AN EMERGENCY CALL
Mindful of past liberal patronage of the Hamilton College girl and with
a shrewed eye to the future the druggist himself ushered the arriving
party of merry girls into the store and obligingly supplied a couple of
large packing boxes in which to stand the dripping umbrellas. Despite
Robin’s despairing opinion that the store would not hold the
umbrella-laden brigade they managed to crowd into it.
By eleven-thirty the last girl had arrived at the rendezvous. They were
a cheery, light-hearted, buoyant company regardless of their cramped
quarters. Their appreciation of Signor Baretti’s invitation to be his
guests at a Thanksgiving dinner showed itself in their bright faces,
spontaneous laughter and gay holiday air.
“It’s one minute past eleven-thirty, and no busses. I’m going to find
out what is the matter.” Robin made the low-toned announcement to Phil
and Barbara with an air of desperation. “I’m going to ’phone Sabini’s
garage where the busses are kept. I can’t imagine what can have happened
to make them late. I wish you two would keep a sharp lookout for them.
If they should come while I am ’phoning you can hurry back to the ’phone
booth and let me know.”
“Suppose they shouldn’t come. What then?” Barbara regarded Robin with
lively apprehension.
“Don’t ask me.” Robin raised a hand as though to ward off such a
catastrophe. “Let’s not suppose anything quite so harrowing,” she added
in a more hopeful tone.
Ten minutes later she emerged hastily from the telephone booth. Her
expression was one of acute dismay. She made hurried way, in and out
among the crowded company of girls, to where Phil and Barbara were
anxiously keeping up a watch at one of the big front windows.
“One of the busses has broken down!” she cried excitedly. “The other bus
is out somewhere. The man at the garage who answered me doesn’t know
where. I tried to hire cars from the garage. There are _none_ to be had.
How are we going to land the dormitory girls at Baretti’s by one? And we
can’t ask Signor Baretti to serve the dinner later!”
“What an _awful_ state of affairs!” Barbara echoed Robin’s
consternation. “We’ll have to do something very suddenly to offset it.
What about hiring the station taxicabs; all of them, if we can get
them.” was her quick suggestion.
“We might do that,” Phil hailed the idea eagerly. “There are five or six
of them. With our car and Lillian Wenderblatt’s we could carry the gang
to the inn at one trip. Go ahead, Robin, and ’phone Mariani’s garage.
I’ll ’phone Lillian.”
“You’re a wonder and a comfort to my distracted old age, Phil.” Robin
showed grateful relief. “Watch me start on the trail of those taxies.
Never mind the expense.” She darted back to the telephone booth she had
recently left. Phil followed her; slipped into an adjoining booth and
proceeded to call Lillian Wenderblatt on the telephone.
Among the waiting company of girls a loud buzz of dismayed conversation
had now risen concerning the non-appearance of the busses. Anna Towne,
Florence Wyatt and Marian Barth, seniors and members of the new
Travelers’ sorority, were anxiously discussing the situation with a
group of their particular friends.
At least a third of the off-campus students who had lived in the old
houses, which had been demolished to make place for the dormitory, now
in process of building, were seniors. While they, with the students of
the lower classes, had been familiarly termed by the Travelers among
themselves as the “dormitory girls,” they hardly hoped to have the
pleasure of living even a few weeks in the dormitory before their
graduation from college. Far from being disappointed at this prospect
they did not stop to consider themselves but showed only the utmost
satisfaction in the good fortune which would fall to the other
two-thirds of the off-campus contingent.
In themselves the dormitory girls were the finest student element at
Hamilton. Originally brought together, and gradually welded into a
congenial, self-governing body by the efforts of Marjorie, Robin and the
Travelers, these earnest, capable girls were daily living up to the Hymn
to Hamilton.
As president of the senior class sunny-faced, easy-going Phil Moore was
their idol, Barbara, as her chum and intrepid co-worker, was hardly less
worshiped. The moment Barbara left Phil to make her way back to the
window she was eagerly surrounded and plied with concerned questions.
