
he was going back to New Haven by way of Harding--which would have been
decidedly the longest way round. But she glanced at the letter, and, as
it seemed to be all about Georgia, she put it aside to read later in
the day, when she had more time.
Just before dinner she took it up again and being tired of unpacking,
sat down at her desk to make out Tom's hieroglyphics at her leisure.
But at the bottom of the first page, she gave a little cry of dismay,
and ran off to Mary's room, where she found Madeline and Mary lying
on the couch, reading Mary's Christmas books--she had had eighteen of
them, and she declared that she simply could not begin to study until
she had read them all through.
"Girls," cried Betty, bursting in without waiting to knock. "What do
you think has happened now?"
"Goodness, Betty," said Mary, who had been completely absorbed in her
book. "How you frightened me! We're reading. Help yourself to a book
and some candy and be quiet."
"But, Mary!" began Betty. "Listen to this."
Mary dropped her book with a sigh of discouragement. "Talk about the
silent cloisters of learning!" she said. "College is the worst place
I know of to try to work in." She pulled at Madeline's book. "Come,
Madeline, don't try to improve your mind any longer. Betty is bound to
talk."
Madeline looked up lazily.
"It's about Georgia," explained Betty. "The most dreadful thing you can
imagine."
"Dear me!" said Madeline. "Then the faculty must have found her a poor
joke and voted to expel all 'The Merry Hearts' from Harding." And she
returned once more to her book.
But Mary was still listening and Betty turned to her. "That dreadful
Mr. John Alison has sent Georgia's picture to Dr. Eaton."
"Why, that's lovely," said Mary calmly. "We ought to have thought of
that ourselves. Where does the dreadfulness come in? And who is Mr.
John Alison?"
"Oh, Mary, don't you remember," began Betty impatiently. "He's Tom's
older brother--the one that was in college with Dr. Eaton."
"Never heard of him," said Madeline, who had abandoned her book again.
"How did he hear of Georgia?"
"Why, Mr. Tom Alison wrote him about her," explained Betty. "He thought
Georgia was such a good joke,--after I'd told him about Alice Waite's
using her, you know,--that he wanted to know all about her. When I
mentioned Dr. Eaton and English Essayists he was perfectly delighted.
Dr. Eaton used to visit his older brother, and they both used to tease
Tom, so of course he approved of our teasing Dr. Eaton now. He said he
was going to write his brother about it, and he did. He told him about
the Yale part, too, of course, and he sent him Georgia's picture."
"Well?" demanded Mary, as Betty paused for breath.
"I haven't read all the letter yet, but I know that Mr. Alison sent
the picture to Dr. Eaton. Let me see." Betty consulted Tom's epistle.
"Here it is. 'If you will believe it, John got my letter in Tombstone,
Arizona, where he was spending a day on his way from San Francisco back
to the railroad that he's building down in New Mexico. He was delighted
with the whole game, and thinking that Eaton would appreciate that
picture, he sent it along with a note from Georgia which I guess from
his description was a corker. You see he didn't realize that you girls
would have to stand for it sooner or later, so he wrote that his--I
mean Georgia's--heart was Eaton's for keeps, and that she couldn't
bear the separation and wanted to exchange photographs, and wouldn't
he write her just a line? I've written him "just a line" to warn him
against taking any such liberties again with my friends' ideas; and I
hope that it isn't too late for you to square yourselves all right.
I'll make John write and apologize, if you say so. The letter was all
right, you see, from him, but Eaton thinking it was from a girl, of
course wouldn't like the idea. I hope this doesn't mean the premature
death of Georgia, and I hope Eaton didn't get that letter before the
Christmas recess, but I'm awfully afraid he may have.'"
"That explains the coolness of the professor the last time you saw
him," said Madeline.
"What geese he must think us," giggled Mary, "to be the friends of the
girl who wrote that dreadful note."
"And who also wrote those ten-minute tests that he so admired," added
Madeline. "I suppose he explains it by referring to the oddities of
genius."
"But suppose," suggested Betty, "that he suspects Georgia of being a
fake and thinks we wrote that note."
"Horrible!" exclaimed Mary. "Let's round up 'The Merry Hearts' and
have a meeting over at Rachel's. English Essayists meets day after
to-morrow, doesn't it? We must do something before that."
It was the sad conclusion of "The Merry Hearts" that Georgia must
die. The utmost ingenuity of the entire membership could not avert
this unhappy catastrophe. Somebody must tell Dr. Eaton about Georgia,
and explain that "The Merry Hearts" assumed the responsibility of
everything but that last note. The meeting was also unanimous in its
choice of an envoy. Nobody could beard the lion in his den so well as
Betty Wales.
In vain Betty protested. "It's dreadfully unfair," she declared hotly.
"Madeline ought to do it. Georgia is her double, and she wrote the
themes that Dr. Eaton liked."
"And isn't that enough for one person?" inquired Madeline calmly. "I've
done my share and more."
"Then Rachel ought to go," began Betty, but Mary was firm.
"You're elected to tell him," she said, "and you know very well that
when you're elected by 'The Merry Hearts' to do a certain thing,
there's no way out. Besides, you're so tactful, Betty, and you like
Dr. Eaton, and he likes you, and you've had more fun out of Georgia
than any of the rest of us."
