Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College Part 6

"You're not half so sorry as I am," was the tearful retort. "I'll write to Pa and Ma that I want to go home next week. They'll make a fuss, but they'll send for me."

"Are your father and mother very anxious that you should stay here?"

asked Miriam.

"A good deal more anxious than I am," responded Elfreda. "Ma picked out Overton for me long before I left high school. She thinks it the only college going and so does Pa."

"Then, of course, they will be disappointed if you go home without even trying to like college."

"I can't help that," whined Elfreda. "I can't stay here and have the whole college down on me, and that's what will happen. You girls don't know how serious it is."

"I think you had better begin at the beginning and tell us everything,"

suggested Miriam, a trifle impatiently.

"It was the night of the freshman hop that they began to be so mean,"

burst forth Elfreda. "I went to the dance with Virginia Gaines, that soph.o.m.ore who sits next to me at the table."

"Who do you mean by 'they'?" asked Grace.

"Alberta Wicks, the tall red-haired girl, and Mary Hampton, the short dark one. They took me over to the court house," was the prompt answer.

"The registrar reported them to the dean. She sent for them the very day of the dance and gave them an awful talking to and they were perfectly furious with me for telling. They found out that Virginia had invited me to the dance, and told her the whole story. She was horrid to me, and hardly spoke to me all the way to the gymnasium or coming home. They must have told every girl I know, for not one of them would come near me. I had to sit around all evening, for I didn't know half a dozen girls, and you three were too busy to look at me. You can imagine I had a slow old time, and I was glad to get home. Maybe you noticed I wasn't very talkative that night after we got back to the house, Miriam?"

Miriam nodded.

"After that, Virginia and I didn't speak. I didn't care much anyhow, for she made me tired," continued Elfreda. "But when the talk about the soph.o.m.ore reception began I saw that they were going to hand me a whole block of ice. It was bad enough to have them cut me in cla.s.ses and on the street, but I had set my heart on the reception and wrote to Ma to send me a new dress. It came yesterday. It's pale blue with pearl tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and it's a dream. But what good does it do me now?" She stared gloomily ahead of her for an instant, then went on:

"Of course, I knew no one would invite me, but I made up my mind to ask if I could go along with you folks, and I was going to ask you to-night, when just before dinner a boy came here with this note." From the inside of her white silk blouse she drew forth an envelope addressed to "Miss J. Elfreda Briggs." Handing it to Grace she said briefly: "Read it."

Grace drew a sheet of paper from the envelope, unfolded it and read:

"Miss Briggs:

"In reporting to the registrar two members of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s you have offended not merely those members, but the cla.s.s as well. You have shown yourself so entirely incapable of understanding the first principles of honor, that Overton would be much better off without you.

Do not attempt to attend the soph.o.m.ore reception. If you are wise you will leave Overton and enter some other college.

"The Soph.o.m.ore Cla.s.s."

Grace handed the note to Miriam.

"What do you think of it?" asked Miriam, looking up from the last line.

"I don't know what to think," rejoined Grace. "It doesn't seem as though a whole cla.s.s would rise up to settle what is really a personal affair.

Even though the soph.o.m.ores are angry, they have no right to threaten Elfreda and advise her to leave Overton. If the dean knew of this affair I am afraid there would be war indeed."

"Shall I tell her?" asked Elfreda eagerly. "I think I'd better; then they won't dare to make me leave college."

"Listen to me, Elfreda," said Grace firmly. "No one can make you leave college unless you fail in your studies or do something really reprehensible, but there is one thing you must make up your mind to do if you wish to stay here, and have the girls like you."

"What is it?" inquired Elfreda suspiciously.

"You mustn't tell tales," was Grace's frank answer. "No matter what the girls do or say to you, don't carry it to the officials of the college."

"Do you mean that I'm to submit to all kinds of insults and not take my own part?" demanded Elfreda, forgetting her grief and a.s.suming a belligerent air.

"You are not fighting your own battles when you carry your grievances to the dean, the registrar, or any other member of the faculty," said Grace gravely. "You are merely giving them unpleasant information to which they dislike to listen."