“Don’t give up this ship, children,” she gaily declared, raising her
voice above the flood of questions which assailed her. “Robin is
’phoning for taxies from the station and Phil is ’phoning for Miss
Wenderblatt and her car. We shall manage O. K. without the busses.”
Barbara’s assurances were received with jubilant cries of acclamation
from the effervescently happy girls. While she was in the midst of them
she happened to glance toward the back of the store. Phil was just
emerging from the ’phone booth a pleased smile on her face. She paused
before the booth which held Robin and peered in through the glass panel.
Robin was still busy ’phoning, it appeared. Phil turned, saw Barbara
looking toward her and waved a re-assuring hand. It signified that her
part of the telephoning had been successful.
A false alarm of: “Here comes a bus!” caused a surging of the crowd to
the window. Through the rain a large dark red milk truck had been
mistaken for one of the busses. When Barbara finally turned away from
the window it was to find Phil and Robin beside her. Phil was no longer
smiling. Her blue eyes were full of resentment. Robin’s face was a
mixture of dismay, indignation and perplexity.
“What do you think?” she blazed forth to Barbara. “That miserable
Mariani person won’t let us have a single taxi! He claims they are all
in use and will be the rest of the day. He was so hateful to me. He
asked me very sarcastically why we did not use the busses today since we
used them every other day instead of his taxicabs.”
“We certainly are in a pickle. Uh-h-h.” Barbara simulated collapse. “I’d
forgotten all about it, but someone told me long ago that those two
Italians, Mariani and Sabani have been at daggers drawn for years.
Sabani once had the station jitneys, and all to himself. Then came Tony
Mariani with a better looking lot of cars, and ran Sabani out. Then
Sabani built a garage and ran that, but he swore never to accommodate
anyone who patronized Mariani. The bus line belongs to Sabani. I suppose
he has registered the same vow against Mariani.”
“Then we might as well count them both out,” was Robin’s dispirited
ultimatum. “Did you ever know worse luck? To have all our plans upset
because a couple of Italianos are ready to swear a vendetta!”
“If only we could capture a truck. I’d drive it myself,” Phil valiantly
declared. “But it’s a holiday,” she added with a hopeless shrug of her
shoulders.
“That milk truck is the only one I’ve seen today,” said Barbara
mournfully.
“We’ll have to deliver the guests to Baretti in private cars,” was
Robin’s undaunted decision. “Thus far we have two; ours, and Lillian’s
is likely to be here any minute. I’ll start at once with seven girls.
You two stay here and start Lillian’s car back with seven more the
instant she comes. It’s twelve o’clock now. We have exactly one hour.
Phone Gussie Forbes and Calista Wilmot. They both have cars. They will
help us out. So will Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan. I almost forgot our
new Travelers. If those four girls can make one trip apiece, each taking
seven or eight girls to a car, Lillian and I can make a trip and a half
apiece in an hour. We simply must.”
To think was to act with Robin. She had hardly finished sketching her
plan to her chums before she had begun to marshal seven of the dormitory
girls to the door.
“Follow me,” she laughingly directed. “I’m going to make a rapid sprint
for my car. You do the same. Never mind your umbrellas. You’ve not time
to hunt them out now. I’ll bring them to the campus later in the car.”
Across the walk she dashed, an intrepid little leader, and opened the
door of the car nearest to her. Her followers, close at her heels,
merrily stowed themselves into the automobile. A moment or two and Robin
was in the seat and had started the car.
The palm-screened window of a florist’s shop across the street afforded
an excellent view of Robin and her party of girls to an interested
spectator. Leslie Cairns had gone to the pains of donning leather coat,
knickers, rubber hood and high-laced boots, and actually walking in the
downpour from the Hamilton House to the florist’s shop opposite the bus
stand. Her idea was not that of taking a rainy-day constitutional.
Leslie had posted herself behind the barrier of leafy green for the
express purpose of watching the working out of a little plan of her own.
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