"THE MERRY HEARTS" CONSPIRE
For the remaining four weeks of the term it is to be feared that "The
Merry Hearts" took small advantage of their scholastic opportunities
and privileges. There were so many letters to be written home, first
for permission to join the Nassau party, and then for summer hats and
muslins, to wear on the trip, and so many consultations to be held
about the proper kind and amount of clothes to take, the possibility of
the Mary-Bird-Club's needing their glasses for the study of tropical
birds, the possibility of transforming a battered gym suit into a
natty bathing costume at short notice,--or would flannel suits be
altogether too warm for the tropics, and if so, would there be time
for a hasty shopping expedition in New York on the day of sailing? It
was surprising how many problems presented themselves, besides the
essential one of getting the family's consent for the trip. All the
girls who had hoped to go, secured this without any trouble, and Helen
Adams, who had only half hoped, was overjoyed to find that her father
and mother fully concurred with her in thinking that the trip would be
improving enough to warrant her in taking her savings bank money to eke
out what they could afford to give her. As for the three who could not
go, they were quite as interested in the trip as their more fortunate
friends. Rachel speedily became the club's authority on West Indian
geography, and Katherine studied the steamship folders until she could
dilate upon the sights of Nassau as fluently as if she had spent months
there. Indeed Nita declared that it was really foolish to go to Nassau
at all, after having heard K.'s dissertation, because nothing you saw
would be new or surprising.
"Trust a Harding crowd to find something new!" retorted Madeline. "With
our up-to-date methods of study and research we shall understand Nassau
in a week as she has never been understood before."
"I know you will," said Nita forlornly. "I've always wanted to go
there, but now I shan't want to any more, because you will have so
much grander a time than I possibly could, if I went in the ordinary
way."
"Doesn't it look as if we were going to have a grand time though?" said
Mary gleefully. "Did you know that Miss Hale has heard from the steamer
people? We can all have state-rooms together, and the boat sails the
very day after college closes."
"Isn't that splendid? Aren't we in luck? Hurrah for Mr. Wales!" cried
"The Merry Hearts" hilariously. Only Betty Wales, who was usually the
most hilarious of them all, was silent. She sat still on the couch, her
forehead puckered with lines of deep thought and her eyes staring very
far away. There was something she wanted to do, but she was afraid of
the B's.
"Coward!" she said to herself. "Why don't you ask and get it over? You
think you ought, and if they don't like it, why they can say so, and
things will be just as they were before."
Would they be just the same, Betty wondered. The one thing she hated
was a "fuss." It was so much easier to slide along quietly, avoiding
disagreeable subjects; but was it always right? Betty had been over at
the Hilton that afternoon to see Eleanor. Eleanor was trying very hard
and she was making a little headway against the tide of opposition and
prejudice that had overwhelmed her. Girls who didn't know her well were
beginning to say that Miss Watson might be a cheat for all they knew
but she most certainly wasn't a snob--she was a good deal pleasanter
and more friendly than some of the ones who circulated disagreeable
stories about her. This opinion was gaining ground fast. Eleanor felt
its influence and it gave her the hope to go on. But she had worked
very hard, she was tired and despondent, and she had just heard from
home that her little step-brother was ill with scarlet fever, and that
she would better not plan to come home for the Easter vacation.
"Oh, I wish I could ask you to come and see me," cried Betty
impulsively, "but you know I'm going to the Bahamas."
"How lovely!" said Eleanor. "I can't imagine anything nicer than a
southern trip after this awfully cold, long winter."
Betty wondered if she had heard before about "The Merry Hearts'"
cruise, but decided not to ask. "Where will you go, Eleanor?" she said
instead.
"Oh, to my aunt in New York, I suppose," answered Eleanor, uncertainly.
"Jim is going to stay with a friend in Montreal, so there really isn't
anything else for me to do. I love Aunt Flo dearly, but somehow she
always upsets all my ideas. I'm beginning to see now why father doesn't
care to have me go there. Perhaps I shall decide to stay on here and
rest."
A lonely vacation at Harding seemed very forlorn indeed to Betty.
She went home in a thoughtful mood, and she was still thinking when
her friends drifted in for the customary after-dinner chat, that now
always centred around the Nassau trip. It would be so pleasant for
Eleanor to join the party; but would her coming spoil the feeling of
good-fellowship and fun that made all "The Merry Hearts'" festivities
so delightful?
Betty was still considering the question absently, when she heard Mary
say, "Why can't two of us walk with her, pray tell?"
"Because," announced Katherine pompously, "the sidewalks are very
narrow. The folder says so. You ought to be an even number."
