Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman Part 28

Within the next few days Peggy and Katherine wrote to Canada to see about the prices of canoes. They labored long and hard in the gymnasium pool and took the swimming tests that were necessary for a college permit for canoe owners.h.i.+p.

And then, sad, and sickening disappointment, they found that freshmen weren't allowed to own canoes at all!

They left the boat-house with downcast eyes, but the glory of the day soon made them lift their gaze, and the first thing they saw was a joyous crew of their cla.s.smates going to sea in a moist-floored row-boat.

In a moment life was as full of promise as ever and the two plunged down the boat-house steps and gave their gymnasium numbers in to charter the first craft of a similar kind that came along.

"The water's just as-wet, under this," laughed Peggy as they finally pushed off.

"And the oars are just as hard to use as a paddle," cried Katherine, who had just dropped one overboard. "Oh, thank you,-yes, we can manage it all right; yes, _indeed_, we've had our swimming test!" This last was to the boat-house boy who rescued the oar and who seemed overly concerned for their safe voyage.

"Paradise," breathed Peggy softly, a little while later, as they drifted under the shade of the overhanging trees and looked up toward the glowing green campus and the bright and exotic botanical gardens of Hampton. "Only the river is named that-but it's _all_ paradise. Oh, Katherine, Katherine, I think we've had a happy year, don't you?"

But Katherine was not inclined at the moment to be either poetical or retrospective. "Mercy!" she cried out sharply, "now I've caught my oar on a root!"

The bright days sped all too fast. A few walks around Hospital Hill, a climb up Mt. Tom, a number of evening street-car rides when the girls sat on the front seat outside the car just back of the motorman with the wind blowing through their hair, a jaunt or so to a distant tea-house, a drive behind one of the bony mares, a few negligible recitations and examinations-and-poof!-they were gone like smoke.

The freshmen were urged to gather up their belongings and hasten home as soon as possible so that the campus rooms would be vacant for that greatest drama of the spring soon to be staged at Hampton-the commencement exercises for the senior cla.s.s.

"And you and I aren't to see a bit of it," grieved Peggy to her room-mate. "I suppose they are keeping it all a mystery from us until we get nearer it ourselves. Don't forget to write to me often and _often_ this summer, Kathie,-it seems strange I'm not going to see you for so long a time."

"Yes, I'll write, of course, child. I'll miss you and I'll miss Hamp, but I'll be glad to be home for a while, at that. My mother wants me and so do the rest of the dear folks. I'm so eager to get there I don't know what to do-and yet my eyes are all full of tears at leaving, at the same time."

"Well, we ought to be laughing instead of crying-neither of us got any conditions or low grades except--"

"Now you needn't remind me of that. I got that low grade in botany because I couldn't draw, not because I didn't know the lessons. It's funny if you have to be an artist for every course--"

"Never mind, Kathie, I barely came out on the safe side of math. I'm going to have a bonfire of my trigonometry and my old higher algebra as soon as I get off the train at home. _They_ shall never cause anybody else such misery."

"I'll give you my botany book to throw in with them."

"All right, your botany book is elected to the conflagration."

"I know one thing that _won't_ go in."

"What's that, my dear?"

"A certain number of the _Hampton College Monthly_."

A quick color swept over Peggy's face.

Laughingly she caught her room-mate's arm and started with her on an expedition to round up the freshmen of the house for a last half day together while they still enjoyed their lowly state.

Florence Thomas, Myra Whitewell, Doris Winterbean, Gertrude Van Gorder, Lilian Moore and May Jenson they summoned out onto the campus where they were all content to stroll, arms intertwined, meeting other groups who were, like themselves, bidding Hampton farewell for the summer.

It was late afternoon, with the sun streaming over everything and the houses and trees casting their long quiet shadows over the gra.s.s, when there drifted by a group of seniors, singing idly one of their senior songs.

The music of it caught Peggy's heart and she shut her eyes against the tears. There were senior celebrities in that group-girls whom she had known very well by sight-whom she would never see again. Part of college they had been, and now they were humming their senior song for the last time across that dear old campus.

How could they bear to leave-when it was to be shut on the outside of the college gates always-except as they flitted back through the years in the doubtful and unenviable role of alumnae?

With a full heart Peggy was glad she was just beginning, glad that she would shout for her cla.s.s's red lion emblem at basketball matches and polo ground for three years more, glad that she was to return and buy, in the pride of her soph.o.m.ores.h.i.+p, her little red canoe, glad that college was still br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with experiences for her, as yet untried and unguessed.

"Come quickly, Peggy," cried Gloria Hazeltine, pa.s.sing the Ambler girls on a run, "Glee club's having a sing over by Seelye Hall. Hurry, or you'll miss some of it."

Glad of the opportunity to be with so great a number of girls once more before vacation, the Ambler freshmen began to run too, and soon the voices of the glee club carried to them.

Through the crowd that had gathered they caught glimpses of the singers'

white dresses.

"They're singing 'Where-oh-where,'" cried Katherine.

And as the words of the familiar song were wafted out to them, Peggy and Katherine smiled their queer pride and happiness into each other's eyes, since for the first time the song applied to _Them_.

"Where, oh, where are those verdant freshmen?

Where, oh, where are those verdant freshmen?

Where, oh, _Where_ are those verdant freshmen?

Sa-afe _now_ in the Soph'more Cla.s.s!"