"Yes, indeed," broke in Babbie eagerly. "You've got to pay up for that
bid to the Yale prom., you know, and for all the candy and violets.
Why, I'd go to Dr. Eaton twenty times over if I could step into your
shoes with Mr. Alison; and you got it all through Georgia."
This was true, and then, as Mary had said, there was no way out.
"The Merry Hearts" had dispensed with reports and motions, but their
"elections" were as the laws of the Medes and Persians. So Betty put on
her new furs, by way of keeping up her courage, and presented herself
the next afternoon at Dr. Eaton's office. She had walked briskly across
the campus, so that her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkled, and her
dimples were much in evidence, as, without giving herself time to get
frightened or to think how she should begin, she knocked on Dr. Eaton's
door.
Dr. Eaton was evidently not expecting callers so early in the term. His
"Come in" sounded a trifle brusque, and the nod he gave Betty over the
top of his big desk was distinctly businesslike and chilly. But Betty
clasped her hands tightly inside her beautiful new muff and kept on
smiling a brave little smile as she crossed the room. He couldn't be so
very disagreeable when he found out how it all happened.
"This is your office hour, isn't it?" she asked doubtfully, as Dr.
Eaton pulled forward a chair for her in silence.
"It is, Miss Wales. What can I do for you?" asked Dr. Eaton in his
turn; and Betty, blushing furiously, plunged straight into the midst of
things.
"You know Georgia Ames isn't anybody," she began. "We made her all up,
you know,--but your friend Mr. Alison wrote that dreadful note."
Dr. Eaton knit his brows and stared. "I--I beg your pardon," he said at
last, "but will you please say that again?"
"Why, she's just an imaginary person," explained Betty. "Madeline Ayres
thought of her first, but she let us use her and we've had lots of fun
fooling people with her. Madeline wrote those themes that you liked so
much, and Helen Adams wrote the Mrs. Erasmus J. Ames part, and we all
helped with the other things. But that dreadful letter from Tombstone
wasn't ours at all--or Georgia's. Your friend, Mr. Alison, sent it and
the picture. So please don't mind. And--and isn't it one bit amusing?"
Dr. John Elliot Eaton still knit his fine brows and stared at Betty
as if she had been a ghost--or a double. "Miss Wales," he said, "I've
no doubt I seem awfully dense, but I don't understand yet. I haven't
the slightest idea what you're talking about. Will you please begin at
the beginning and go on very slowly indeed? And--I promise to find it
amusing."
There was a reassuring twinkle in his eyes now, and Betty breathed a
sigh of deep relief and began again at the beginning, stopping often
to let Dr. Eaton ask questions. When at last he comprehended the first
chapter of Georgia's experiences, he threw back his head and laughed
till he cried. He repeated this performance several times during the
rest of the story. Before it was finished, Betty had the feeling that
she was talking to an old friend. She liked Dr. Eaton better than ever,
because he liked Georgia, even though she had completely taken him in;
and she was secretly glad that "The Merry Hearts" had "elected" her to
explain.
When she had arrived once more at Mr. John Alison's unauthorized
"touch" of sentimentality, Dr. Eaton interrupted again.
"Alison's a trump," he said. "I must write and thank him for forcing
your hand. As far as I can see you might have gone on fooling me till
June, if he hadn't interfered."
"Oh, no," said Betty solemnly. "We wanted to keep Georgia till spring
term, but Bob--I mean Miss Marie Parker--suggested to-day that we
couldn't have done it, even by having Georgia leave college. You would
have handed in a report of her unfinished work to Miss Stuart, and then
everything would have come out."
"Don't you want to see the note?" asked Dr. Eaton, rummaging through
a drawer of his desk. "Here it is, and you'll find it a beautiful
performance. I must confess," he added soberly, "that it worried me a
good deal. You see, Miss Wales, I'm new at teaching, and I was afraid
I hadn't conducted myself discreetly."
"When did it come?" asked Betty, laughing over Mr. Alison's heroics.
"The last morning of last term."
"Then that was why you were so cross. We thought it must have come
then."
Dr. Eaton laughed. "Was I cross? I didn't mean to be. I only meant to
be dignified. You see, Miss Wales, I,--well, I have a particular reason
for wishing my work here to be successful. A great deal depends on this
year."
His sudden turn to seriousness reminded Betty that she had been wasting
nearly an hour of the great Dr. Eaton's afternoon, and she jumped up to
go.
But Dr. Eaton stopped her. "You must tell 'The Merry Hearts,'" he said,
"that I fully appreciate Georgia, and that I will forgive them for
victimizing me on one condition. I insist upon being an honorary member
of the club. Don't you think I've fairly earned a membership?"
"Yes indeed," laughed Betty. "The only trouble is that Madeline may
black-ball you because you say nicer things about Georgia's themes than
you do about hers. But I'll do my best for you."
"Thank you," said Dr. Eaton. "Tell Miss Ayres that I shall have her
double's photograph suitably framed and hung in a conspicuous place on
the walls of my den."