Betty Wales, Senior Part 29

A HOOP-ROLLING AND A TRAGEDY

19-- was having its hoop-rolling. This is the way a senior hoop-rolling is managed: custom decrees that it may take place on any afternoon of senior week, which is the week before commencement when the seniors'

work is over though the rest of the cla.s.ses are still toiling over their June exams. Some morning a senior who feels particularly young and frolicsome suggests to her friends at chapel that, as the time-honored official notice puts it,

"The day has come, the seniors said, To have our little fling.

Let's buy our hoops and roll them round, And laugh and dance and sing."

If her friends also feel frolicsome they pa.s.s the word along, and unless some last year's girls have bequeathed them hoops, they hurry down-town to buy them of the Harding dealer who always keeps a stock on hand for these annual emergencies. The seniors dress for luncheon in "little girl" fas.h.i.+on, skirts up and hair down, and the minute the meal is over they rush out into the suns.h.i.+ne to roll hoop, skip rope, swing in the long-suffering hammocks under the apple trees, and romp to their hearts'

content. Freshmen hurrying by to their Livy exam, turn green with envy, and soph.o.m.ores and juniors "cramming" history and logic indoors lean out of their windows to laugh and applaud, finally come down to watch the fun for "just a minute," and forget to go back at all.

19-- had its hoop-rolling the very first day of senior week. As Madeline Ayres said when she proposed it, you couldn't tell what might turn up, in the way of either fun or weather, for the other days, so it was best to lose no time. And such a gay and festive hoop-rolling as it was!

First they had a hoop-rolling parade through the campus, and then some hoop-rolling contests for which the prizes were bunches of daisies, "presented with acknowledgments to Miss Raymond," Emily Davis explained.

When they were tired of hoops they ran races. When they were out of breath with running they played "drop the handkerchief" and "London Bridge." After that they serenaded a few of their favorite faculty. Then they had a reformed spelling-match, to prove how antiquated their recently finished education had already become.

Finally they sat down in a big circle on the gra.s.s and had "stunts."

Babbie recited "Mary had a little lamb," for possibly the thousandth time since she had learned to do it early in her junior year. Emily Davis delivered her famous temperance lecture. Madeline sang her French songs, Jane Drew did her ever-popular "hen-act," and Nancy Simmons gave "Home, Sweet Home," as sung into a phonograph by Madame Patti on her tenth farewell tour.

Most of these accomplishments dated back as far as 19-- itself, and half the girls who heard them knew them by heart, but they listened to each one in breathless silence and greeted its conclusion with prolonged and vigorous applause. It was queer, Alice Waite said, but some way you never, never got tired of seeing the same old stunts.

When the long list of 19--'s favorites was finally exhausted and Emily Davis had positively refused to give the temperance lecture for a third time, the big circle broke up into a mult.i.tude of little ones. Bob Parker and a few other indefatigable spirits went back to skipping rope; the hammocks filled with exclusive twos and threes; larger coteries sat on the gra.s.s or locked arms and strolled slowly up and down the broad path that skirted the apple-orchard.

Betty, Helen and Madeline were among the strollers.

"One more of the famous last things over," said Madeline with a regretful little sigh. "I'm glad we had it before the alums, and the families begin to arrive and muddle everything up."

"Did I tell you that Dorothy King is coming after all?" asked Betty, who, in a short white sailor suit, with her curls flying and her hoop clutched affectionately in one hand, looked at least eight years too young to be a senior, and supremely happy.

"Has she told you, Helen?" repeated Madeline dramatically. "She tells me over again every time I see her. When is Mary Brooks scheduled to arrive?"

"Thursday," answered Betty, "so that she can see the play all three times."

"Not to mention seeing Dr. Hinsdale between the acts," suggested Madeline. "What do you two say to a picnic to-morrow?"

Helen said, "How perfectly lovely!" and Betty decided that if Helen and Madeline would come to the gym in the morning and help with the last batch of costumes for the mob, she could get off by three o'clock in the afternoon.

"That reminds me," she added, "that I promised Nerissa to ask Eleanor if she has any shoes to match her blue dress. The ones we ordered aren't right at all by gas-light."

"There's Eleanor just going over to the Hilton," said Helen.

"Find out if she can go to the picnic," called Madeline, as Betty hurried off, shouting and waving her hoop. "We'll be asking the others."

"El-ea-nor!" cried Betty shrilly, making frantic gestures with her hoop.

But though Eleanor turned and looked back at the gay pageant under the trees, she couldn't single out any one figure among so many, and after an instant's hesitation she went on up the Hilton House steps.