"Hear the omniscient globe-trotter!" jeered Mary. "Well, if you think
we ought to be an even number, counting Miss Hale, why don't you solve
the difficulty by coming along?"
"Why don't I?" sighed Katherine. "Because unfortunately my father has
five other hungry mouths to feed."
Betty slid forward to the edge of the couch. "Girls," said she in a
voice that she tried to keep cool and even, "I know some one that I
think would love to come with us,--if you really think an even number
would be better."
There was the slightest pause, then, "Is it Eleanor Watson?" asked
Bob Parker pleasantly. "Because if it is, I move,--I mean I say that
we have her. I'm sure she'd be no end jolly. Tell her to bring her
mandolin, so she can play when we go off on moonlight sails."
Bob Parker, of all persons, championing Eleanor's cause! Betty felt
as if a thunder-bolt had fallen, and she waited in awed silence to
see what would happen next. Nothing happened--but more thunder-bolts.
Babe said she guessed it was a case of, "The more the merrier." Babbie
wondered if Miss Hale would wish to share her state-room, and suggested
that if another could not be procured for Eleanor, the three B's could
easily crowd into one.
"We often sleep three in a single bed, you know," she explained. Then
Mary in matter-of-fact tones announced that she, Babbie, and Betty
would go over at once to invite Eleanor, and would report to the rest
after study hours. It was all as simple as simple could be. After the
meeting had broken up and the envoys had started for the Hilton House,
Betty remembered suddenly that she had not even told the girls why she
had particularly wanted to include Eleanor.
"But we were just as glad to have her without knowing that," declared
Babbie earnestly after Betty had explained. "This is sort of your
party, you know, Betty. And besides Bob has been just hoping you'd
give her a chance to make up for what she did last fall--when Georgia
joined 'The Merry Hearts.' She never meant to be so rude and she was
awfully ashamed and wanted to make up for it."
Eleanor received the invitation in the same cordial spirit in which it
was tendered, and accepted it so gratefully that any lurking regrets in
the minds of the B's were speedily dispelled.
As Mary put it, "We're cozy as we are, but coziness isn't everything.
And anyhow this is Betty's party, and of course it must go along
according to Betty's ideas--which are always nice after you've got used
to them."
"Betty's party" certainly bid fair to be a great success. Her eyes had
not ceased sparkling over Judge Watson's telegram of thanks, sent to
her personally, as his "daughter's best friend," when something else
happened quite different but equally exciting. Mary and her chum Marion
Lawrence appeared at dinner one evening fairly bursting with suppressed
importance.
"Have you heard the latest news?" they teased. "Guess! Has it anything
to do with you? Easily! Oh, wait till after dinner, and then perhaps
Laurie can be induced to tell. I couldn't because it's her news--her
scoop, as they say in the newspaper offices. You can't expect me to
steal her scoop," ended Mary piously.
So after dinner the Belden House "Merry Hearts" besieged Marion in a
corner, and by dint of bribes and threats finally got at the great
item. "Did any of you happen to know that Dr. Eaton is going to a place
called Nassau at Easter?"
"No! Really?" cried Betty.
"How did you find out?" demanded Roberta.
"It's one of Mary's rumors," declared Madeline.
"Not at all," retorted Mary with dignity. "Tell them how you heard,
Laurie, and then perhaps they'll believe you."
"Met him down-town," began Marion in her most businesslike fashion.
"We walked up together, and he said he'd been buying a new steamer
trunk because his old one was falling to pieces. He seems to have been
to Egypt several times, and to Alaska and Japan and pretty nearly
everywhere else, and now he's going to Nassau."
"Did he say so?" demanded Madeline.
"Certainly he did. He said he had heard it was very quaint and English,
and that for so short a time he thought he should prefer it to Havana."
"But perhaps he's going by rail," suggested Betty. "Father and mother
did that, and then they crossed over from Florida."
"I'm not sure about that," answered Marion doubtfully, "only he seemed
to be counting on several days at sea."
"Then he must be going from New York," declared Nita eagerly. "If it's
four days from New York, it can't be much over one from Florida."
"Of course not," agreed Mary, while her fellow-voyagers exchanged
delighted glances.
"And if he goes from New York he must take the same boat we do," went
on Betty, "because there isn't any other. Oh, Marion, did you tell him
we were going?"
"No, I didn't. I thought I'd keep it for a pleasant little surprise.
He's so extremely fond of girls--though you people seem to be shining
exceptions to that rule."
"I'm glad you didn't tell him," said Roberta hastily. "I only hope I
can keep out of his way. Do you suppose he and Miss Hale know each
other any?"
