Part 14

"There, woman," she said, "a picture of that might with great plausibility be labelled 'Charleston after the Earthquake.' That is all your fault, and it is what you have got to live up to."

Eleanor laughed. "If that were all!" she said.

"You are right--there is more," retorted Marjorie, putting her own construction upon Eleanor's words. "You have to live this thing down as well as live up to it. And that means you will have to work hard to convince the infidels that you are still in the crusade, and that you stand for something besides the midnight oil. Now if you have yourself well in hand after all this agitation, let's go to Latin." So the four seniors wended their way through the small groups that were still "talking it over," Marjorie declaring that she simply must cut her own lecture and go with Lee to Major Latin, in order to see how to treat a Fellow.

As they passed into Room E closing the door behind them with the peculiarly irritating, undecided rattle that particular door always gives, suspended animation woke again in the lingering underclassmen, who had ceased their talk to gaze after the person who had suddenly become a Personage in the college world. A knot of freshmen talked in low tones.

"Marian Coale is embittered for life because Marjorie didn't get it," suggested one teasingly.

"I'm not," protested the literal-minded accused. "Marjorie doesn't deserve it----"

"Tut, tut, how disloyal!" murmured the tease.

"--so far as scholarship is concerned," she finished.

"What else would you base the choice upon?" was the astonished inquiry from another.

"That is the first thing to consider, of course; but it is not all." And Marian waxed eloquent upon the subject of the ideal European Fellow.

"Who told you all this?" asked she of the insatiable desire to annoy, when Marian paused. "You didn't have it with you when you came to college."

Marian's dark face reddened. "I am learning a few things in college," was the slow answer. "One is to value something beside pure intellect, and to estimate people at more than the amount of grey matter they happen to possess."

This was quite true. Marian's face-about was a matter of great astonishment to the few who had known her at all well when she entered. Most of them traced the change to her friendship with Marjorie, but no one, least of all Marian herself, suspected that design on the part of the senior had brought it about.

As to Marjorie, she hardly believed in the transformation of the freshman, and kept furtively watching her convert for some signs of flagging energy. But watch as she might she never saw in Marian any indications of departure from the way into which she had been drawn. As the spring advanced, and one was greeted upon going out of doors with the faint, exhilarating scent of new-sprung grass, and the sight of a green patch, like the broadcast promise of the prodigal summer, here and there on the brown campus, Marjorie began to feel that the first part of the "crusade" she had placed before herself that February day had been carried out.

The second part, which concerned the extra-college world of men and women she had in the meantime not neglected. Here, her efforts, though not confined to Mr. Ballantyne, were yet centred in him. She dated her spring, as do most Bryn Mawrtyrs, by the changes in field and tree, but in this particular year she counted time also by her progress with the "genus Ballantyne," and especially with him from whom it took its name. In the time of cherry blossoms, when the black old trunks flung over them a white splendour woven by the wind and the sun, she had broken through the outer wall of prejudice that had been so weakened by her first attack. When the wind began to whirl from the apple-trees the full-blown petals, she felt that she was actually gaining ground, and faster than she had hoped; and when finally the daisies whitened the country-side, Marjorie received proof of complete triumph.

This pleasant reward for the labour of a Semester came to Marjorie one Saturday afternoon in the latter half of May. The days had been warm and, as the work piled up in its inevitable way towards the end of the year, wearisome also. Dorothy Van Dyke, to celebrate the passing of the week, persuaded Kate Murray that they two should give a "Ball" to the other five under the big cherry-tree by Pembroke West. So it came about that lemonade flowed freely there that afternoon, and every one of the seven friends returning from a shopping expedition in town, from work, or what not, was welcomed to rugs, cushions and the cool clink of ice under the hospitable boughs. Marjorie was there, of course, helping every one in her own particularly helpful way. It was restful, sitting there in the golden-green afternoon shadows, while the breath of the lilacs drifted along to them with the lazy air. The beauty of it all silenced the little group more than once, and their love for campus and halls rose breast-high--throat-high, and choked them oddly as they thought of going away.

Dear grey, ivy-clad halls! curtained in April with rich, tender green that is pierced to the heart with glorious sunlight, and that undulates, rippling, in the sweet spring wind; reddened by your vines that burn, lit by the sunset, in October; standing bare, proudly silent when the shouting north wind whirls the white snow about you; roofed with silver when the high moon dapples the grey road with the soft dim shadows of your trees; stately but never cold, always beautiful and beloved; if you but set upon your children as they go forth from you (groping their way because their eyes are clouded) your hallmarks of strong intellect, high honour, broad sympathy, and quick insight--who of all _Almæ Matres_ may more truly rejoice in her noble race than Bryn Mawr?

A mood of contemplation could not but soon pass with such a group. The irrepressible Dorothy shattered it now.

"Here's a man coming up the walk," she announced. "Does he belong to any of you? Daughter is with him."

Every one turned to see if he "belonged" to her, and Marjorie seized Lee's arm as she recognized the stately figure.

"Mr. Ballantyne--and Louise. What do you think that means, Lee?"

"Suppose you go to find out," suggested Eleanor. "He probably wants to see you at all events." And Marjorie went.

When she came back half an hour later, after showing the delighted father and daughter as much about college as was possible at that unpropitious time of day, her face was glowing with pleasure.

"Marge," called Dorothy, as she came running across the grass from where she had been speeding the parting guests, "we've decided to cut dinner and stay out here until it's time for the Glee Club to sing on the steps."

