A RUSTIC DISASTER
The evening of April eleventh saw Hamilton campus in the possession of a
social throng, large, rural and hilarious. The spring twilight was
scarcely ready to drop faint lavender shades over departed day when from
the various student houses on the big green issued veritable country
bumpkins in festival attire. They appeared singly, in twos, threes,
quartettes and straggling groups.
Fortunately for the rovingly-inclined bands of rural pleasure-seekers
the night was warm and balmy. In the mild fragrant spring air, the
giggling maids flaunted their bright calicos and ginghams, unhidden in
their cotton glory by shawl, coat or cape.
The gallant swains who dotingly accompanied the flower-hatted or
sun-bonneted, aproned ladies were a sturdy, rugged-looking lot in their
blue or brown overalls, flannel or gingham shirts, brilliant cotton neck
handkerchiefs and wide-brimmed straw field hats or weather-stained
sombreros. A few ambitious rustic youths had appeared in their own fond
weird conception of party attire. They were amazing and wonderful to
behold.
“These happy hecks at Hamilton certainly have small feet,” remarked a
stocky rustic in a faded pink gingham shirt, a blue and white checked
overall, broad, square-toed low shoes, a bright green neckerchief and a
narrow-rimmed, round straw hat with a hole in the crown through which a
lock of brown hair appeared, standing straight up. The accompanying mask
was a round false face with very red cheeks and high arching brows.
“Well, they can’t help it. If they hide ’em with brogans how can they
dance with the lady hecks?” demanded a tall bumpkin in what he was now
proudly exhibiting on the campus as “my horse clothes.”
“Te, he he,” giggled the stocky rustic. “Truly, Muriel Harding, I never
saw you look so funny before in all my life.”
“Sh-h-h, Jeremiah. I don’t know how you knew me. Since you do, keep it
dark. Some horse clothes! Have one of my cards.” Muriel handed Jerry a
correspondence card in a violent shade of pink. In the center of it was
written: “Horsefield Hanks, Jockey and Post Master, Jayville.”
Jerry continued to giggle at Horsefield Hanks’ gala adornment. It
consisted of a bright blue flannel shirt, a broad red leather belt,
baggy brown trousers tucked into a pair of boot-modeled goloshes, a
rusty black cutaway coat and a red and white striped jockey cap with a
wide front peak. The mask was a false face of particularly ferocious
expression. To look at Horsefield Hanks was not only to laugh. It was a
signal to keep on laughing.
“Where is Marjorie?” Muriel inquired as she turned from bending a
killing glance upon two hurrying maids, evidently intent on joining
their swains. The two called a mirthful: “Hello, sweetness. Where did
your face grow?” and whisked on their way.
“Gone over to the Hall to meet Robin. She has on a fine check yellow and
white gingham dress trimmed with little yellow ruffles, white stockings
and slippers and a white ruffled organdie hat with long yellow ribbon
strings.”
“I’ll certainly know her if I see her. Vera is too cute for words. She
has two overalls on, one over the other, to make her look fat. They’re
blue and her blouse is white. She has a black alpaca coat on, too. She
managed to get hold of a funny little pair of copper-toed boots. She has
built them up inside until she is at least three inches taller. She
won’t be easily recognized.” Muriel rattled off the description in a low
laughing voice. “Ronny has on a pale blue calico. It comes down to her
heels. She has black slippers and stockings, a ruffled blue sunbonnet
and a white kerchief folded across her shoulders. Lucy’s dressed in the
same style except her dress is lavender. Leila is a maid, but I haven’t
been able to pick her out yet. Now how in the world did you know that I
was I?” Muriel demanded.
“I knew the most ridiculous costume I saw would be yours,” chuckled
Jerry. “You’re so funny, you’re positively idiotic.”
“Then I’m likely to win the prize for having the funniest costume. Won’t
that be nice? Come on, Hayfoot, that’s what you look like. Let’s go out
in the world and hunt up Strawfoot. I presume we’ll be mobbed before
we’ve gone far for not having our rustic maids along with us. Anyhow
let’s brave the jays and jayesses as long as we can.” Muriel politely
offered Jerry an arm. “I’m to meet Candace Oliver at seven-thirty at the
Bean holder. I’m a gentleman jockey of leisure until then. The post
office was closed early today. Jayville will have to wait for its mail.”