"Humph!" was the contemptuous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "The dean made it hot for the girls just the same. I guess she didn't object much to hearing about it."

"You are not looking at things in their true light, Elfreda," put in Miriam. "I'll venture to say that when the members of the faculty were students they were just as careful not to tell tales as are the girls here to-day. Of course, if students are reported to them, they are obliged to take action in the matter, but I'm sure that they'd rather not hear about the girls' petty difficulties."

"'Petty difficulties!'" almost screamed Elfreda. "Well, I like your impudence." Jerking herself from the girls' embrace she stood up and walked to the other side of the room. Stumbling over one of her shoes she kicked it viciously aside, then, leaning her head against the door, her sobs broke forth afresh.

In a twinkling Miriam was beside her. "Poor Elfreda," she soothed. "You are tired and worn out. Take off your hat and coat and bathe your face.

You'll feel ever so much better after you've done that. You mustn't be cross with Grace and me. We are only trying to help you. While you are bathing your face, I'll make some chocolate and we'll have a cozy little time. Won't that be nice?"

Elfreda nodded, winked back her tears, and slowly drawing the pins from her hat, flung it on the foot of her bed. Her coat followed, and seizing her towel from the rack she stalked out of the room and down the hall to the bath room.

"Miriam, you're a darling and a diplomat!" exclaimed Grace, closing the door, which the stout girl had left wide open. "Chocolate is the one thing calculated to reduce J. Elfreda to reason. We will feed her, then renew our lectures on tale-bearing. Never call me a reformer. I am certain that before the year is over J. Elfreda won't know herself."

"Nonsense," scoffed Miriam. "She is an interesting specimen, and furnishes variety, of a certain kind," she added with an impish grin, glancing comprehensively at the disordered room. "As long as I have taken her unto myself as a roommate I might as well do what I can for her. What seems so strange to me is that with all her money she is so crude and slangy. She doesn't seem to have any ideals or much principle either. Yet there is something st.u.r.dy and frankly independent about her, too, that makes one think she's worth bothering with after all."

"How did her father make his money?" asked Grace.

"Lumber," replied Miriam. "They own tracts of timber land in Michigan.

Elfreda can have anything she asks for."

Grace sat down on Miriam's bed, her chin in her hands. She was thinking of the note she had just read and wondering what had better be done.

Miriam, despite her avowal that she was tired of picking up her roommate's scattered clothing, busied herself with reducing Elfreda's half of the room to some semblance of order. Going to the closet, she took down an elaborate j.a.panese silk kimono and laid it across the foot of Elfreda's bed.

"What had we better do about this note?" Grace asked, picking it up from the table and re-reading it.

"What do you think?" questioned Miriam.

"I think we had better ask the advice of some upper cla.s.s girl," said Grace. "I'm going to see Mabel Ashe to-morrow morning. I'll tell her about it. Elfreda mustn't be cheated out of her right to go to the reception."

"But if the whole soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s objects to her, what then?"

"I don't believe the whole soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s does object to her," returned Grace. "I have a curious conviction that not many of them know her even by sight. I think that this note was written for spite."

"Do you think Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton wrote it?" queried Miriam.

"I don't want to accuse any one of writing it, but they are the only students who would have an object in doing so," declared Grace. "I hear Elfreda coming down the hall. Don't say anything more about it just now," she added in a lower tone.

"My goodness, I forgot all about the chocolate!" exclaimed Miriam, scurrying to a little oak cabinet in one corner of the room and taking out the necessary ingredients. "Here, Grace, open this can of evaporated cream with the scissors. You can use that paperweight for a hammer."

Fifteen minutes later, wrapped in the folds of her kimono, J. Elfreda sat drinking chocolate and devouring cakes as though her very existence depended upon it.

"You girls are ever so much nicer than I thought you'd be," she said reflectively, between cakes. "I must say that I'm agreeably disappointed in you, Miriam. I was pretty sure you were a regular sn.o.b, but you're nothing like one. I couldn't help thinking about what you said, Grace, while I was bathing my face," she continued. "It made me mad for a minute, but I've come to the conclusion that you were talking sense, and from now on the faculty will have to go some to get any information from me."