TRICKERY.
It was several days before the G. F.'s had an opportunity to practise
any of their new resolutions on Frances Andrews. The eccentric girl was
in the habit of skipping meals and eating at off hours at a little
restaurant in the village, or taking ice cream sundaes in the drug
store.
At last, however, she did appear at supper in a beautiful dinner dress
of lavender crepe de chine with an immense bunch of violets pinned at
her belt. She looked very handsome and the girls could not refrain from
giving her covert glances of admiration as she took her seat stonily at
the table.
It was the impetuous, precipitate Judy who took the lead in the
promotion of kindliness and her premature act came near to cutting down
the new club in its budding infancy.
"You must be going to a party," she began, flashing one of her
ingratiating smiles at Frances.
Frances looked at her with an icy stare.
"I--I mean," stammered Judy, "you are wearing such an exquisite dress.
It's too fine for ordinary occasions like this."
Frances rose.
"Mrs. Markham," she said to the matron of Queen's, "if I can't eat here
without having my clothes sneered at, I shall be obliged to have my
meals carried to my room hereafter."
Then she marched out of the dining room.
Mrs. Markham looked greatly embarrassed and nobody spoke for some time.
"Good heavens!" said Judy at last in a low voice to Molly, "what's to be
done now?"
"Why don't you write her a little note," replied Molly, "and tell her
that you hadn't meant to hurt her feelings and had honestly admired her
dress."
"Apologize!" exclaimed Judy, her proud spirit recoiling at the ignoble
thought. "I simply couldn't."
But since her attack on Molly, Judy had been very much ashamed of
herself, and she was now taking what she called "self-control in broken
doses," like the calomel treatment; that night she actually wrote a note
to Frances and shoved it under the door. In answer to this abject
missive she received one line, written with purple ink on highly scented
heavy note paper:
"Dear Miss Kean," it ran, "I accept your apology.
"Yours sincerely,
"FRANCES LE GRAND ANDREWS."
"Le Grand, that's a good name for her," laughed Judy, sniffing at the
perfumed paper with some disgust.
But she wrote an elaborate report regarding the incident and read it
aloud to the assembled G. F.'s at their second meeting.
In the meantime, Sallie Marks had her innings with the redoubtable
Frances, and retreated, wearing the sad and martyred smile of one who
is determined not to resent an insult. One by one the G.F.'s took
occasion to be polite and kind to the scornful, suspicious Frances.
Her malicious speeches were ignored and her vulgarities--and she had
many of them--passed lightly over. Little by little she arrived at
the conclusion that refinement did not mean priggishness and that
vulgarity was not humor. Of course the change came very gradually. Not
infrequently after a sophomore snub, the whipped dog snarled savagely;
or she would brazenly try to shock the supper table with a coarse,
slangy speech. But with the persistent friendliness of the Queen's
girls, the fires in her nature began to die down and the intervals
between flare-ups grew longer each day.
Frances Andrews was the first "subject" of the G.F.'s, and they were
as interested in her regeneration as a group of learned doctors in the
recovery of a dangerously ill patient.
In the meantime, the busy college life hummed on and Molly felt her head
swimming sometimes with its variety and fullness. What with coaching
Judy, blacking boots, making certain delicious sweetmeats called
"cloudbursts,"--the recipe of which was her own secret,--which sold
like hot cakes; keeping up the social end and the study end, Molly was
beginning to feel tired. A wanness began to show in the dark shadows
under her eyes and the pinched look about her lips even as early as the
eventful evening when she posed for the senior living picture show.
"This child needs some make-up," the august senior president had
exclaimed. "Where's the rouge and who's got my rabbit's foot? No,
burned cork makes too broad a line. Give me one of the lighter colored
eyebrow pencils. You mustn't lose your color, little girl," she said,
dabbing a spot of red on each of Molly's pale cheeks. "Your roses are
one of your chief attractions."