"That's so," said Mary. "Won't it be joyous news to Miss Hale? When she
gets tired of our childish chatter, she can talk history and literature
with Dr. Eaton. Did you ever hear her mention him, Betty?"
"No," said Betty, doubtfully, "but she knows him a little anyhow. I
remember he went home with her from our faculty-party."
"Girls," began Mary suddenly, "I have an idea! Don't you know how
romances always begin on shipboard? Let's encourage a romance between
the learned lady and the learned doctor. Miss Hale is so pretty and
attractive that she ought to get married instead of burying herself up
here."
"Hear! hear!" cried Katherine, who was dining at the Belden with Betty.
"She's much too nice to turn into a prim, old-maidish blue-stocking.
Don't you think so, Betty Wales?"
Betty laughed and blushed. "I'm awfully fond of her, and I think she's
nice enough for anything, but I think we must be very careful not to
embarrass her or make it uncomfortable for her in any way."
"Of course we'll be careful," promised Mary easily. "We'll give her the
time of her gay young life. 'Merry Hearts'--match-makers--doesn't that
sound well? Betty, do you agree not to tell Miss Hale that Dr. Eaton is
coming? We'd better surprise her too."
And Betty, who had an uncomfortable suspicion that if Ethel knew about
Dr. Eaton, the Nassau party would be straightway minus a chaperon,
gladly promised. "For we're not to blame," she thought, "as long as
we didn't tell him we were going. And if she should back out now----"
Betty's expression indicated the depths of gloom into which such a
calamity would plunge her.
As if the southern voyagers had not already had sufficient unexpected
and exciting blessings showered upon them by a kindly providence,
something else had to happen at the very last moment. The something
else was not on the face of it a blessing. It was a fire.
Bob Parker discovered it. Coming up to her room on the fourth floor
two full hours later than any Harding damsel is supposed to be awake,
she happened to look out the window at the head of the stairs, and saw
a strange light in the Main Building, which was just across the lawn
from the Westcott. Bob was an extremely clear-headed young person. She
rushed into Babbie's room and then into Babe's, commanding them to
rouse the house and dress, so as to be ready in case there was anything
girls could do to help. Then she fled down-stairs and out of the
house in pursuit of her sworn enemy, the night-watchman, who cast one
doubting glance in the direction she indicated, and ran for the nearest
alarm box. Then he and Bob went together to the burning building, and
Bob guarded the outer door, while he pushed up through the smoke to
find out where the fire was and how big it had grown before Bob noticed
it. A minute later the fire company arrived and the fight began.
It wasn't much of a fire, as fires go, but it had started--nobody ever
knew how--in the library, the very worst place it could have chosen;
for every stream of water that the firemen played meant the destruction
of shelvesful of valuable books. But Bob had an idea.
"The Westcott girls are dressed," she said to the fire chief. "Let them
make a line and pass out the books by armfuls."
So the girls worked valiantly, despite the smoke that filled the
hallways, and under Bob's gallant leadership saved a great part of the
valuable Harding library.
Meanwhile the fire had crept under the flooring and burst out in a
recitation room directly beneath the library. But it was soon under
control, and just as the first streaks of flame color brightened
the gray east the sleepy Westcott girls filed home, leaving the
night-watchman and a fireman or two to keep a lookout for further
outbreaks.
Bob slept like a log till ten. On her way to an eleven o'clock class
she met the night-watchman, grinning from ear to ear and bursting with
importance.
[Illustration: THE GIRLS WORKED VALIANTLY]
"The president seen me about last night and he said to me, 'You done
noble, Henry.' Them was his very words, Miss Parker--his very words.
I guess he'll say the same to you, when next he sees you."
"Oh I hope so! I hope he'll say it just that way," laughed Bob,
resolving to seek out the president at once and cheer him with Henry's
unconscious humor.
The next day there was a mass meeting of the student body. The Main
Building was a good deal injured and the sorting, repairing and
rearranging the library would be a work of time. The president wondered
if loyalty to the best interests of the college would make the students
willing to lengthen their Easter recess by a week, and stay on a week
longer in June. The president was very popular and the students voted
unanimously to do as he wished; but "The Merry Hearts" voted with both
hands. "One for ourselves and one for the college," as Mary put it. For
was not an extra week the only thing they needed to make their Nassau
trip perfect? Mr. Wales had urged them to get permission to stay over,
but Mary declared that the mere request would endanger her diploma,
and Helen and Eleanor looked so grave over the proposal for different
reasons that Betty had said no more about it. And now they had had a
present of the extra week. It was all too good to be true.