Freshman elections began with a babble.
Everywhere the insistent voices of the lobbyists were heard. Upper-class
girls had come in to impress the freshmen as to the proper name to write
on the voting slips.
"She's a _dandy_ girl," was shouted confidentially into Peggy's ears so
many times, while she didn't know _who_ was nor _why_ she was, that she
couldn't help having a high opinion of her class altogether. Every girl
in it seemed to be "dandy" in somebody's judgment.
"Will you vote for Myra Whitewell?" some friend was imploring.
"No," said Peggy, suddenly, "let me alone. Every one is after me so hard
to vote for other people that I haven't had any time to work for my own
candidate."
And she forced her way through the throng, shouting into each bewildered
and crimson ear, "Vote for Gloria Hazeltine! She's a _dandy_ girl."
"Peggy, _Peggy_, listen a moment," said Katherine's agonized voice.
"What do you think the Andrews girls are doing? Going back on us at the
last minute. They say they will put up Florence Thomas for president if
neither of us will run, and that you and I are traitors to try to elect
some one not from our own prep school."
"Well," said Peggy, gritting her teeth, "we can elect Gloria without
Andrews."
"Oh, but, Peggy, we will be voting against our own school! If they
insist on putting her up this way, won't we have to vote for Florence?"
Peggy shook her head and went on through the thick crowds of freshmen.
"She's a _dandy_ girl," Katherine heard in Peggy's clear tones.
Here in this giant recitation room was assembled a class in the process
of being welded together into an organization having one heart and one
mind. It was a conglomeration of more or less uncertain and dazed girls
now. Some were actively working up sentiment, but for the most part they
stood in groups, each group a stranger to the others, four hundred and
fifty girls, many of whom had never seen each other before this day,
trying to realize that they were of one college flesh and that out of
this roomful must be made the dearest friendships of a lifetime.
There was nothing coherent about them as yet. They held aloof from each
other, partly in timidity and partly in pride, and their interests were
in conflict rather than in unison.
Once pledged to a name for president, they clung to it desperately as if
that particular girl had been their best and oldest friend. And they
hated all the other girls who had been put up.
Slips of paper were passed around and, with a feeling of deep
importance, each freshman wrote the name of the girl she wanted for her
president.
With much rustling the slips were collected in hats by freshmen
appointed by the pretty Junior who presided.
Then with more rustling they were counted, while the freshmen's eyes
popped out of their heads in eagerness to learn how good a showing their
favorite was making.
The silence was most respectful when the pretty Junior took up the
counts the freshmen had made and read in her sweet, serious voice, "Myra
Whitewell 200, Gloria Hazeltine 101, Florence Thomas 99, Corinne Adams
50."
The ignorant freshmen remained breathless, waiting to be told whether
any one was yet their president or not.
"It is necessary, according to the by-laws, to have a two-thirds
majority for a candidate before she can receive office," the presiding
Junior informed them in those dainty and precise tones of hers.
"Therefore another vote will be cast, in the hope of bringing about more
unanimity."
With joy the freshmen wrote again on slips of paper. But the vote came
in again identically the same! The pretty Junior, whose name was Alta
Perry, raised her eye-brows in surprise. Tirelessly the appointed
freshmen passed out new voting slips.
"When a candidate has too few votes to be really in the running,"
protested the Junior mildly, "the voting would get on faster to give
those votes elsewhere. The idea is not to show your loyalty to any one
girl, but to elect a president for the freshman class."
Peggy took council with her henchman, Katherine.
"If those Adams votes go to Florence Thomas, I suppose Gloria will be
sacrificed sooner or later," she said. "If they go to Myra Whitewell--I
think she's the haughty little thing yonder wearing the Mrs. Castle
head-ache band,--why, then Gloria's out, too. The only thing to do is to
get them for Gloria."
She sped away to the Andrews group, where Florence Thomas, who had
always taken life pleasantly and coolly, was the flushed and eager
center of ninety-nine supporters, both those from her own school and the
others who had rallied to her cause.
