Part 2

Ruth and Julia would hardly have been girls, however, had they been perfectly satisfied with the arrangement of the furniture as planned by Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Barlow. With the exception of a few pictures, the study was supposed to be in perfect order on that first Thursday of the term. But Julia, when they went upstairs after luncheon, decided that the divan must be moved from the windows to the corner opposite the fireplace, and Ruth suggested that the library table should go from the centre to a recess near the mantle-piece. Chairs ranged stiffly against the wall they pulled out into more inviting positions, and moved many other things. They both agreed that several pictures must be rehung, and Ruth began to jump about from mantle-piece to table to make the changes.

“Oh, do be careful!” cried Julia, as Ruth stepped from a chair to the table, with a framed Braun photograph under her arm, and a half-dozen picture nails in her hand. “Do wait,” she added, “until we can find some one.”

“Wait for whom? We can’t call the chambermaid, and Mrs. Colton would be of no more use than—well, than you, Julia. Besides, I’ve hung more pictures than you could count; and—why, what’s that?” she concluded, as a very loud knocking at the door sounded through the rooms. Forgetting the picture under her arm, as she turned she let it fall with a crash to the floor.

“Gracious!” cried Master Percival Colton, astonished at the sight of one Radcliffe girl standing on a narrow mantle-piece with another sitting on the floor picking up fragments of broken glass.

“I hope nothing’s hurt,” said Percival politely, though hardly concealing his curiosity as he handed Julia two letters. Then he turned away rather sadly, as the girls neither explained what had happened nor what they intended to do about it.

“Come down, Ruth,” cried Julia, as Percy disappeared. “Clarissa Herter, that Kansas girl, has sent her card with these letters that she found on the bulletin board. She thought that we might like to have them. Oh, they’re invitations!” she added, as she opened her envelope.

“The Senior, Junior, and Sophomore classes at home in the Auditorium, Saturday, September 30. 4 to 6.”

“Our first college invitation, and from the upper classes, too! Well, it’s evident that they don’t intend to haze us.”

Hardly had Julia and Ruth stepped into the Auditorium that Saturday afternoon when a girl with a ribbon badge greeted them warmly. From a table near the door she took two slips of paper, and, pinning one on Julia’s dress, said pleasantly, “You must excuse my being so unceremonious, but we find that this is the best way of making girls acquainted with one another, by giving them slips of paper with their names written on them. I honestly think that you feel more like talking to a girl if you know her name. Your slips are white, but we old girls wear blue.”

“But how did you know which slips of paper to give us?” asked Ruth, as she received a decoration like Julia’s.

“Oh, I was interested, that is, I asked particularly who you were the other day,” replied the older girl in a flattering tone. “But now I must find your Senior for you,” she concluded; “perhaps you haven’t met her.”

“My Senior?” asked Julia. “Why, how in the world do I happen to have one?”

“Excuse me, then, until I find her. She will tell you all about it.”

Soon Julia found herself standing before a tall, plain girl with glasses, who wore her Senior’s gown ungracefully.

“This is your Senior adviser, Miss Townall, Miss Bourne. I am sure that you will like each other;” and the vivacious usher, asking Ruth to accompany her, turned away to find Ruth’s Senior.

“Miss Darcy is always bright and cheerful,” said Miss Townall, making an effort to talk to Julia.

“Yes, indeed, I like her immensely. She’s a Sophomore, I suppose?”

“Yes, and very popular.” Jane looked at Julia, as if at an utter loss for a subject of conversation, until Julia asked her to explain the system of assigning Senior adviser. In giving information Jane waxed eloquent, and explained that the Emmanuel Society made the arrangements, bringing it about that each Senior should take charge of one Freshman, holding herself ready to give her any needed advice.

“Some of them have two,” added Ruth, who had rejoined them.

“Oh, naturally, for there are always more Freshmen than Seniors; but dear me, it’s bad enough to have one on your mind,” said Jane tactlessly.

