CHAPTER XII—WELLINGTON EN MASSE

“Pray tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?” This came from the spreading oak, while from the group of young pines, in a remote corner of the campus the answer wafted in vigorous girlish voices:

“There are a few, and pretty too-to-too, to-oo-oo-oo.”

It was the call to the incoming horde, on their first day at Wellington.

Over in the hollow, known as the Lair, another contingent from the upper classes called out, rather than sang:

“Sing a song of Freshies ready for the fray, Open arms, oh, Wellington, and carry them away!”

A grand rush followed this challenge. The newcomers to Wellington, some timid, some brave, but all expectantly happy, were then borne away to the mysteries of college initiation—to the great world of advanced education. No hazing here, just the good-natured pranks dear to the heart of every college girl, and significant in the good fellowship established at the very outset of the broader school life. Came another shout:

“Get together, all together, keep together—wow! Every little Freshie must make a pretty bow!”

This was the signal for the real carrying off, for as the freshmen complied with the order “to bow” each was blindfolded, and carried off by a pair, or more, of strong arms, and quickly deposited in the gym.

With that dexterity for which such pranks are chiefly remarkable, the stunt was accomplished, to the sophs being assigned the task. The pledge of college sorority restricts the publication of the actual happenings in the sacred confines of the gym on this Initiation Day, but facts not on the program may be honorably recounted.

When Helen was ordered to sit down, she did so with such unexpected alacrity that she sat on the college cat—Minerva by name.

No one regretted this accident more than did the cat. The howl from the girls, and the protests from Minerva fully substantiating this statement. But following this incident no one else could be induced to sit down. All feared cats, fiercer cats and bigger cats. As usual with the simple sitting down order a merry time followed. The blinded girls always feel they are in some unseen danger and refuse to be seated. Visions of cold lakes, high hills, soapy tubs, and even sequestered cats, seem to possess the aspirants. Of course, when they do unbend, they always find themselves sitting comfortably in a perfectly good seat. But Helen sat down with a bang, and this promptness won her first goal.

“She’s a good sport!”

“A regular scout!”

“That’s the sort of do-it-tive-ness!”

“Three cheers for Helen, Helena, Nellie and Nell!”

“All in favor of Nell shout!”

“Nell, Nell, ding, dong, ding!”

“She’s with the Wellington’s! Her hat’s in the ring!” shouted, cheered and yelled the sororities.

Thus winning the first goal at initiation, Helen, thereafter to be known as Nell, found herself in unsought favor. The shouts and cheers of her new companions pleased none better than Jane Allen, although Jane had done nothing to provoke the sentiment. No one in Wellington knew, or would know, about the scholarship. When the announcement was made to schools in the spring, that such an opportunity was open to them, there was expressed keen interest, but in Wellington little or nothing was said or done to attract attention to the fact of a free scholarship. This was obviously good taste, as otherwise the winner would undoubtedly suffer social hardships.

As a prelude to other good times Train Day sports were carried on auspiciously. The fairness of putting the freshies “through” at once was apparent, as any delay, however trivial, served to develop for the newcomers—friends or enemies. Thus it was that the up-to-date plan of efficiency included these initial sports.

Also, it was better for the freshmen. They did not then have to go about for days fearing accidents, either planned or spontaneous. They were thus saved from the horror of fasting, fearing mustard or soap; they might now look on the lake without dreading a mysterious hand in the ducking process, and they might go to bed without special precautions suggesting accidental insurance policies.

After a few simple stunts, such as singing in three foreign languages, answering ten questions truthfully and reciting Mother Goose from Tucker to Horner, the new students were considered qualified to take their places as freshmen.

The treat of the day was the Free Lunch Spread. This consisted of a typical lunch-wagon meal. In fact, the wagons, relics of the good old days when college raised its own supplies, had been fitted up, and from this portable delicatessen, coffee, rolls, hamburger and franks were distributed. Golden rod and iron weed, the gold and purple blending royally notwithstanding franks and hamburgers, were bunched at the oilcloth supports, and in the middle of each wagon covering, with a right artistic hole jaggedly punched, the “counter” could be both seen and heard from the outside.

“Oh, how glorious!” exclaimed Dorothy Ripple, otherwise known as Dick. “I never hoped to find college like this.”

“And to get our first feed in the open without all the formalities of good manners,” supplied Weasis Blair, who had, according to her own statement put into cold storage her burdensome title “Marie Louise.”