A great many students and some of the faculty had bought tickets for
this notable occasion, and the gymnasium was well filled before the
curtain was drawn back from a gigantic gold frame disclosing Mary
Stewart as Joan of Arc in the picture by Bastien Le Page, which hangs
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There was no attempt to
reproduce the atmospheric visions of the angel and the knight in armor,
only the poor peasant girl standing in the cabbage patch, her face
transfigured with inspiration. When Molly saw Mary Stewart pose in this
picture at the dress rehearsal, she could not help recalling the story
of the bootblack father.
"She has a wonderful face, and I call it beautiful, if other people
don't," she said to herself.
As for our little freshman, so dazed and heavy was she with fatigue,
the night of the entertainment, that she never knew she had created a
sensation, first as Botticelli's "Flora," barefooted and wearing a Greek
dress constructed of cheesecloth, and then as "Mrs. Hamilton," in the
blue crepe with a gauzy fichu around her neck.
After the exhibition, when all the actors were endeavoring to collect
their belongings in the confusion of the green room, Sallie Marks came
running behind the scenes.
"Prexy has specially requested you to repeat the Flora picture," she
announced, breathlessly.
"Is Prexy here?" they demanded, with much excitement.
"She is so," answered Sallie. "She's up in the balcony with Professor
Green and Miss Pomeroy."
"Well, what do you think, we've been performing before 'Queen Victoria
and other members of the royal family,' like P. T. Barnum, and never
knew a thing about it," said a funny snub-nosed senior. "'Daily
demonstrations by the delighted multitude almost taking the form of
ovations,'" she proceeded.
"Don't talk so much, Lulu, and help us, for Heaven's sake! Where's Molly
Brown of Kentucky?" called the distracted President.
Molly came forth at the summons. Overcome by an extreme fatigue, she had
been sitting on a bench in a remote corner of the room behind some stage
property.
"Here, little one, take off your shoes and stockings, and get into your
Flora costume, quick, by order of Prexy."
In a few minutes, Molly stood poised on the tips of her toes in the gold
frame. The lights went down, the bell rang, and the curtains were parted
by two freshmen appointed for this duty. For one brief fleeting glance
the audience saw the immortal Flora floating on thin air apparently, and
then the entire gymnasium was in total darkness.
A wave of conversation and giggling filled the void of blackness, while
on the stage the seniors were rushing around, falling over each other
and calling for matches.
"Who's light manager?"
"Where's Lulu?"
"Lulu! Lulu!"
"Where's the switch?"
"Lulu's asleep at the switch," sang a chorus of juniors from the
audience.
"I'm not," called Lulu. "I'm here on the job, but the switch doesn't
work."
"Telephone to the engineer."
"Light the gas somebody."
But there were no matches, and the only man in the house was in the
balcony. However, he managed to grope his way to the steps leading to
the platform, where he suddenly struck a match, to the wild joy of the
audience. Choruses from various quarters had been calling:
"Don't blow out the gas!"
"Keep it dark!"
And one girl created a laugh by announcing:
"The present picture represents a 'Nocturne' by Whistler."
Then the janitor began lighting gas jets along the wall and finally a
lonesome gas jet on the stage faintly illumined the scene of confusion.
The gigantic gilt frame outlined a dark picture of hurrying forms, and
huddled in the foreground lay a limp white object, for Botticelli's
"Flora" had fainted away.
The confusion increased. The President joined the excited seniors and
presently the doctor appeared, fetched by the Professor of English
Literature. "Flora" was lifted onto a couch; her own gray cape thrown
over her, and opening her eyes in a few minutes, she became Molly Brown
of Kentucky. She gazed confusedly at the faces hovering over her in the
half light; the doctor at one side, the President at the other; Mary
Stewart and Professor Green standing at the foot and a crowd of seniors
like a mob in the background.
Suddenly Molly sat up. She brushed her auburn hair from her face and
pointed vaguely toward the hall:
"I saw her when she----" she began. Her eye caught Professor Green's,
and she fell back on the couch.