“There, I didn’t mean that,” she apologized, at once conscious of her own awkwardness. “Of course I’m delighted to be of help to any Freshman, but there is so much danger of giving the wrong advice, and—” so Jane went on explaining and explaining, as people are apt to when once they have made a mistake, without greatly improving the state of affairs.

“But where is your Senior, Ruth?” asked Julia, to put Jane more at ease.

“Oh, I left her talking to that Western girl. She seemed so deeply interested in her that I thought I might be in the way. We have been introduced, however, and if she wishes to speak to me again, she may take the trouble to find me.”

Julia wondered if Ruth’s annoyance had come from anything said or done by Clarissa. Already she had seen that Ruth did not like the Western girl.

As the rooms began to fill with girls, Julia and Ruth recognized many whom they had seen at examination time, and among them a number from their own classes. Coffee and chocolate and sherbets were served from small tables, and the girls who served and the ushers who helped them were kept busy.

“Not sherbet, but college ice,” corrected a girl at one of the tables. “You’ll grow heartily sick of it in the next four years.”

Then Clarissa, to whom she spoke, replied, “Oh, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; and therefore, as a Freshman I’ll ask for another glass. I suppose that our class will never again be as important as now.”

“Probably never again at Radcliffe, at least until the end of your Senior year. We take the Freshmen up tenderly, treat them very kindly on the first Saturday of the term, and then drop them suddenly. Unless a Freshman shows unusual ability, we are apt to forget all about her.”

“Then I’ll see what I can do to make myself remembered,” retorted Clarissa, as if accepting a challenge.

In the meantime Julia and Ruth had again run across Miss Darcy, and the latter had inquired if it would be an unheard-of thing for her to change her Freshman adviser.

“You can do it, of course. It has been done occasionally, but if I were you I’d wait. So few girls do make a change.”

“I fear that you think me notional.”

“Oh, no,” responded Miss Darcy. “I feel that you are going to be—that is, that you _are_—the typical Radcliffe girl, and that naturally means everything agreeable.”

“Yes, indeed, if we may judge by those who are here to-day.”

“Ah! we are in holiday attire now, but you will like us even at our worst.” And Julia and Ruth, looking about them, agreed that Radcliffe in holiday attire was well worth seeing. The rooms were prettily decorated, and most of the girls wore light and becoming colors. There was little formality, and each girl was not only at liberty to speak to her neighbor, but was sure to be met more than halfway.

Finally, before they separated, the Glee Club girls gathered around the grand piano, and one merry song after another was sung, to the great delight of the Freshmen. One that made the most impression was “The Only Man,” which, although unfamiliar to many of the new girls, was already counted a classic of its kind. Even Jane Townall had been known to laugh at its merry strains.

The song told of a young man who was invited to a Radcliffe tea, who, when he reached Fay House, saw only women in sight:

“The poor young man stood trembling there, And looked about for aid, He’d never been afraid before, But now he was afraid. He gave one long, last lingering look, Then rushed out at the door. I think that he’ll think twice before He comes here any more-ore-ore.

“Now all you Harvard men attend! If ever you get a bid To a Radcliffe tea, be sure and see If any others did. Do you think that you could face the fate, From which our hero ran, Among four hundred Radcliffe girls, To be the only man-an-an?”

There were several other stanzas, and as the hero was described as a particularly brave athlete, the refrain following each stanza was particularly entertaining, for it went somewhat in this fashion:

“He could face the Yale rush line, He’d been captain of the nine, He was not afraid to dine On the new Memorial plan; But he’d never thought to be, At a full-fledged Radcliffe tea, The only—only—only—only—man.”

III THE FIRST “IDLER”

“Who’s going to the Idler?” cried Clarissa one morning to a group around the bulletin board.

Then a little Freshman spoke up timidly, “Why, can any of us go? I thought that it was a club meeting.”

“Oh, the Idler is the only unexclusive institution that I’ve struck in this part of the world. Just sign the constitution and you’re in it for life. Come, you must join; we must make our class felt.”