The gallant pair had not proceeded fifty feet from their reconnoitering
place before they were surrounded by a crowd of swains and maids and
rushed over the green as prisoners to be apportioned to the first two
swainless maids the company chanced to encounter.
Meanwhile a rustic gentleman in wearing apparel becoming to one of his
lowly station had just made a very stealthy entrance to the campus from
the extreme eastern gates. He had cautiously stepped from a smart black
roadster which was parked a little way from the gates, but well off the
highway. Before he had ventured to step from the car he had left the
steering seat and disappeared into the tonneau of the machine, then
simply a motorist in a voluminous leather motor coat, goggles and a
leather cap.
From the back of the car had presently emerged a typical jay in blue
overalls, and a loud-plaided, collarless, gingham shirt of green, blue
and red mixture. He wore a turkey-red handkerchief, knotted about the
neck, an immense flopping hat of yellowish straw, white socks and carpet
slippers with worsted embroidered fronts. In one hand he clutched firmly
a huge red and yellow striped umbrella. The mask, which Leslie had
ordered sent to her from New York, was a very pink and white face,
utterly insipid, with three flat golden curls pasted on the low
forehead. Its expression, one of cheerful idiocy, was as distinctly as
mirth-inspiring as was the fierce face of Horsefield Hanks. In fact it
would have been hard to decide which of the two get-ups was the funnier.
One swift glance about her to assure herself of a clear coast and Leslie
made a dash for the campus gates. She was through the gateway in a
twinkling. She did not stop until she had put a little distance between
herself and the gates. Then she paused, turned, critically surveyed the
highway, the portion of the campus immediate to her and lastly her car.
She was hardly content to leave it there, but there was no other way. It
was well out of the path of other machines, either coming or going on
the pike. She could but hope that no one would make off with it. She
reflected with a wry smile that there were still a few more cars to be
bought, though she might happen to lose that one. As usual she was
prepared to pay lavishly for her fun.
She hurried straight on across the campus past Silverton Hall and in the
direction of Acasia House. It was the most remote from the gymnasium of
all the campus houses. She and Doris had agreed to meet there, making
the appointment late enough to miss Acasia House rustics when they
should set out for the gymnasium. Doris had telephoned her that
afternoon and made the final arrangement for their rendezvous. They were
to meet behind a huge clump of lilac bushes just budding into leaf.
As she came abreast of the lilac bushes a dainty figure in white dimity,
imprinted with bunches of violets stepped forth to meet her. Doris’s
charming frock had a wide dimity sash and her dimity hat, trimmed with
bunches of silk violets, had long violet ribbon strings. She wore
flat-heeled black kid slippers and white silk stockings of which only a
glimpse showed beneath her long gown.
One look at Leslie’s inane false face and she burst into laughter. “Such
a face!” she gasped mirthfully. “The funniest one I’ve seen since I left
the Hall tonight.”
Leslie lifted the spreading hat and disclosed to Doris a yellow wig
which matched the curls pasted to her mask. “My face is my fortune,” she
announced humorously.
“It’s too funny for words. I’m almost afraid we may be rushed.” Doris
cast an anxious glance at the not far distant crowd.
“Am I so funny as all that?” Leslie asked in gratification.
“You are quite extraordinarily funny,” Doris assured. “The crowd on the
campus has been going it strong ever since dinner. They’re awfully
frisky. Once they get into the gym they’ll be wanting to dance. Then we
won’t be in danger. There’s to be a prize given for the funniest
costume. Too bad you can’t stay in the gym long enough to win it.”
“Oh, I don’t want it. I only want a little fun,” Leslie said.