"Jolly," answered Marjorie, "who cares for dinner anyway?" She dropped down beside Eleanor and seized her firmly by the shoulder. "Lee Mertoun, Mr. Ballantyne brought Louise out to see her future Alma Mater. She goes to Miss Stevens's school next fall for the last two years of prep. work--then here to college. _Was denkst du?_"

Eleanor clapped her hands delightedly. "Good work, Marge! I knew it would come about. Why, at this rate there won't be any of the genus left in the city of Philadelphia--not an infidel to crusade on----"

Betty Hall's voice broke across the stream of congratulation. "Of course, Carroll, I wouldn't mention it to her, but I think it shows just a _little_ lack of breeding to discuss something we know nothing about!"

The laugh that followed this expansive hint was joined in by Marjorie and Lee.

"Do tell them about the crusade, Marjorie. It is time now, I think, especially as you have met the enemy and made him yours, poetically speaking. You don't know how I have been burdened by this ghastly secret!"

And while the sun sank and the shadows melted into the one deepening shadow we call twilight, and the circling bats flickered against the sky, Marjorie told of the problem that had presented itself to her that winter, and of her plans and efforts for its solution.

"Of course," she finished, "I don't mean to have it take all my time. There are other things more important, and besides it is not the sort of thing that can be done by constant conscious effort. But it seems to me so very well worth while to convince people at large of the value of college training, that I am willing to go out of my way sometimes to do it. And if we _are_ going to do it, we have got to take care that we are broad and sympathetic, and not merely 'cold, learned, dehumanized'----"

By senior year one's friends never let one's statements go unchallenged. Kate Murray as might have been expected, now took up the case for a hypothetical defendant.

"I don't agree with you at all, Marjorie. That's a one-sided way of looking at the matter. You leave out of account, absolutely, the point of view of the people who devote their lives to one particular side of intellectual work, and accomplish the greatest masterpieces of the world. Specialization is the only thing that brings about great results in many cases; and where would be the great works that are above the horrible level of mediocrity, if your doctrine of--of--universal versatility (stop giggling. I'm not trying to be poetic or funny either) were accepted by everybody?"

"See here, Kate," broke in Carroll, "it's you that are getting one-sided now. I see what Marjorie is after and I think she is quite right. Getting bloodless and thin-lipped _is_ one of the dangers of the college woman."

Anne Aldridge's quick voice answered Carroll.

"That's all very well for the world at large, Carroll, but I think Kate has made a very good point in bringing up the case of the great minds of the world. I believe that genius is 'an unlimited capacity for hard work' in more cases than you think. Now if people who have power of that sort should let themselves be turned aside by a desire to be open to impressions from all sides, the world would certainly be the loser by it. I haven't genius even of the hard work description, and so I shall never deny myself the pleasure of as much of your society as I can get, merely to go on pegging away at the regeneration of the pharynx of the earthworm! But if anybody has the power of doing something really great, for the world's sake, don't preach versatility to that person. There are few enough of us that can add to the sum of knowledge."

"That's a part of what I mean, Anne," struck in Marjorie eagerly. "There are few of us that can do that, but there are quantities of people who will never be able to do more than grind, and who yet abstract themselves from the world of actual life as though they were hermit geniuses. I say they have no right to do it, and that they owe as much to their fellows as to their own brains. Don't you see that the existence of such people among us is what gives people like Mr. Ballantyne their opportunity to misjudge the college woman? I've thought a good deal about both sides of this, and I think I have good grounds for carrying on what Lee and I have called, rather as a joke, our crusade. Please don't misunderstand me to mean that the women of really great intellectual power are to let their remarkable work be interfered with by turning that power aside to every little thing."

"So far as we ourselves are concerned," said Kate, "I think we may agree with you, Marjorie; for probably none of us is a genius except our European Fellow--of course she is. And so if we may be allowed to let alone all those bearing the marks of genius, we may join the crusade too. I am willing anyway to help in the attack on the large and flourishing Ballantyne species, and convince it that not all college women consist solely of massive intellect."

"And I too," said Anne.

"So am I," came from each of the others.

"Good children," said Marjorie gaily, as she threw an arm across the shoulders of Anne and of Kate, on either side of her. It was all she said but her satisfaction was deep.

Silence fell among them as it will when good friends sit together. A late robin-song floated over to them from the apple-trees. The evening star, like a sanctuary lamp, swung above the dying altar-fire of the sunset. The cool, nameless fragrance of a spring night filled the air. There under the old cherry-tree sat the seven with no word, until at last the silence was broken by snatches of melody, vague talking, and the laughter from strolling groups. Then, drawn back from their dreaming, they rose and went away to join the singing on the senior steps.

_Edith Campbell Crane, 1900._

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=.

Eliminated duplicate title headings before stories.

Normalized some inconsistent italics.

Some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. roommate vs. room-mate) and contraction (sha'n't vs. shan't) retained from original.

Retained some archaic spellings (e.g. "yoeman").

Page 87, changed "hawthorne" to "hawthorn."

Page 109, added missing close quote after "thine eyes."

Page 125, changed "philanthrophy" to "philanthropy."

Page 212, changed "insistance" to "insistence."

Page 233, removed unnecessary comma after "alumnæ."

Page 290, changed "recognzied" to "recognized."

Page 295, moved misplaced quote from behind "said Anne."

End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Bryn Mawr Stories, by Various