Pressing nearer the board, one of the group read aloud that all Radcliffe students, regular or special, were invited to a meeting of the Idler Club on Friday afternoon at half-past four in the Auditorium.

Accordingly, they were all in their places before the appointed hour. The Auditorium was overflowing, and some girls even had chairs in the aisles. Ruth and Julia leaned on the ledge of the window opening from the conversation room.

“Why don’t they begin?” asked Ruth impatiently, at quarter of five. But even as she spoke there was a lull in the conversation, and a rather commanding figure rose on the platform.

“That is the President of the Idler,” whispered Ruth, “Mary Witherspoon. I had her pointed out to me the other day.”

Miss Witherspoon made an address that was clear and to the point. She congratulated the old students on the prospect of a successful year for the Idler; she welcomed the new students very heartily, and expressed the hope that all present would at the close of the meeting enroll themselves on the Idler’s membership list. She alluded to the fact that nothing was imposed on them beyond signing the club’s very simple constitution and paying the small annual dues.

“I hope, however, that all Radcliffe girls who can do anything to entertain us, who are willing to act or sing, or even write plays, will speak with me or with some of the Idler officers on the subject. We cannot afford to let any talent lie hidden; and if a girl is too modest to let us know what she can do, some one else will be sure to tell us, and then we shall be obliged to issue some kind of a mandamus to compel her to be amusing.”

All laughed at this, and when quiet was restored Miss Witherspoon announced as the entertainment of the afternoon a farce written by two Idler members, who for the present preferred to be anonymous. Thereupon the curtain rose on a pretty stage set for a drawing-room scene. In the background were two tall plants and a bookcase and a fine water-color on an easel; in the foreground a tea-table, daintily spread, and beside it two young girls drinking tea, and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of a college education.

It was clear as the dialogue proceeded why the authors wished to be anonymous; for there were many local hits, and the applause showed that the audience recognized the college types depicted. The college partisan also created much amusement by describing the homeless creature constantly roaming the world in search of culture.

Julia and Ruth, moving about after the play, saw many of the ushers of the Freshman reception. Now, as then, Elizabeth Darcy was one of the most conspicuous. The refreshments served were very simple,—a punch bowl filled with lemonade stood on a table in the conversation room, surrounded by plates of cakes.

Ruth was soon seized by some of her own special friends, and Julia wandered over toward the Garden Street windows. She probably would not have noticed the girl sitting in a corner behind the periodical case had not a nervous voice exclaimed, “Oh, I am so glad to see you!”

As she recognized Pamela, Julia felt a pang of conscience. Absorbed in her own affairs, she had hardly remembered the Vermont girl. Now she greeted her most cordially, and as Pamela came out of her corner she saw that her face as well as her clothes had a dejected expression. Her dull-brown hair was brushed back tightly, her linen collar was fastened with an old-fashioned brooch. There was no useless furbelow about her non-descript grayish gown, and she wore an expression to match her attire.

But Pamela brightened as Julia held her hand. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” she repeated; “I have been very lonely.”

“Lonely! with all these girls about you?” and Julia glanced toward the girls swarming over the lemonade table, and toward the hall where there were still girls, and girls, and girls.

“I’m lonely because there _are_ so many girls here,” responded Pamela. “I know so few, and every one else seems to have a special friend.”

Again Julia felt that twinge of conscience. She herself had not been altogether guiltless.

“Why, I am your friend, and I’m going to call on you at once, and you must come to see us some Monday soon. We are to be at home Mondays after four.”

This cordial invitation was cordially accepted, but Julia noticed that Pamela did not give her own address.

“You know every one,” the latter exclaimed, as she and Julia walked toward the Auditorium.

“Well, between us Ruth and I have met most of our class. But you ought to know them, too.”

“Oh, I never dare speak first to a girl.”

“But you ought not to feel timid in the presence of mere Freshmen, like yourself or myself.”

“I never can make up my mind to speak to them. I don’t see how I ever dared speak to you.”

