nightmare of a terrible figure that led her to an amphitheatre of
grinning enemies, and leered at her: _It's what we call an Immature
Hand!_ She could have suppressed the others, but the Sutton twins were
beyond earthly and human suppression. It seemed to her that she never
met them or passed them in a corridor without hearing their jovial
assurance: "Oh, Martha Williams is all right! Why, the idea! She's as
kind a girl as ever lived--she's nothing like that story. Gracious,
no! She's never been to Paris--she lives in Portland. Why, her
father's a Sunday School Superintendent! Oh, bother! She's as good as
Alberta May, every bit! She has a strong religious--" and somebody
passed on, assured--heavens, perhaps admiring her character! At such
times Martha would read furiously in her French novels or regard the
skull pensively or sit up all night, which annoyed her room-mate and
the lady-in-charge. Her room-mate was an absolutely unimportant
person, and does not come into the story at all.
It is now time to revert to the Twins. When they appeared in the
house, two solemn-eyed, pigtailed imps from Buffalo, they were packed
away together in a double room on the third floor, and except for
their amazing resemblance, were absolutely unnoted. The matron
uneasily fancied a certain undue disturbance on the third floor, the
evening of their arrival, but on going to that level she found all as
still as the grave, and immediately went back downstairs. It is only
due to her, however, to say that she never again made such an error.
From that time on any abnormal quiet in the house was to her as the
trumpet to the war-horse; and she mounted unerringly to the
all-too-certain scene of action. Their plans for the first year were
rather crude, though astonishingly effective at the time. It was they
who invented the paper bag of water dropped from the fourth floor to
burst far below, and waken the house with the most ghastly hollow
explosion; it was they who let a pair of scissors down two flights to
tap against the pane of an unfortunate enemy in the senior class, and
send her into convulsions of nervous and, as they said, guilty fear.
It was they who stuck new caramels to their door-knob, and oblivious
to the matron's admonitions of the hour, waited till in exasperation
she seized the knob, when they met her disgust with soap and
apologies; it was they who left the gas brightly burning and the door
temptingly ajar at 10.15, so that the long-suffering woman pounced
upon them with just recrimination, only to find her stored-up wrath
directed against two night-gowned figures bowed over their little
white beds, as it were two Infant Samuels. It is doubtful if a
devotional exercise ever before or since has roused such mingled
feelings in the bosom of the chance spectator.
It was they who beyond a shadow of doubt won the basket-ball game for
the freshmen--an unprecedented victory--by their marvellous intuition
of each other's intentions and their manner of being everywhere at
once and playing into each other's hands with an uncanny certainty.
This gave them position and weight among their mates, which they duly
appreciated. They were the recognized jesters of the class, and their
merry, homely faces were sure of answering grins wherever they
appeared.
When they returned sophomore year more alike than ever, with happy
plans for the best double room on the second floor, they were met by
quite another kind of grin: its owner, Mrs. Harrow, would have perhaps
described it as firm and pleasant--the Twins referred to it bitterly
as hypocritical and disgusting.
"No, Martha, no. It's no use to coax me--I can't have it. I cannot go
through another such year. If you wish to remain in the house, you
must separate. You can have No. 10 with Alberta Bunting, and Kate can
go in with Margaret--she says she is perfectly willing, rather than
give up the room, and Helen is not coming back till next year. Now, I
don't want to have to argue about it; I think you are better apart."
No one ever accused Mrs. Harrow of tact. Her placid firmness was
almost the most exasperating thing about her. Her decisions, if
apparently somewhat feather-beddish, ranked, nevertheless, with those
of the Medes and Persians, and the Twins walked haughtily away--beaten
but defiant.
Of course it never occurred to them to leave the house, and Kate,
after a time, grew quite contented, for Miss Pattison was eminently
pleasant and tactful, kept the room in beautiful order, and spent a
great deal of time in the Dewey with her sister, an instructor in the
college, and her great friend Cornelia Burt, who was off the campus.
This left the room to the Twins, who were almost as much together as
of yore. But Martha was in quite another case. In her the insult of a
dictated separation rankled continually, and her hitherto mild
contempt for Mrs. Harrow deepened into a positively appalling enmity.
Circumstances unfortunately assisted her feeling, for beyond a doubt
Alberta May Bunting was not adapted to her new room-mate.
