JOKES AND CROAKS.
"I'm beginning to feel that we shall issue happily out of all our
troubles," cried Judy Kean, bursting into her friends' room without
knocking, "and the reason why I feel that way is because when I am
clothed in silk attire my soul is clothed in joy. Especially when
there's dancing to follow. Button me up, someone, please, so that I may
take a good look at my resplendent form in your mirror. I can't see more
than a square inch of neck in my own two by four."
The girls stood back to admire their friend, who indulged her artistic
fancy in rather theatrical clothes much too old for her, but who usually
succeeded in gaining the effect she sought.
"Dear me, 'she walks in beauty like the night,'" said Molly laughing.
"You look like a charming and very youthful widow-lady, Judy, but how
comes it you are wearing black?"
"Black is for certain types," replied Judy sagely, "and I am one of
them. Next to black my bilious skin takes on a dazzling, creamy tint and
my mouse-colored hair assumes a yellow glint that is not its own."
The girls laughed at their erratic friend, who was, indeed, dressed in
black chiffon, from the fluffy folds of which her vivacious young face
glowed like a flower.
"If you object to me, wait until you see Jessie," cried Judy. "She might
be going to the opera, she is so fine. She is wearing pink satin that
glistens all over like a Christmas tree with little shiny things."
As a matter of fact, Nance, whose well balanced and correct tastes in
most things rarely failed her, was the most suitably dressed of our
girls, in her pretty white lingerie frock.
At eight o'clock that evening Molly rolled away luxuriously in a village
hack with Mary Stewart, holding her roses tenderly and carefully under
her gray eiderdown cape, so as not to crush them.
"I'm awfully glad I was so lucky as to draw you this evening, Molly,"
the older girl was saying.
"I'm the lucky one," answered Molly, her thoughts reverting to the
strange discovery of the morning. "Oh, Miss Stewart, what did Frances
Andrews do last year to get herself into such a mess and be frozen out
by all her class this year?"
"I'll tell you perhaps some day, but not to-night. We want to enjoy
ourselves to-night. Can you guide, Molly?"
"Like a streak. I always guided at home at the school dances, because I
was the tallest girl in my class."
"I'm a guider, too," laughed Mary, "and when two guiders come together,
I imagine it's a good deal like a tug of war."
During the ride over to the gymnasium, neither of the girls mentioned
the thing uppermost in their minds: the attempt to set the gymnasium on
fire that night. Nor was the rumor referred to by anyone at the dance
later. It was a strictly forbidden topic, the President herself having
issued orders.
The great room was a mass of foliage and bunting, Japanese lanterns and
incandescent lights in many colors, and it was really quite a brilliant
affair according to Molly's notions, who had never seen anything but
small country dances usually given at the schoolhouse several miles
from her home. Lovely music floated from behind a screen of palms and
lovely girls floated on the floor in couples, to the strains of the
latest waltz.
"I'm afraid I'm going to be an awful wallflower," thought Molly, feeling
suddenly overgrown and awkward in the midst of this swirling mass of
grace and beauty. "I can't help feeling queer and I don't seem to
recognize anybody."
But Molly had plenty of partners that evening, and after that first
delightful waltz, it was nearly an hour before she caught a glimpse of
Mary Stewart again in the crowd of dancers.
"Isn't it jolly?" called Judy, as they dashed past each other in a
romping barn dance.
"I never thought I could have such a good time at a manless party,"
Jessie Lynch confided to Molly while they rested against the wall later.
"But, really, it's quite as good fun."
"Isn't it?" replied Molly. "I think I never had a better time in my
life. But I'm afraid our roommates and friends are not enjoying it very
much," she added ruefully, pointing to the gallery, where seated in a
silent bored row were Margaret Wakefield, Nance Oldham and Mabel
Hinton.
"Of course," said Jessie, "you would never expect Mabel to join this mad
throng, but I'm surprised at Nance and Margaret."
"Margaret prefers conversation parties, I suppose, and Nance is not fond
of dancing, either. She would always rather look on, she says."
The two girls were standing near the musicians and from the other side
of the screen of palms they now heard a voice say:
"Have you danced with the fantastic Empress Josephine as yet?"
"Not as yet," came the answer with a laugh. "But be careful, she is
near----"
Molly moved away hastily, her face crimson.
Jessie had heard the question also and recognized the voice of Judith
Blount.
"Why, Molly," she exclaimed, glancing at her face, "you don't think they
meant----"
"Yes," said Molly, trying to smile naturally, "I do."