Warily the pair skirted the crowd and went on to the gymnasium. Leslie’s
funny face immediately challenged the attention of a number of frisky
couples parading the great room. They began flocking about herself and
Doris, asking foolish questions in a gleeful effort to learn her
identity. She remained mute for which Doris was thankful. Her vacant
smiling mask merely continued to beam upon her hilarious questioners.
The Hamtown Gilt Medal Band and Orkestry were already in their corner,
importantly ensconced behind a white pasteboard picket fence. They alone
of the ruralites were unmasked. They were simple geniuses of music in
overalls, gay-checked shirts and high-crowned haying hats of rough
straw, speckled green and red. Strings of richly gilded pasteboard
medals struggled across each musician’s manly chest; they testified
eloquently of past musical achievement. A large gilt-lettered sign, high
on a standard flaunted the proud legend: “We have won all the medals in
Hamtown for the past forty years. The only other band was a hand organ.
Notice our decorations.”
The leader and first violin of this renowned group of musicians was tall
and rather blonde, with an imposing blonde goatee and an artistic sweep
of curled blonde mustache. His companion players were hardly less well
supplied with whiskers, mustaches and even side burns. In direct
apposition to the rustic youths of the community of Hamtown they
presented a decidedly mature, dignified appearance. They seemed
complacently well aware of their musical superiority over their humbler
companions and gave themselves plenty of airs.
At intervals about the spacious gym were little open booths where
popcorn fritters, salted peanuts, stick candy, apples and oranges,
molasses taffy and pink lemonade were sold. In each booth a masked
rustic maid presided, keeping a lynx eye on her wares.
After the orchestra had tuned up with considerable scraping, sawing and
tooting they burst into the rallying strains of the grand march. Doris
heard the sound of the music with patent relief. She had grown more and
more uneasy for fear that Leslie might forget her role of silence and
blurt out a remark in her characteristic fashion. Anyone who had known
her in the past would be likely to recognize her voice.
Doris had suggested that it would be better for they two to dance
together the few numbers before the unmasking for which Leslie dared
remain. To this Leslie would not hear. She craved freedom to roam about
the gymnasium by herself and dance with whom she fancied. She and Doris
walked through the grand march together and danced the first number.
Then Leslie left Doris, who was being singled out by two or three husky
farmer boys for attention, and strolled down the gymnasium, her striped
umbrella under one arm.
Behind the fatuously-smiling blonde face her small dark eyes were
keeping a bright watch on the revelers. She wondered where Bean and her
Beanstalks were and tried to pick them out by height and figure. She
decided that a maid in a pale pink lawn frock was Marjorie and promptly
kept away from her. When the music for the second dance began she made
her bow to a slim sprite in fluffy white who accepted with a genuine
freshie giggle.
Encouraged by her success as a beau Leslie danced the next and still the
next, each time with a different partner. She was a good dancer, and led
with a sureness and ease quite masculine. After a couple of turns about
the room Leslie had been obliged to discard her umbrella. She had boldly
set it up inside the orchestra’s picket fence where it would be less
likely to attract the attention of prankish wags.
At the beginning of the fifth dance Leslie was not yet ready to go. She
glanced at the wall clock which stood at five minutes to nine. It was
still too early for unmasking. She believed herself safe for at least
two more dances after the one about to begin. She started toward a group
of two or three disengaged maids.
Suddenly from the farther end of the gymnasium a cry arose which Leslie
mistook for “Unmask.” It threw her into a panic. She forgot in her
dismay that Doris had said the signal for unmasking would be the blast
of a whistle. What she remembered instead was her striped umbrella. She
was only a few steps from the orchestra corner. She made a frantic rush
to it, reached over the low picket fence and snatched up the umbrella.
She turned away, not noticing that she had laid low a section of the
fence. She hurried across the floor, bent only on reaching the door.
“Oh!” A forceful exclamation went up as she crashed against a couple who
had begun to dance. The force of the collision fairly took the breath of
all three girls. Leslie made an unintentional backward step. The
umbrella slid from under her arm toward the floor just as the jostled
swain and his lady were about to move on. It tripped the rustic gallant
neatly and he sprawled forward full length on the highly waxed floor,
dragging his partner with him.
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