“A drop of ink, don’t you remember? That did it”

“Oh, of course it was my duty to apologize.”

“Well, then, just spill a glass of lemonade over one or two of those pretty gowns, and you’ll be justified in speaking to the wearers of them.”

Though Pamela wondered if Julia was quizzing her she was not offended. Julia, realizing that Pamela was more serious than most Freshmen, thought that she might enjoy meeting some of the older and more studious girls. Looking around to see whom among them she could introduce to her, she quickly saw Elizabeth Darcy. But Elizabeth was a conscientious usher, and as soon as she had attended to the wants of one girl she flew toward another. Her eye fell on Julia just when the latter, after following her across the room, had half despaired of a chance to speak to her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bourne,” she said, holding out her hand. “Won’t you let me get you something, lemonade or chocolate?”

“Oh, thank you,” responded Julia, “but I wish to ask a favor. May I not introduce you to a Freshman who has not many friends? She is near the door.”

Elizabeth glanced toward Pamela, standing in a limp and uninteresting attitude. Her quick eye undoubtedly noted every detail of clothes that showed unmistakably the stamp of the country dressmaker.

Elizabeth smiled sweetly, as she would have smiled under even more trying circumstances.

“I am ever so sorry, but I am frightfully busy this afternoon. Some other time, Miss Bourne, but now I could not give a minute to your—your friend; and besides, I haven’t time for any new girl unless I should happen to take a very great fancy to her as I have to you.”

In spite of the touch of this flattery, Julia justly felt annoyed with Elizabeth. “After all,” she reflected, “ushers ought to make themselves as agreeable as possible to all Freshmen, and it isn’t quite right for one of them to decline an introduction.”

Elizabeth had hastened off with polite excuses, and Julia saw her join a group of lively girls at the other side of the room. “She is not working very hard now,” she thought, moving toward Pamela. She had gone only a few steps when a rather shrill voice called her by name. Turning, she recognized a bright little Southerner who sat near her in English.

“Where are you bound? You look like you had something on your mind,” cried the Southerner, whose name, Julia vaguely remembered, was Porson.

“Why, I have a fellow Freshman on my hands; she knows hardly any one, and I would like to introduce her, and—”

“Well, I am at your service if you think that I will fill in the blank. You know this is my second year, though my first as a Freshman, and I always like to meet new girls.”

“Why, thank you,” responded Julia, “I should be delighted. She is in English ‘A,’ too, so you will have one bond of interest with her.”

Pamela was still standing where Julia had left her, but as the two girls approached she held out her hand with a “Good-bye” to Julia.

“I must go now, it is past five o’clock,” she said.

“But that is early,” responded Julia. “I wish that you could stay longer, for I have brought Miss Porson to meet you. She is in our English class.”

But even after the introduction Pamela would not linger.

“I really must go,” she said nervously. “It is past five o’clock.”

“Why, you speak like Cinderella,” cried Miss Porson gaily; “she had to go home at some unheard-of early hour—or was it a late hour? At any rate, nobody ought to be a slave to time.”

The little Southerner with her allusion to Cinderella did not know how nearly she hit the truth. But Pamela, unduly sensitive, winced at the comparison. After bidding the two good-bye, she hastened up North Avenue toward Miss Batson’s.

“Isn’t she a little—just a little odd?” inquired Miss Porson, after Pamela had gone away.

“I cannot say,” responded Julia, “I know her so slightly. I ran across her a day or two before college opened, and in some way I feel drawn toward her, although I have seen little of her.”

IV PAMELA’S PERSEVERANCE

When Pamela Northcote first found herself in Cambridge it seemed, as the children say, “too good to be true.” It had long been her dream to study some day under Harvard professors, but in this world dreams so seldom are realized that she was genuinely surprised that her dream had come to pass. Yet Pamela herself had been her own fairy godmother, and to her own efforts she owed her appearance at Radcliffe.