She was a wholesome, kindly creature, with high principles and no
particular waist-line. She drank a great deal of milk, and was a
source of great relief to her teachers, her recitations being
practically perfect. From her sophomore year she had been wildly, if
solidly, addicted to zoölogy, and to her, after hours spent in the
successful chase of the doomed insect, the grasshopper was literally a
burden, for she slew him by the basketful. She rendered the
surrounding territory frogless in her zeal for laboratory practice,
and in her senior year it was rumored that stray cats fled at her
approach: "She'll cut me up in my sleep," said Martha, gloomily, "and
soak me in formaline in the bath-tub--the idiot!"
For, although the "h'Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day-and-the-terror-that-
walketh-by-night," as Martha Williams, in a burst of inspiration, had
named her, could not, of course, have known it, Sutton M., as she was
most commonly called, loathed and despised bugs, reptiles, and
crawling and dismembered things generally, more than aught else
beside. She regarded an interest in such things as an indication of
mild insanity, and as a characteristic of Alberta May's such a
predilection assumed the proportions of a malignant insult.
"It's bad enough to have her drink milk like a cow, and eat graham
crackers like a--like a _steam-engine_," she confided to her
sympathetic sister, "and smell like a whole biological laboratory, and
glower at me, and bobble her head like a China image whenever I open
my mouth, and call me Mottha, which I despise, and say, 'Why, the
_idea_! Why, Mottha, the _idea_! What _do_ you _mean_, Mottha?'
without putting little bottles of Things all around, and my having to
upset them. My gym suit made me sick to put on for a week because I
upset some nasty little claws all pickled in something per cent.
alcohol on the sleeve, and I kept thinking the legs were walking on
me--ugh! they were leggy claws!"
The h'Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day had fondly hoped that Alberta would "do
Martha Sutton a world of good," because of her exemplary, regular
habits and her calm, sensible nature, but this consummation, though
devoutly to be wished, was fated never to be witnessed. Everyone heard
the wails and gibes of Sutton M., but to few or none were the woes of
Alberta May made known. But that she must have had them, her attitude
at the time of the crisis conclusively proved.
The Twins, in the course of their mysterious loitering, overheard a
somewhat sentimental discussion between Evelyn Lyon and an extremely
stiff and correct young man from Amherst, as to whether chivalry and
openly expressed devotion to the fair were not disappearing from the
earth. "Men like shirt-waists and golf-shoes," Evelyn had been heard
to murmur, with a glance at her fluffy chiffon and bronze slippers,
and the senior had protested that they did not, and that emotion, if
controlled, was as deep as in the balcony-serenade days. "In fact,"
said he, finally, "Estabrook and I will serenade you Wednesday
night."
"You would never dare," said Evelyn, with a glance at his eye-glasses
and collar, which for height and circumference might have been a cuff.
"You'd be afraid the girls would laugh." The senior looked nettled.
"Expect us at ten on Wednesday next," said he. "It won't necessarily
be the Glee and Banjo Club, you understand, but it will be a real,
old-fashioned serenade." Then, as Evelyn smiled maliciously, he added,
"Only you must appear at the casement, and throw flowers, you
know--that's what they did." Evelyn frowned, but agreed. "At the end
of the song, I will," she said, with visions of the night-watchman
hasting to the scene.
The Twins were unaccountably strolling about as the senior left the
house, and wondered with great distinctness and repetition why on
earth Evelyn should say she'd be in 14 at the front when of course
she'd be in the East corner on the first floor. "She has some game
up," shrieked Martha, and Kate called back, "Of course she has--some
one will be awfully left, that's all!"
The senior listened, grinned, muttered that women told everything they
knew, and went his way. On next Wednesday night, the entire house
being congregated in the hall near No. 14, where Evelyn, not to be
found wanting in case they _should_ get through a verse, was sorting
carnations, a husky burst of song enlivened the East corner, a
mandolin and a guitar having raced through a confused prelude under
the spur of a youth hopping with nervousness and sputtering as he
punched the mandolin-player: "Hang it all, Pete, get along, get along!
He'll be here in a minute--whoop it up, can't you?"