"You saw what, my child?" asked the President kindly.
"I reckon I was just dreaming," answered Molly, her Southern accent more
marked than ever before.
The President of the senior class now hurried up to the President of
Wellington University.
"Miss Walker," she exclaimed, her voice trembling with indignation, "we
have just found out, or, rather, the engineer has discovered, that some
one has cut the electric wires. It was a clean cut, right through. I do
think it was an outrage." She was almost sobbing in her righteous
anger.
The President's face looked very grave.
"Are you sure of this?" she asked.
"It's true, ma'am," put in the engineer, who had followed close on the
heels of the senior.
Without a word, President Walker rose and walked to the centre of the
platform. With much subdued merriment the students were leaving the
gymnasium in a body. Lifting a small chair standing near, she rapped
with it on the floor for order. Instantly, every student faced the
platform, and those who had not reached the aisles sat down.
"Young ladies," began the President in her calm, cultivated tones that
could strike terror to the heart of any erring student, "I wish to speak
a word with you before you leave the gymnasium to-night. Probably most
of you are aware by this time that the accident to the electric lighting
was really not an accident at all, but the result of a deliberate act by
some one in this room. Of course, I realize, that in so large a body of
students as we have at Wellington University there must, of necessity,
be some black sheep. These we endeavor, by every effort, to regenerate
and by mid-years it is usually not a difficult matter to discover those
who are in earnest and those who consider Wellington College merely a
place of amusement. Those who do consider it as such, naturally, do
not--er--remain with us after mid-years."
To Molly, sitting on the platform, and to other trembling freshmen in
the audience, the President seemed for the moment like a great and stern
judge, who had appointed mid-years as the time for a general execution
of criminals.
"I consider," went on the speaker in slow and even tones, "idleness a
most unfortunate quality, and I am prepared to combat it and to convince
any of my girls who show that tendency that good hard work and only good
hard work will bring success. A great many girls come here preferring
idleness and learn to repent it--before mid-years."
A wave of subdued laughter swept over the audience.
"But," said the President, her voice growing louder and sterner, "young
ladies, I am not prepared to combat chicanery and trickery by anything
except the most severe measures, and if there is one among you who
thinks and believes she can commit such despicable follies as that
which has been done to-night, and escape--I would say to her that she is
mistaken. I shall not endure such treachery. It shall be rooted out. For
the honor and the illustrious name of this institution, I now ask each
one of you to help me, and if there is one among you who knows the
culprit and does not report it to me at once, I shall hold that girl as
responsible as the real culprit. You may go now, and think well over
what I have said."
The President retired and the students filed soberly and quietly from
the gymnasium.
"How do you feel now, dear?" asked President Walker, leaning over Molly
and taking her hand.
"Much better, thank you," answered Molly, timidly.
"Could you hear what I was saying to the girls?" continued the
President, looking at her closely.
"Yes," faltered Molly.
"Think over it, then. And you had better stay in bed a few days until
you feel better. Have you prescribed for her, doctor?"
The doctor nodded. He was a bluff, kindly Scotchman.
"A little anaemic and tired out. A good tonic and more sleep will put her
to rights."
Mary Stewart had telephoned for a carriage to take Molly home, and Judy,
filled with passionate devotion when anything was the matter, hurried
ahead to turn down the bed, lay out gown and wrapper and make a cup of
bouillon out of hot water and a beef juice capsule; and finally assist
her beloved friend--whom she occasionally chastened--to remove her
clothes and get into bed.
"I may not have many chances to wait on you, Molly, darling," she
exclaimed, when Molly protested at so much devotion. "I may not have a
chance after mid-years."
If she had mentioned death itself, she could not have used a more tragic
tone.
"Judy," cried Molly, slipping her arms around her friend's neck, "I'm
not going to let you go at mid-years if I have to study for two."