So Betty stepped across the campus alone, and being quite out of breath by the time she got indoors went slowly up-stairs and down the long hall to Eleanor's room. The house was very still--evidently its inmates were all out watching the hoop-rolling. Betty found herself walking softly, in sympathy with the almost oppressive silence. Eleanor's door was ajar, so that Betty's knock pushed it further open.

"May I come in?" she asked, hearing Eleanor, as she supposed, moving about inside. Without waiting for an answer she walked straight in and came face to face with--not Eleanor, but Miss Harrison, champion Blunderbuss of 19--.

"Why, what are you doing here?" she asked, her voice sharp with amazement. "I beg your pardon," she added laughingly, "but I thought of course it was Eleanor Watson. She came into the house just ahead of me."

"She hasn't been in here yet," said the Blunderbuss. She had been standing when Betty first caught sight of her. Now she dropped hastily into a chair by the window. "I was sure she'd be back soon and I wanted to speak to her for a minute. But I guess I won't wait any longer. I shall be late to dinner."

"Why, no, you won't," said Betty quickly. "It isn't anywhere near dinner-time yet." She didn't care about talking to the Blunderbuss while she waited for Eleanor, but she had a great curiosity to know what the girl could want with Eleanor. "And I don't believe Eleanor will have any more idea than I have," she thought.

But the Blunderbuss rose nervously. "Well, anyway, I can't wait," she said. "I guess it's later than you think. Good-bye."

Just at that minute, however, somebody came swiftly down the hall. It was Eleanor Watson, carrying a great bunch of pink roses.

"Oh, Betty dear," she cried, not noticing the Blunderbuss, who had stepped behind a j.a.panese screen, "see what daddy sent me. Wasn't it nice of him? Why, Miss Harrison, I didn't see you." Eleanor dropped her roses on a table and came forward, looking in perplexity first at Miss Harrison and then around the room. "Betty," she went on quickly, "have you been hunting for something? I surely didn't leave my bureau drawers open like this."

Betty's glance followed Eleanor's to the two drawers in the chiffonier and one in the dressing table which were tilted wide open, their contents looked as if some one had stirred them up with a big spoon. She had been too much engrossed by her encounter with Miss Harrison to notice any such details before.

"No, of course I haven't been hunting for anything," she answered quickly. "I shouldn't think of doing such a thing when you were away."

"I shouldn't have minded a bit." Eleanor turned back to Miss Harrison.

"Did you want to see me," she asked, "or did you only come up with Betty?"

The Blunderbuss wet her lips nervously. "I--I wanted to ask you about something, but it doesn't matter. I'll see you some other time. You'll want to talk to Miss Wales now."

She had almost reached the door, when, to Eleanor's further astonishment, Betty darted after her and caught her by the sleeve. "Miss Harrison," she said, while the Blunderbuss stared at her angrily, "I'm in no hurry at all. I can wait as well as not, or if you want to see Eleanor alone I will go out. But I think that you owe it to Eleanor and to yourself too to say why you are here."

The Blunderbuss looked defiantly from Betty's determined face to Eleanor's puzzled one. "I didn't know it was Miss Watson's room until you came in and asked for her," she vouchsafed at last.

"You didn't know it was her room?" repeated Betty coldly. "Why didn't you tell me that long ago? Whose room did you think you were in?"

"I thought--I didn't know whose it was."

"Then," said Betty deliberately, "if you admit that you were in here without knowing who occupied the room you must excuse me if I ask you whether or not you were looking through Eleanor's bureau drawers just before I came in."

There was a strained silence.

"You can have all the things back," said the Blunderbuss at last, as coolly as if she were speaking of returning a borrowed umbrella; and out of the pockets of the child's ap.r.o.n which she still wore she pulled a gold chain and a bracelet and held them out to Eleanor. "I don't want them," she said when neither of the others spoke. "I don't know why I took them. It just came over me that while all the others were out there playing it would be a good chance for me to go and look at their pretty things."

"And to steal the ones you liked best," added Betty scornfully.

The Blunderbuss gave her a vaguely troubled look. "I didn't think of it that way. Anyway it's all right now. Haven't I given them right back?"

"Suppose we hadn't come in and found you here," put in Eleanor.

"Wouldn't you have taken them away?"

"I--I presume so," said the Blunderbuss.

"So you are the person who has been stealing jewelry from the campus houses all through this year." Betty's voice grew harder as she remembered the injustice she had so nearly done Georgia and Miss Harrison's self-righteous attack on Eleanor in that dreadful cla.s.s-meeting.

The Blunderbuss accepted the statement without comment. "They could have had the things back if they'd asked for them," she said. "I couldn't very well give them back if they didn't ask."

"Will you give them back now?" asked Betty, astonishment at the girl's strange behavior gaining on her indignation.