PLANNING FOR THANKSGIVING
“Truly, Robin, it is so selfish in me to be going home and leaving so
much for you to do.” Marjorie surveyed Robin Page with a troubled,
conscience-stricken air indicative of her feelings.
“Oh, shucks!” exclaimed Robin blithely as she glanced up at Marjorie
from a list she was busily compiling. “Go home to Castle Dean and forget
for four days that Hamilton is on the map. Don’t be so conceited. We can
get along beautifully without you,” she teased. “Phil, Anna Towne,
Barbara and I are a splendiferous combination. You’ll hardly be missed.”
“I don’t doubt that.” A good-humored smile touched Marjorie’s rosy lips.
“I know things will run along on wheels. What I’m thinking of is the
amount of extra effort your splendiferous combination will have to make.
You see I’m taking with me not only the Sanfordites but Leila, Vera and
Kathie as well. That leaves you and Lillian, the only original Travelers
to keep the new Nineteen Travelers going and manage the different
stunts.”
“Most of the stunts we’ve planned will manage themselves,” was Robin’s
confident assurance. “Remember they are already planned and you did a
large share of the planning. So you see you haven’t been so much of a
quitter as you seem to think.”
“You’re a perfect partner, Page,” Marjorie looked heart-felt
appreciation of the charming, boyish-faced girl who had never failed her
since the two had joined forces for democracy.
“Glad you like me, Dean.” Robin answered the look with her bright,
piquant smile. It amused the two to address each other occasionally by
their family names. “Listen now while I read you the program I’ve jotted
down.”
“Go ahead.” Marjorie hurriedly finished strapping the suitcase she had
just packed and seated herself in a chair to listen.
It was Wednesday morning. She and Robin had respectively cut chemistry
and philology for the purpose of completing the Thanksgiving program to
be carried out on the campus during Marjorie’s and her chums’ absence by
Robin, with the assistance of Barbara Severn, Phyllis Moore and Anne
Towne, leader of the dormitory girls.
“Tonight we’ve left free to the students to get up their own
jollifications,” Robin proceeded. “Most of the girls in the campus
houses have spreads, dinners, etc., planned for this evening. The
dormitory girls, as you know, are going to take in that illustrated
lecture on the South Sea Islands at the Hamilton Theatre. Tomorrow
morning there is to be a special service in chapel. I’m going to sing a
solo. So is Blanche Scott.”
“Oh,” Marjorie cried out in delight. “You never told me Blanche Scott
was coming to Hamilton. How I’d love to see her.”
“You’ll see her when you come back,” Robin assured. “I’ve been keeping
her coming as a surprise for you. She’s going to be at Silverton Hall
for two or three weeks after Thanksgiving. She promised me this visit
last summer. She’s to be married in April, you know.”
“I received her betrothal announcement and that of one of my oldest
Sanford chums on the same day last summer. My Sanford chum, Irma Linton,
is to be married at Easter time. She is the girl who I used to tell you
Elaine Hunter was like,” commented Marjorie. “Blanche and Elaine two
loyal Silvertonites now on the road to matrimony,” she added musingly.
“Yes; and Portia Graham is a third. She won’t care if _you_ know it,
Marvelous Manager. She’s engaged to a doctor. She ’fessed up in one of
her latest letters to me. But this isn’t on our regular program.” Robin
again fell to consulting the list she had written.
“Next comes the dinner at Baretti’s for the dormitory girls. He hasn’t
told us yet what it will cost, but—”
“Oh, goodness!” Marjorie bobbed up from her chair with the suddenness of
a jack-in-the-box. “I had so much to talk over with you I almost forgot
to show you Signor Baretti’s note. It came this morning.” She glanced
anxiously toward the wall clock. “He wants to see us at twelve today.”
“I wonder why?” Robin appeared a trifle startled. “I hope our
Thanksgiving dinner arrangement with him isn’t going to flivver.”
“He won’t fail us, I’m sure. Very likely it’s the cost of the dinner he
wishes to discuss with us. Such a funny little note.” She produced the
Italian’s letter from the top of her chiffonier and handed it to Robin.
The latter read aloud with amused emphasis:
“DEAR MISS DEAN:
“You pleas come to my restaurant at twelva the clock befor
afernoon on Wenesda. you tell Miss Page come to. I am not smart
to write much. you please come here I tell you evrythin.
“Your frien,
“GUISEPPE BARETTI.”
“All right, Guiseppe, we’ll be there at twelve,” smiled Robin as she
returned the letter to Marjorie. “I’ll go over the rest of this now, in
a hurry. This will be our only chance. We’ll bump into all our friends,
once we’re out on the campus. Any of them we don’t happen to meet there
will probably appear at the inn.”
“Too true, Page; too true.” Marjorie agreed with a rueful shake of her
curly head.