A muffled baritone began, standing so close to the window with a light
in it that its owner could have touched the sill with his shoulder:
Last night the nightingale waked me,
Last night when all was--
The shade went up, the window followed, and the eyes of the musicians
beheld, below an audience of house-maids, the only people at present
on that side of the house, an enormous woman, with gray hair in
curling-kids, and a blanket-wrapper which added to her size, grasping
a lamp in her hand and regarding them with a mingling of amazement,
irritation, and authority that caused their blood to curdle and their
voices to cease. Pattering feet, a lantern turned on them, and a
voice: "'Ere, 'ere, what you doing? H'all h'off the campus after
ten--get along, now!" completed their confusion, and they left, with
an attempt at dignity and a slowness which they had occasion to curse;
for as they passed the front of the house, from out of the air above
their heads, apparently, two sweet and boyish voices, a first and
second soprano, lifted up to the fresh October sky an ancient and
beautiful hymn:
Some_times_ a _light_ sur_pri_ses
The _Chris_tian _while_ he _sings_,
It _is_--
A window banged forcibly, and the minstrels stood upon no order but
fled to their carriage and rattled out of town.
Evelyn Lyon, with set teeth and artistically loosened hair, rushed
down the hall behind Martha Sutton, who made the room she was aiming
for, slammed the door, realized that the key was lost, and dragged the
first piece of furniture that came to hand against it. This was
Alberta May's desk, and upon it were the collected results of her
vacation work at Wood's Holl. Six jars upset under the impact of
Evelyn's weight, a dozen mounted cross-sections jingled in the dark, a
pint bottle of ink soaked a thick and beautifully illustrated
note-book; and as the Terror-that-walketh-by-night headed Evelyn to
her door and mounted a flight to quell the rising tumult, Sutton M.,
with a hysterical sob, for she was tingling with a delicious
excitement, huddled the desk back into the corner, hoped none of the
bugs were around the floor, and dropped into bed, wondering how ever
Alberta May could sleep through such a night.
And now--though perhaps you may have imagined that there was never
going to be any story--now we are coming to it, and though it is
short, all the characters appear. Alberta May, with an ugly brick-red
flush, told Sutton M. that she need never speak to her again, for no
answer would be forthcoming, and that she must have her things out of
the room before night. Martha was really horribly frightened, and
begged to be allowed to copy the note-book and hire some one to make
the slides and re-pickle the scattered Things; but Alberta May merely
shook her head, replied that she accepted apologies but could not
speak again, and kept her word, for she never noticed Martha from then
till the 22d of June.
The h'Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day gave Martha an address that reduced her
to a pulp, and having sent the Twins off to cry in each other's arms
till dinner-time and got the doctor for Evelyn, who had sprained her
ankle in the rush, she sat down to a cup of tea and council.
To her entered Biscuits, and they talked of odds and ends till Mrs.
Harrow had grown a little calm. The girls in the house accused
Biscuits of a hypocritical and unnatural interest in the h'Arrow:
Biscuits denied this, alleging that she was merely ordinarily
courteous and saw no occasion for treating her like a dog, which
somewhat strong language was addressed with intention to a few of her
friends who certainly did not display any undue consideration in their
manner to the lady in question. She was wont to add calmly that she
saw no sense in having those in authority hate you when a little
politeness would so easily prevent it. And many times had she
successfully interceded for the offender and gained seats for guests
and obtained the parlor for dancing purposes on nights not mentioned
in the bond. On these accounts she made an unusually fine house
president in her senior year, and though as a sophomore she had been
but suspiciously regarded by that officer, she made as firm a bond as
is perhaps possible between powers so hostile as those with which she
struggled.
To-day she listened sympathetically as Mrs. Harrow held forth,
concluding with,--
"Now, Bertha, something _must_ be done. I hate dreadfully to make a
change, so early in the year, too, but Alberta is decided, and says
that she will leave the house to-morrow unless Martha leaves to-night.
And Alberta is perfectly justified: nobody could be expected to put up
with it. I don't know whom to put her with: she certainly can't be
trusted with her friends, and I can't feel that I have any right to
put her anywhere else. I hate to have to admit that I can't manage
them--Miss Roberts insists that they're fine girls and will outgrow it
all, and I have great respect for her opinion, and yet--think of that
disgraceful performance last night! It would have done credit to a
boarding-school! I was so disgusted--"
"Yes, indeed, and I've talked to them, Mrs. Harrow, and told them just
how the house feels about it, but don't you think that it was rather
boarding-schoolish in Evelyn? She started it all, you know."