"Girls," said Peggy, "we're two ahead of you. Please be reasonable----"
But she saw the curious star-like quality of Florence's eyes. And she
hadn't the heart to go on.
The plain, kindly, everyday, comfy Florence to light up and shine like
that! Well, if she had known in time how honors could bring that girl
out, perhaps Peggy would have considered her a perfectly suitable
president from the beginning.
"If _you_ had wanted it, Peggy, I wouldn't have stood a chance,"
Florence breathed down to her from the window seat on which she was
perched so as to overlook her adherents. "The girls only put me up
because you and Katherine failed them."
Failed them! Peggy's heart skipped a beat. The cold glances of the other
girls let her guess only too plainly how she was viewed by the Andrews
contingent, the members of her own school.
"If you give up something that most anybody would want and feel just
right about it, then somebody comes and takes the joy out of life by
seeing you as a villain still," mused Peggy aloud.
She didn't try to get the Corinne Adams votes for Gloria, she didn't
argue with a single Myra Whitewell enthusiast.
And the vote came in again so nearly the same that the pretty Junior was
vexed, and looked at her wrist watch and thence out to the waning
sunlight over the campus. Really an afternoon spent with her own
somewhat intelligent juniors would be greatly preferable to this
monotonous and stubborn concourse of freshmen who seemed to have set
their hearts on making an election impossible. Corinne Adams had lost
seven votes to Myra, and now tragically arose and announced her
withdrawal from the contest. Many voices murmured protestingly "no, no,"
as she came forward and went toward the door, but these sympathizers had
not voted for her when they had the chance.
"I never knew anything so heart-breakingly mixed up," said Peggy. "That
Junior's mad, the freshmen are near to tears and the candidates are all
wobbly."
And then suddenly an idea lifted her right up out of the depression and
doubt that was settling over the room. She stepped over to the desk and
held a confab with the Junior and the freshmen vote-collectors.
Alta Perry snatched eagerly at the chance to bring order out of chaos.
She arose and rapped for attention. Immediately all the despairing
whispers ceased.
"Some one has suggested that the girls would like to see the
candidates," she said, "so that they'd know who they're voting for."
A wave of approval swept her audience.
"So I'll ask the girls who are still up to come forward to the platform
so that--everybody may see them."
The crowd parted, while from three corners of the room the candidates
came.
The Junior smiled apologetically as she ranged them before the class.
This was vastly amusing to her, but she realized that all the voters
were staring forward with hero-worship in their eyes waiting to see
which was the girl for whom each had been so religiously voting, ballot
after ballot.
"Myra Whitewell," introduced Alta Perry, nodding toward the first girl.
The girl acknowledged the introduction with an abrupt lifting of her
chin. She was small and dark, with snapping brown eyes and a fine,
slender, somewhat selfish face with no color in it. Her lips were full
and red.
A pretty, wilful, egotistical picture this first candidate presented to
the freshman class. Myra was the sort of girl who would always have
blindly devoted followers willing to put up with her whims and
ill-tempers because they believed her to be of finer clay than the rest
of the world.
She herself was superbly conscious of this extra fineness. She scanned
the eager faces of the crowd with quick glances, haughty, like a young
princess reviewing her humble but faithful subjects.
"And this is Florence Thomas," continued the Junior, her eyes sparkling
just a bit with the fun of the little drama.
And the class saw Florence Thomas for just what she was--a nice,
ordinary, typical girl like most of them; possessed of a good deal of
executive ability if it was forced into action, neither markedly
self-centered nor self-sacrificing.
She had a little round face, with wavy dark-brown hair around it. They
got no very distinct impression of the second candidate further than
this. She was without the rare gift of personality that "gets across,"
and hence her undoubted, sterling qualities had little opportunity for
appeal.
Her face was flushed with her sudden prominence, and there was a trace
of embarrassment in her smile.