She glanced down at her home-made dress. Perhaps it did look amateurish.
She and Nance had worked very hard over it, but, after all, they were
not experienced dressmakers.
"Why, you look perfectly charming," went on Jessie generously. "The
color is exactly right for you----"
"Yes, color," answered Molly, "but there ought to be something besides
color to a dress, you know. Never mind, I shouldn't be such a sensitive
plant, Jessie. One ought not to mind being called fantastic. It's not
nearly so bad as being called--well, malicious--cruel. I'd rather be
fantastic than any of those things. But I did think the dress was pretty
when we made it."
"Come along, and let's get some lemonade, Molly. Your dress is sweet and
suits you exactly, so there."
Then someone came up and claimed Jessie for the next dance, but Molly
was grateful to the pretty butterfly creature for her assurances and she
resolved to forget all about her dress. As she lingered in the corner,
uncertain whether to stay where she was or join her friends in the
gallery, Mary Stewart made her way through the crowd and called:
"Oh, here you are. Some of the seniors are just outside and want to meet
you. Will you come?"
"I should think I would," replied Molly, joyfully. Fantastic, or not,
she had one good friend among the older girls.
"This is Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky," announced Mary Stewart presently
to a dozen august seniors who shook her hand and began asking her
questions.
"We had two reasons for wanting to meet you, Miss Brown," here put in a
very handsome big girl, who spoke in an authoritative tone, which made
everybody stop and listen. (She was, in fact, the President of the
senior class.) "One of course was just to make your acquaintance, and
the other was to ask if you would do us a favor. We are going to have a
living picture show Friday week for the benefit of the Students' Fund,
and we wondered if you would pose in one of the pictures, maybe several,
we haven't decided on them yet. But that dress must be in one of them,
don't you think so, Mary? One of Romney's Lady Hamilton pictures
for instance, with a white gauze fichu; or a Sir Thomas Lawrence
portrait----"
"You don't think it's too fantastic?" asked Molly.
"What, that lovely blue thing? Heavens, no! it's charming----"
Molly had barely time to thank her and accept the invitation, when she
and Mary were dragged off to make up the big circle of "right and left
all around," which wound up the dance. After this whirling romp, three
loud raps were heard and gradually the noise of talking and laughter
subsided into absolute silence. A girl had mounted the platform. She
carried a megaphone in one hand and a book in the other. She was the
official reader of her class, and now proceeded to recite through the
megaphone all the best and most amusing material from "Jokes & Croaks."
According to time honored custom, the jokes were greeted with applause
and laughter, and the croaks with groans and laughter, and anybody who
groaned at a joke or applauded a croak, if she happened to be caught,
was publicly humiliated by being made to stand up and face the jeers of
the multitude. The girls finally decided, after many ludicrous mistakes,
that the jokes were on the sophomores and the croaks were on the
freshmen. For instance, here was a croak:
"A lady of notable luck,
Who cared not for turkey or duck,
Cried, 'Give me old ham
And I don't give a slam,
If it comes from Vermont or Kaintuck.'"
This was greeted with laughing groans, and Molly for the first time
realized the significance of her roommate's name.
Margaret Wakefield figured in several croaks, as "the Suffragette of
Queen's." In fact Queen's girls came in for a good many croaks and began
to wait fearfully for what was to come next. But the witticisms were all
quite good-natured, even the last, which called forth so many merry
groans that they soon ceased to be groans at all and became uproarious
laughter, and Molly, very red and laughing, too, was the centre of all
eyes. This was the croak:
"They have locked me in the Cloisters,
They have fastened up the gate!
Oh, let me out; Oh, let me out.
It's getting very late.
'Tis said the ghosts of classes gone
Do wander here at night.
Oh, let me out; Oh, let me out,
Before I die of fright!
And then there rang a clarion voice.
It's tone was loud and clear.
'Oh, dry your eyes and cease your cries,
For help, I ween, is near.
But promise me one little thing
Before I ope the gate:
Oh, never pass the coffee tray,
If I am sitting nigh;
Or, if you pass the coffee tray,
Oh, then, just pass me by!'"
It was all very jolly and delightful, and for the first time the girls
felt that they were really a part of the college life.
Mary Stewart was very sweet to Molly when she took her home that night,
and the young freshman never realized until long afterwards, when she
was a senior herself, what a nice thing her friend had done; for
sophomore-freshman receptions were an old story to Mary Stewart.