"Oh, well, of course. Evelyn shouldn't have--but then she is a good,
quiet girl, and--Oh, not that I would excuse her!"
"Certainly not," said Biscuits, briskly. This was good management on
her part, for Evelyn had one friend in the house to the Twins' ten,
though a favorite with Mrs. Harrow.
"Now, Mrs. Harrow, I've got an idea, and truly, I think it would
work," she added persuasively. When she had unfolded the idea, the
lady-in-charge could hardly believe her ears.
"Why, Bertha Kitts, you must be crazy! Nothing could induce me to
think of it for a moment--nothing! It would be the worst possible
influence!"
Biscuits argued gently. Her three years of consistent good sense and
politeness stood in her favor, and though Mrs. Harrow had no sense of
humor whatever, she was enabled to perceive a certain poetic justice
in the plan set before her.
"You know, Mrs. Harrow," she concluded, "that at bottom they're both
nice girls! They're awfully irritating at times, and of course you
feel that they've both occasioned a great deal of trouble; but they're
both honorable, and I'm sure it will be all right: truly, I'd be
willing to take the responsibility--if I can get them to consent to
it!"
"Very well," said Mrs. Harrow, unwillingly, "you know them both better
than I do, Bertha, of course, and it certainly couldn't be any worse
than it is! But at the first outbreak I shall take the matter into my
own hands, and act very severely, if necessary!"
Biscuits went directly upstairs and sought out Martha Williams, who
lounged on the couch with Loti in her hand and a bag of chocolate
peppermints in her lap. Her room-mate, observing that Biscuits glanced
at the clock as she entered, murmured something about getting a
History note-book and obligingly disappeared.
"That's a good harmless creature," observed Biscuits, approvingly.
"Yes, she's in very good training," the creature's room-mate returned.
"Have a peppermint?"
"Pity _she_ can't room with Alberta May," said Biscuits, lightly;
"_she'd_ give her no trouble!"
"Lord, no!" Martha agreed; "she wouldn't trouble a fly!"
Biscuits wandered about the room and absent-mindedly picked up a sheaf
of papers.
"Themes back?" she inquired. Martha nodded.
"'Me see 'em?" Martha shrugged her shoulders in a manner to be envied
of the Continent.
Biscuits opened at a poem that caught her eye, and read it. Martha's
eyes were apparently fixed on _Madame Chrysanthème_, but they wandered
occasionally to Biscuits' face as she read. The poem was called,--
THE LIFTING VEIL
Do you love me now?
Ah, your mouth is cold!
Yet you taught me how--
Are we growing old?
Did you love me then?
Ah, your eyes are wet!
If the memory's sweet,
Why will you forget?
Could you love me still?
Hush! you shall not say!
Love is not of will--
Shall I go away?
Dare you love me now?
Let me burn my ships!
I, myself, am not so sure--
Am I worth your lips?
"Um--ah--yes," said Biscuits, "sounds something like Browning, doesn't
it?"
Martha looked only politely interested.
"Do you think so?" she said impersonally.
"Yes. I like that line about the ships," added Biscuits, tentatively;
"it--er--seems to--er--_imply_ so much!"
Martha looked enigmatically at the skull. "Does it?" she asked.
Biscuits caught a glimpse of a long, hastily written story, and
gasped.
"Why, Martha, did you really hand _that_ in?" she demanded.
"Certainly I did," said Martha; "why not?"
"Because it's really shocking, you know," Biscuits replied. "What
_did_ she say?"
Martha hesitated, but a twinkle slipped into her eye and she smiled as
she replied. "Look and see," she said.
Biscuits turned to the last page, passing many an underlined word or
phrase by the way, and read in crimson ink at the bottom: _Mallock has
done this better: you are getting very careless in your use of
relatives._ At which Biscuits smiled wisely and reassured herself of
an announcement she had made in the middle of her junior year to the
effect that even among the Faculty one ran across occasional evidences
of real intelligence.
"Martha," she said abruptly, "I meant what I said about Mary and
Alberta--they'd make a very good pair."
"And Miss Sutton and I--" returned Martha, sardonically.
"Precisely," said Biscuits, "Miss Sutton and you. Oh, I know nobody
has the slightest right to ask it of you and we all supposed you
wouldn't, but at the same time I thought I'd just lay it before you. I
firmly believe, Martha, that you are the only person in this house
capable of managing Martha Sutton!"