Pamela had been but a little girl when women first began to study at Cambridge. Even then she made up her mind that if she could she would sometime be an Annex student. The road had been a hard one, but here she was. “It’s worth all I’ve been through to come here, worth it all.” Yet she sighed, thinking of her difficulties in getting enough money to warrant her entering Radcliffe.

Pamela had been early left an orphan, and an uncle and aunt had given her a home, if not grudgingly, at least not always cheerfully. They did what they could for her physical comfort, but they would not encourage her in her desire to go to college; and had they been willing to encourage her, they could not have helped her. They had no money to spare for superfluous things, and a college education—at least for a woman—was certainly a superfluity.

That she should go to college had seemed to Pamela a filial duty. Her father, whom she remembered but dimly, had worked his way through a small New England college and later through the Harvard Divinity School. In a trunk of old letters Pamela had found one of her father’s written to her mother when Pamela was a baby. “If our boy had lived I should count no sacrifice too great that would enable me to send him to college.” A diary of her father’s in the same trunk showed Pamela how prayerfully he had dedicated his baby boy to the ministry. But the boy had lived only a year, and Pamela knew that he felt this loss keenly. “If my father had lived he would have wished me to go to college; he would have had me study with him until I was ready. It is my duty to make the most of myself, to be as nearly as I can like what his son might have been.” So Pamela worked and struggled to get a little money together for her college education. Although her desire for a Harvard course seemed presumptuous, Cambridge was her goal. There was a good academy in the town where she lived, and this simplified her preparation. In the vacations she taught a country school, and she decided that when she had three hundred dollars she would venture it all on a year at Cambridge,—provided, of course, that she could pass the examinations. Now it happened that the very year in which she was to be graduated from the academy, a prize was offered by a rich townswoman to be awarded to the student, boy or girl, in the Classical Department who should pass the best examination. Pamela wore herself almost to a shadow studying. She won the prize, a scholarship of two hundred dollars, given on the condition that the winner should spend the money on a college course. Colleges were recommended to Pamela in which this sum would have paid almost the whole cost of tuition and board, but the young girl would have none of these. She saw in the winning of the prize a dispensation that she was to attain her long-cherished hope of going to Cambridge. She passed most of her entrance examinations that spring, drawing somewhat on her slender capital for the journey to Boston, and in September she passed the remainder. On entering Radcliffe, therefore, her assets consisted of three honors from the examinations and three hundred dollars in money. Two-thirds of this money was the academy prize and one-third was her savings of several years. The brain that she had inherited from her father and the courage that had come to her from her mother were not backed by great physical strength. She was stronger, however, than she looked, and she did not fear her course at Radcliffe.

Yet Radcliffe does not offer unalloyed bliss even to a girl as earnest as Pamela, if she has to cogitate too long on the best way of making both ends meet. Out of her three hundred dollars Pamela knew that she must spend two hundred dollars for tuition, and she wondered how she was to make one hundred dollars cover board, lodgings, and incidentals for the year. She made no account of clothes, as she did not intend to add to her slender wardrobe for another twelve months. Half of her tuition would not be due until February, and if worse came to worse she thought that she might draw on her tuition money for her board of the first half-year. Yet this was a resource only if everything else failed. She felt that if she could carry herself through the first half-year, some way of earning the money to make up the deficit would present itself in the second half-year.

The day before college opened Pamela went to see an elderly woman who had been a friend of her mother’s who kept a small millinery shop in one of the northern suburbs of Boston.

“I admire your spirit,” said Mrs. Dorkins when Pamela had described her efforts to find a cheap boarding-place. “I knew you’d have a hard time to find a place you could afford; and if you won’t be offended, I’ll tell you how you might be comfortable without its costing you much.”

“Why should I be offended, Mrs. Dorkins? I know that you wouldn’t propose anything that wasn’t right.”

“Well, a thing may be right without being exactly what you’d like. I can’t forget that your father was my minister; and when I remember what a good man he was it seems’s if you ought to have everything you want and not humble yourself.”

“But you haven’t told me, Mrs. Dorkins, what it is that you have in mind.”