A SERIOUS DISCUSSION
"Just one college,
And that's the college we sing to:
Just one college,
And that's the college for us!"
The egotistical song of Hampton came out to Peggy from the door of
Myra's room when she stopped before it on her way home from class.
A comfortable fudge-eating group looked up from the Morris chair and the
couch as she entered.
"'Lo, Peggy," said Gertie Van Gorder, interrupting the song and waving
with a piece of fudge towards an unoccupied chair. "Sit down, Peg."
"Can't," said Peggy. "Is Katherine here?"
"Nope," said Katherine's voice from behind a pillow. "I'm up at gym
having a--c-c--brr-r--" the pillow was made to shiver--"a cold shower!"
"Come on home, Kat, you wretch," laughed Peggy; "I've had a present from
Mr. Huntington."
"_Who_," demanded Gertie, impertinently, "is Mr. Huntington?--and why
didn't you have him to our house dance?"
Peggy and Katherine laughed.
"He's an old man, silly,--and one of my very best friends; in fact, he
sent me to college, and his grandson is Jim that you all met, because I
_did_ have him to the house dance."
"Well, then," pursued Gertie still inquisitive, "what was his present?"
"Something good?" inquired Myra, sliding to the edge of her seat.
"If it is, we're all coming," smiled Gertie graciously.
"Well," Peggy admitted, "it's--salted almonds. Five pounds of them--I
suppose------"
But she was the last one in the room. The group had fled with a rushing
sound down the hall and were already murmuring their appreciation in
Suite 22.
"Save _some_ for me," mocked Peggy, when she overtook them.
"Nice Mr. Huntington," said Gertie amiably, "nice, poor cheated Peggy.
Her shall have one--just one, mamma said,--slap your wrists------"
"Gertie, I'm going to put you up on the hill one of these days," laughed
Peggy. On the hill was a certain state institution which visitors to the
town were always annoyingly mistaking for the college.
"But then, visitors are always funny," as Gloria had once explained.
"One of them asked me where I came from and I said Iowa. She looked at
me a minute and then said, 'Will you please say that again?' Obligingly
I repeated 'Iowa.' 'Isn't that odd?' she said then. 'How strangely you
_do_ pronounce it. Now _I've_ always heard it called Ohio.'"
At the thought of Gloria, the salted almonds became bitter in Peggy's
mouth, and she made a little face of distress.
"Kaddie, _do_ you think Gloria isn't as happy as she might be?" she
inquired of her room-mate.
With the quick facility of college girls for jumping from the most inane
and frivolous pleasantries to the most serious attitude of mind,
Katherine answered thoughtfully.
"Peggy, how could she help being happy?"
This question certainly appeared a staggerer on the face of things.
"Happy?" trilled Doris Winterbean, "Why, I saw her yesterday going to
vespers in the _loveliest_ Belgian blue velvet suit mine eyes have ever
beheld. Happy! My _dear_! I'm free to say that if my own friend Self had
been clad in such Consider-the-Lilies raiment, _I'd_ have gone to
vespers _dancing_!"
"Don't be silly," said Peggy.
"Well," finished Doris defiantly. "Please satisfy our curiosity and show
us how such a suspicion ever crept into that woolly little head of
yours."
She dodged Peggy's pillow as it came hurtling at her with good aim, and
then sat pensively with hands clasped over her knees as if to listen to
a tearful tale.
"I'd never have noticed it, I admit," said Peggy.
"Of course not," chorused the nut-eaters.
"You know," interposed Katherine, "sometimes I think people who aren't
in college, you know,--like Mrs. Moore, just can't imagine a life like
ours, all happy and independent and so arranged that nothing serious
could _possibly_ creep in to trouble us. So if a girl seems abstracted,
or just resentful of too close scrutiny, as perhaps Gloria was, she is
apt to jump------"
"No, no, I can't believe that," said the foolish voice of Doris. "Mrs.
Moore wouldn't jump. Anything that is less a tax on our credulity,
Kathie, but not that,--not _jump_."
"Take the nuts away from that girl. They are beginning to have a bad
effect, in fact, nutty," shrilled Peggy.
"As I was going to say," continued Katherine imperturbably, "people like
Mrs. Moore jump at conclusions------"
"O-oh," murmured Doris. "That explains it. I wish you'd said that
before. It's quite all right, Kathie, now that you've made yourself
clear. The fault was all mine."
"Doris," snapped Myra Whitewell, pinching her, "will you be serious?"
"I'm so serious, I'm going home. You hurt."
"Oh, Doris, do come back; don't act like--like------"
"Like a freshman, I suppose? Well, I am a freshman. And I guess I will
go back to my room and be serious all by myself."
"You needn't go and be mad, Doris."
"Well, you needn't pinch me."
Such comic dismay was registered on the faces of the group that Doris'
intention to play the spoilsport fled in a burst of laughter from her
pouting lips.
"_Gooses_!" she cried at them.
"Doris, you mean geese," corrected Myra, "but it is no term to apply to
a group of perfect ladies anyway."
They were back again in the favorite freshman style of badinage, and the
atmosphere that had threatened to become tense was eased perfectly.
"To go back------" began Peggy.
The rippling notes of irresponsible song came from Gertie.
"Do you think there's any intelligence in this group of highly cultured
persons?" complained Peggy. "Because I don't. I wanted to have you girls
help me about a real problem----"
"But not our problem, Peggy," reminded Katherine; "in fact it's none of
our business."
"It's Glory's, Glory's, hallelujah's," chanted Doris as an apropos
contribution to the talk.
"Oh, I never heard anything so perfectly baffling as you people," cried
Peggy in despair. "Here I was going to have a serious discussion----"
"Serious discussion!" gasped Gertie Van Gorder. "Quick, girls, pass
Peggy some more of her own nuts."
Even while the box was being passed, the irrepressible roomful took up
the Hampton song where Peggy had interrupted them when she found them in
Myra's room.
"Just one college,
And that's the college we sing to:
Just one college,
And that's the college for us.
There's neighbor Holyoke over the way--
There's just one college for us!
But she can neither dance nor play,--
There's just one college for us.
Just one college,
And that's the college we sing to.
Just one college,
And that's the college for us.
Oh, Vassar has a noble site--
There's just one college for us!
But men, men, men are her delight--
There's just one college for us!"