Peggy's thought raced back over Florence's characteristics while at
Andrews. Florence was just the type to have an important place in a
small school, where each individual girl could get to know her and love
her. But here among these hundreds there was nothing about her striking
enough to hold their attention at first glance.
A warm feeling of affection surged up in Peggy's heart for her last
year's comrade.
Just for a moment she would have forced Florence down their throats
whether or not, if she could, without regard for the fact that she
believed another girl was infinitely better fitted for the post.
That other girl's name was now being spoken by the Junior.
"This is Gloria Hazeltine," she announced to the monster class.
And just as the moon and stars fade out of view when the sun comes up,
so the less vivid attraction of Myra and Florence dimmed into
insignificance beside the appealing radiance that was Gloria's.
"O-oh, isn't she sweet!" breathed a girl near Peggy. "I never saw
anything like that hair in my life. For goodness' sake, somebody lend me
a knife to sharpen my pencil so that I can vote all over again for her!"
If she were nothing besides sweet, argued Peggy to herself, she would
never have been put up. Most of the girls were that. But she understood
that the rapturous tribute of her neighbor meant far more than the words
she had chosen.
The quality of graceful and unconscious leadership seemed stamped in
Gloria's face, as she smiled out on the freshmen, who were all beginning
to go wild over her at once.
The slips were passed again while the three candidates faced their
different constituents.
All anxiety had passed from Peggy's mind. She was _sure_ who had won.
The slips rustled triumphantly when they had been sorted after the
voting and were passed up to the Junior again.
"Twenty for Florence Thomas," she read aloud without raising her eyes
from the papers. "Fifty for Myra Whitewell, and--all the rest for Gloria
Hazeltine--Miss Hazeltine is elected president of your class!"
With that announcement something happened to the class. Instantaneously
the fusion took place.
There were no longer separate groups, shy and a little suspicious of
each other: they were one class. They had elected a president. She was
the president of all alike.
At the same instant they all burst forth into the same song:
"Oh, here's to Morning Glory,
Drink her down!
Oh, here's to Morning Glory,
Drink her down!
Oh, here's to Morning Glory,
Whom we'll love till we are hoary;
Drink her down, drink her down,
Drink her down, DOWN, down!
Balm of Gilead, Gilead,
Balm--_Of--Gilead_--
Way down on the Bingo Farm!"
And then they turned and looked at each other with wonder, for the
little rhyme in the middle had come with unanimous harmony to all, and
each had sung this cheer song just as loudly as she could, although a
few minutes before many would have said they didn't even know the tune.
Peggy was thrilled to her finger tips. She squeezed Katherine's arm.
Gloria's beauty and ability had been enhanced twenty fold, for every
girl present, by this spontaneous tribute. And Peggy could think of
nothing more desirable in the world than that she should some time hear
this song laden with her own name.
The other officers were elected with expedition, the vice-presidency
being offered to Myra Whitewell, who indignantly refused it, declaring
she would be first or nothing--thus maintaining a single discordant note
in the general happiness and good humor. The despised office was then
hesitatingly tendered to Florence Thomas, who was almost too pleased to
speak, but made the remark in acceptance that this office, while still
too big for her, was nearer her size and she'd do just everything she
could to deserve their trust and faith in her.
Myra Whitewell edged her way out of the room, with a slight sneer
distorting her pretty lips.
But Florence shook hands with all who came forward and received their
kisses with pleasure that made every one love her.
The class went singing home in every direction from its election. An
enormous hysterically happy crowd flocked in the wake of Gloria. Peggy
and Katherine were in the outskirts of this crowd, and they looked from
the heroine of their making into each other's radiant faces.
"Well, thank goodness, her looks elected her," sighed Peggy thankfully.
"As soon as I thought of a 'seeing is believing' test, I knew we'd won."
"All the girls are saying she's the prettiest president a freshman class
ever had," laughed Katherine, "and the joke on them is that they have a
regular person as well as just a beauty."
"We've certainly done our duty by the class," agreed Peggy.