“Phil has managed to get up a basket ball game for Thanksgiving
afternoon between two picked teams, regardless of class. It’s to be held
in the gym, beginning at three-thirty. She has had her hands full,
making up the right sort of teams. Gussie Forbes is going to play center
on one team. Miss Walker is to play center on the other team. What do
you think of that?” Robin cast an inquiring look at Marjorie. She added,
without waiting for answer. “Phil had to arrange matters so in fairness
to Miss Walker. She is as fine a player as Gus.”
“Phil is the goddess of fair play.” Warm admiration for invincible Phil
lighted Marjorie’s features. “It will do Gussie and Miss Walker good to
be pitted against each other. Each may discover something to admire in
the other before the game ends. It was a bold stroke; but exactly like
Phil to do it.”
“She says it will turn out for the best. Here we are stopping to talk
again. Hm-m-m!” Robin importantly cleared her throat and went on. “The
dormitory girls are going to be hostesses at a dance in the gym on
Thanksgiving night. You know all about that, so I won’t have to stop to
explain. The rest of this list is made up of the stunts we’ve already
planned. As soon as we’ve seen Baretti I’m going to hurry to Silverton
Hall and letter a large card of announcement to put in the main bulletin
board.”
Marjorie and Robin had been planning for two weeks a series of
amusements to be given during the holiday for the benefit of the
students left on the campus. There were to be paper chases and outdoor
gypsyings on Friday and Saturday if the weather was fine. The Travelers,
nineteen, new, and two, original, were to divide themselves into seven
groups, three in a group, and head the various picnickings to be held at
different points of the country surrounding Hamilton College. Campfires
were to be built for the purpose of roasting eggs, potatoes and
chestnuts. Bacon and marshmallows were to be toasted over the flames on
sticks, and coffee was to be made, the favorite campfire elixir the
world over.
In case of a storm-bound Friday and Saturday a variety of campus-house
amusements would take the place of the outdoor jaunts. Each campus house
contingent had pledged itself to get up an impromptu entertainment on
short notice, if needed, for the amusement of its own household and that
of the off-campus students. Robin and Phil had arranged a concert for
Friday evening in the gymnasium at which to introduce a number of
talented girls who had been shyly lingering in the background.
Saturday evening there was to be an old-fashioned costume party in the
gymnasium to which the whole college was invited. While the weather had
been moderately cold with brisk winds and no snow the Travelers had
plans made for coasting and skating fun should a swift freezing change
accompanied by enough snow visit the campus.
It has taken diplomatic work to enlist the campus houses in the
entertainment campaign. There was a certain amount of ill-feeling in all
of them toward the post graduates. This was the result largely of the
two sophomore factions whose idols were respectively Doris Monroe and
Augusta Forbes. Only the double fact that they could not go home for
Thanksgiving and the inborn love of girlhood to get up shows and “be in
things” made Marjorie’s and Robin’s plans possible. Even haughty Doris
Monroe was looking complacently forward to playing the leading part in a
sketch which no less person than gloomy-visaged Miss Peyton had written.
Ronny had quietly taken upon herself the furnishing of the orchestra and
a buffet collation of sweets, fruit punch and ices for the dormitory
girls’ dance. The old-fashioned hop on Saturday evening was a
half-dollar donation party, for the benefit of the Hamilton poor
families. Phil’s own orchestra would furnish the music. There would be
fruit lemonade only by way of refreshment. The admission fee was to be
dropped into a box with a slitted cover as the guests entered the ball
room. The box was to be in charge of a maid of long ago.
Thus it befell that Marjorie discovered the very opportunity for which
she had been waiting. Doris Monroe, attired in a sleeveless,
high-waisted gown of baby blue, her golden hair massed high on her
lovely head would constitute a perfect custodian of the precious box.
After due consultation Page and Dean decided that Lillian Wenderblatt
should be chosen to tackle the delicate task of asking the haughty
sophomore to deign to make herself useful at the hop.
“We’ve certainly done good work on that Thanksgiving program,” Robin
congratulated as the two girls presently left Wayland Hall to make their
call upon Baretti. “The best part of it is we’ve provided entertainment
for either good weather or bad. We’re becoming invincible. Nothing can
stop Page and Dean from ‘carrying on.’” She laughed at her own jesting
conceit.
Marjorie smiled in sympathy of Robin’s optimistic view. “It looks to me
as though it might rain before night,” she predicted, scanning the gray
masses of clouds beginning to roll up in the west. “I hope those clouds
mean snow instead of rain. It’s hardly cold enough for snow. Anything
but a rainy Thanksgiving! Thanks to _you_, Robin Page, we can discount
the rain on the campus, if it should come. You’ve done a good deal more
than I on the program. And see how I’m going to leave you in the lurch,”
she added lightly.
“I’ve _not_ done more on the program than you, and your presence will
hang over the campus whether you’re here or not,” Robin said with
positiveness. “In time to come the Page part of the firm of Page and
Dean may be forgotten, but the Dean part; never.”
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