"I?" And _Madame Chrysanthème_ dropped to the floor.
"Yes, you. Now, Martha, just look at it: you know that the girl is a
perfect child--you know that she means well enough, and in her way she
has a keen sense of humor. Now you are much more mature than the
average girl up here and you take--er--broader views of things than
most of them. You wouldn't be so shocked at the things Suttie does;
you could, very gradually, you know, convey to her that her ideas of
humor were just a little crude, you know, and that would strike her
far more than the lectures that Alberta used to read her by the hour."
"Oh! Alberta!" Martha gasped. "Alberta was enough to drive _anybody_
to drink!"
"Just so. Well, as I told Mrs. Harrow, you were the one, but of course
no one had the least right to press it. And of course, in your last
year, and all that, and naturally you haven't any special interest in
her, and it's all right if you won't."
Martha scowled for a moment and appeared to be reviewing her own past
life, rapidly and impartially.
"It would be a good thing to have her kept out of the halls, at
least," she announced, at last, irrelevantly.
"That's what I told Mrs. Harrow," said Biscuits, eagerly. "You see,
Alberta _bored_ her so, Martha. She's a clever child and she likes
clever people. She needs tact, and Alberta hasn't the tact of a hen.
Only, you see, Mrs. Harrow felt that in a great many ways the
example--"
Martha rose and confronted her guest. "I hope you understand,
Biscuits, that if I ever _did_ go into the kindergarten business I
should know how to conduct myself properly. I have never for one
moment tried to fit everybody to my own standards: I appreciate
perfectly that things are--er--relative, and that what may be
perfectly safe for me is not necessarily so for others."
Biscuits coughed and said that she had always known that, and it was
for just that reason that she had hesitated to ask Martha to give up
her ways and habits: habits which if harmless to the unprejudiced
observer were a trifle irregular, viewed from the strictest standpoint
of a college house.
"There's no particular reason why you should," she concluded, "and
perhaps, anyhow, as Mrs. Harrow says--"
"Perhaps what?" snapped Martha.
"Oh, nothing! Only she doesn't believe you could do it, and of course
she perfectly loathes having to make a change this way--she says it's
a terrible precedent--and--"
"See here, Biscuits," said Martha, solemnly, "never mind about my
habits. I suppose," magnificently, "it won't hurt me to get to bed at
ten, once in a way, and it's only till June, anyhow. She _is_ a bright
enough child, and as you say, she needs tact. If it keeps the house
quiet and saves you dinging at 'em all the time, I can do it, I
suppose. I might try studying for a change before mid-years, too."
Biscuits got up to go. "I appreciate this very much, Martha," she said
gravely. "I know what it means to you, but I really think you'll do
her a lot of good--I mean," at a sudden pucker of Martha's brows, "I
mean, of course, that a person to whom her badness doesn't seem so
very terrible will be a revelation to her."
"Oh, yes!" said Martha.
Biscuits waylaid Sutton M. on the stairs after dinner and suggested a
conversation in her own cosey little single room. Sutton M.
accompanied her, suspiciously.
"Now, what do you think you're going to do?" she inquired bitterly, as
Biscuits offered a shiny apple and tipped _Henry Esmond_ off the
Morris chair. "Going to put me with some spook or other, I
suppose--I'll leave the house first. I've had enough of that!"
"No, you won't, either," Biscuits replied. "You'll be as good as Kate
is, and not make me curse the day I was elected house president. Now,
Suttie, I'm going to tell you something that must not go beyond this
room--beyond this room," she repeated impressively.
"Not Kate? I have to tell Kate," said Sutton M., but with an air of
deepest interest. Outsiders rarely confided in the Twins.
"Well, Kate then, but nobody else. Promise?"
Sutton M. nodded.
"I'm going to do what might be greatly criticised, Suttie, I'm going
to tell you that I think it would be a very good thing for Martha
Williams if you would quietly go in and room with her and let Mary
come in with Alberta. Now, I've done no beating about the bush--I've
told you out straight and plain. What do you say?"
"I say it's a fool arrangement, and that I won't have a thing to do
with it," said Sutton M., promptly.
"All right," returned Biscuits, calmly, "that's all. Is that apple
green? I don't mind it, but it makes some people sick."
"You know perfectly well Martha's the last girl in the world--we'd
fight night and day."