Katherine turned and looked consideringly at her room-mate.
"You _know_, Peggy, that you could have been the center of that crowd
this minute, if you had wanted to. Dit Armandale did a good deal to work
up sentiment and--you are the best known freshman of any--or were an
hour or so ago. I think you'd have been just as good a president as
Gloria,--and if I do say it myself, a lot better even--and--and just as
pretty----"
"No matter who you room with," trilled Peggy remindingly and
ungrammatically, "you're for Hampton now."
"That Wilson idea again?"
"The very same."
"_Well_, anyway, Peggy, you _could_----"
"Don't!" said Peggy suddenly and almost sharply. "Do you think I am some
kind of _angel_?"
"Ye-es," drawled Katherine affectionately with a slow smile, "sort of."
But Peggy looked away from her laughing eyes, and shook her head quickly
as if she expected to shake out of it some unwelcome thought.
Later in the day--just before dinner time, she and Katherine gathered in
the quantities of notes and invitations that had come to Gloria and
Florence Thomas. It seemed that every girl in college, no matter what
class she was in, had taken immediate occasion to sit down and write her
congratulations to the freshman president.
When they stopped to deliver their burden at Gloria's door, they found
her room fragrant with American beauty roses, and sweet with violets and
spicy with pink carnations. A huge orchid nodded coolly in a Japanese
vase which the girls had never seen before, and an array of dainty
little leather-covered books on every subject from "Friendship" to
"Ibsen" were strewn on the table by the window.
Three new pictures in black walnut frames stood leaning against the
couch with the waiting picture wire beside them.
Gloria came to meet them, flushed with pleasure.
"Oh, I never knew it would be like this," she exclaimed, quite frank in
her delight. "And what have you brought me? Oh, so many notes--aren't
they all _dear_? I didn't imagine college--or anything--could be so
nice."
She sat down on the couch while Katherine and Peggy poured their harvest
of congratulations into her lap. Her fingers felt them over and sifted
them before she unfolded any, and she looked up to laugh her happiness
into her friends' eyes.
"Your room looks wonderful," breathed Katherine, looking around, "just
like a senior's, all of a sudden."
"Doesn't it?" echoed Gloria. "I've solved the mystery of Ditto
Armandale's room seeming so unlike her, as you said it did,--her
furnishings are all gifts from people for getting elected to things."
Two dimples of satisfaction dented Peggy's piquant little face. She
ached from head to foot from the hours of standing and of forcing her
way back and forth through the crowds while she made her brief campaign
appeals. But it had turned out wonderfully. Her candidate had won, and
was this same radiant and beautiful Gloria looking so joyously at her
now.
"Listen to this," Gloria was saying, reading one of the tributes from
the note-room; "this is a darling one:
"'_Dear First Lady of the Freshmen_:
"'Please allow an old, old Junior to express her joy over you
and her envy of you. Once a long time ago--two whole years--she
herself heard the Balm of Gilead song in honor of her own
election to the heights you have attained to-day.
"'I don't think I ever felt so lofty over anything. And all the
college experiences that have come since have never dimmed the
thrilling feeling of that day or made it seem one bit less the
best thing that ever happened to me.
"'But I was afraid as well as glad: afraid that maybe I wouldn't
know how to do everything just as I should and that I might in
some way disappoint the girls who were mentally carrying me
about on their shoulders. In case you ever feel that way, little
First Lady--and this is the reason for my note being written--I
want you to know that you'll be very welcome to come to the
veteran--and get the advice or bolstering up she may be able to
give you as a result of having learned from her own mistakes.
"'Remember the juniors are just in college to be big sisters to
the freshmen, and I hope you will come and claim the
relationship the first free minute you have.
"'Love and congratulations,
"'_Mary Marvington_.'"
"Oh," said Peggy, clasping her knees, "isn't that a lovely one?"
"Well, it's hard to realize that you are one of the great ones, now,
Morning Glory," sighed Katherine whimsically, "so that even
ex-presidents will be flattered when you go to see them. And the
condescension is all yours! Because a brand new freshman president is
more in the college public eye than an 'old' junior who used to be once
what you are now."
"Great ones," Gloria was repeating to herself.
"Do you suppose I really am?" she asked artlessly.
"Yes, you are," Katherine said. "A few hours ago you weren't half as
much as Peggy--and didn't have the outlook she had, but now----"
Peggy and Gloria simultaneously clapped their hands over Katherine's
mouth, and in her quick movement Gloria's mass of folded notes scattered
over the floor like a sudden storm of Luther Burbank snow-flakes.
When they had gathered these together again and had helped Gloria sort
out the most interesting-looking ones to read first, they each kissed
her and went home, leaving her well absorbed in her overwhelming
correspondence before they were even out of sight.
There was a reception in honor of the officers that evening in the
Students' building. The freshmen were tired from their strenuous day,
but they looked charming, nevertheless, in their soft silks and batistes
as they drifted down the walk to the scene of festivities.
"There's Peggy Parsons!" a cry went up as soon as the pair from Suite
22, Ambler House, entered the building.
Peggy was immediately surrounded and borne off toward the receiving
line, down which she was marched with nearly all the Andrews crowd and
ever so many others in her wake. It did her heart good to hear every
Andrews girl telling Gloria Hazeltine that each had voted for her from
the beginning--and they believed it, the happy enthusiasts, Peggy could
see that.
Then Peggy was swept on by the mob and was soon in the middle of a
seethe of dancers, all girls, fox-trotting, one-stepping, waltzing and
bumping into each other in brilliant lavender, pink, blue and white
confusion. How many dances she danced, nor what they were, she never
could remember afterwards. For as soon as one girl left her another
carried her off; juniors, seniors, sophomores and freshmen, she couldn't
tell which. But every one knew her name and hailed her as Peggy as if
they had known her all their lives.
"I never knew anything so funny," she said, when she was limping home
later, with Katherine in the moonlight. "It was just all a kaleidoscope.
I feel a good deal like a moving-picture that has been run too fast."
"I think you were the director of the picture," smiled Katherine,
glancing affectionately at her dishevelled room-mate. "You wrote the
scenario for the election, and directed it, even if you did have to be
in the picture yourself."
"Katherine, you've got an awfully horrid room-mate," mused Peggy in
answer to this eulogy.
"I've got Peggy Parsons," Katherine refuted.
"Well, she's the one I mean," Peggy laughed.
"You'd be ashamed of her if you knew. Katherine, what do you think I
almost wished when we were taking all those notes over to Gloria?"
"It wouldn't be so strange if you'd realized they might all have been
for you," Katherine defended her. "They might, you know. It was just
your crazy generosity that gave them up and deprived me of rooming with
a freshman president. Did you really wish you were president? I hope you
_did_, because if you didn't you're more than human and I don't like
such people."
"There!" cried Peggy, abruptly stopping in her homeward limp, and
throwing her arms around her room-mate's neck, "I'm not half so ashamed
of it now that it's been dragged out into the light of day--the light of
moon, I mean. It's funny how much better it makes a person feel to
confess something mean and be sympathized with for it."
"Anyway," said Katherine, as their tired feet climbed the steps of their
house, "you were the _dea ex machina_, Peggy Parsons."
"The--the what?" demanded Peggy, startled. "Oh, it's mean to spring
anything like that on a trusting room-mate who hasn't any Latin
dictionary along. I'll be driven to using a trot for your remarks, if
you keep on."
Their laughs rang out inside the huge dimly lighted hall, and the
matron, in curl-papers and a purple wrapper, strode forth from her room
noiselessly and confronted the culprits.
"Hush, hush," she said. "At this time of night! Please go up to your
room without any more of this unseemly laughter."
"Yessum, yessum," whispered Katherine and Peggy meekly, and together
they stole up the broad stairway to their rooms, where they snapped on
the light and looked at each other and laughed again--but this time
silently.