“Perfectly all right to be freshie to-day,” commented Grazia St. Clair (she pronounced her name like “Grawcia”). It might have been Latin-Italian, and did not seem to euphonize with the British St. Clair. However, Grazia was a very attractive girl. She had hair that curled up and down, hiding the fact that it was bobbed, and she looked out of a pair of the most wonderful topaz eyes! Everyone loved Grazia at sight. She, Weasie and Dick, formed a combine immediately, and a happier little trio of freshmen could not be found on the campus. All over the spacious grounds girls flitted to and fro, winding in and out of the autumn sunshine in the very best of their late summer glorious gowns. It was a patch of summer weather always welcome to school girls, who are loath to give up pretty togs without affording school friends an opportunity of getting a glimpse of them. The voiles, from green of the daintiest, to geranium of the gayest, blazed everywhere in a riot of tropical warmth and splendor.

Jane and Judith were very busy. As juniors they carried considerable responsibility of the day’s function, and to Jane, Right Guard of soph year, descended the special honor of playing hostess to the sophs and freshmen.

“I like our new plan immensely,” Judith declared to Jane as the latter gathered up cups and saucers, and rescued spoons from leafy graves. “What a wonderful class!”

Helen sidled up to the big rustic bench from which Jane was frantically trying to gather up all kinds of paper dishes and incorrigible china.

“Oh, Jane dear,” she exclaimed, “isn’t it beautiful!”

“Do you like it, Nell?” asked Jane, caressing the little word “Nell” with a ring like the old-time pretty little song, “Nellie Was a Lady.”

“Oh, I adore it!” enthused Helen. “And I like the American Nell. It has a tone like the bell,” and she tossed her curly head in rhythmatic sway of a silent, human song.

“We shall have to call you the girl of many names,” Jane said with a bright smile. “But what is movable is curable, we say in English, so perhaps some day you will have a name so famous——”

“Oh, la, la, la!” and Helen ran off to the beckoning throng of freshmen, which included Dick and Weasie. She had thus acquired more freedom in a few hours on the campus than many would have gained in days, under more formal circumstances.

Small wonder seniors commented favorably on the “Jane Allen Plan,” as the new arrangements had been styled. That Jane had suffered tortures on her own initiation no one guessed, but that she was instrumental in saving others embarrassment was too obvious to disregard. As was expected, many of the old class failed to return. The close of the World’s War had spent its baneful influence on many homes, where happy school girls were suddenly thrust into premature womanhood, and where girls, hitherto closely guarded from the most trivial hardship, now occupied the boys’ places, and willingly offered sturdy young arms to prop crushed parents under the blows dealt by Humanizing Fate.

But Marian Seaton—she whom Jane and Judith and their faction, had struggled so valiantly to subdue—she was back—like the proverbial bad penny.

Her hair was no longer any relation to yellow, but glowed a rich golden brown like early chestnuts. How do the heads stand the changes! And her white skin, pale to the edge of chemistry, was now pale in spots and tinted in detail. Her deep uncertain eyes, now blue and then yellow, movie eyes, as Meta Noon called them, were surely changing tone. Every experimenter knows hair dye afflicts the blood in color changes, affecting the eyes disastrously. Also, but it seems unkind to suggest such a catastrophe, hair-dye has an immediate action on the sight. Cicily Weldon could not tell time last year after one trip to New York when her hair was “fixed up!”

“Oh, how do you do, Jane?” lisped the same Marian, coming up the path as Jane was hurrying down. “Wasn’t it perfectly wonderful?”

“Delightful,” replied Jane with a show of good nature she intended to make infectious. “Did you have a pleasant summer?”

“Yes, and no. I was on at Camp Hillton helping mamma with some war work left unfinished. I met some lovely non-coms.”

“Oh, at Camp Hillton! Only the sick are there, are they not?”

“Not all really very sick,” replied Marian. “Some are merely ailing. But of course, they had been wounded,” she felt patriotically obliged to qualify.

“Poor fellows,” sighed Jane.

“Awfully jolly chaps,” replied Marian.

Even at this early date Jane and Marian disagreed—and about wounded soldiers!

“Dazzling little foreigner our—Nellie,” too sweetly remarked Marian. “Hasn’t she the loveliest accent?”

“Do you think so?” almost gasped Jane. There! In spite of all precautions that word “foreigner.” What was there so perfectly fiendish about Marian Seaton? Why should she always sing out the falsetto?

“Oh, yes, I was wondering what was her province?” she persisted.

But Jane was now hurrying down the path, scattering recalcitrant dishes as she went.

Plague that old Marian Seaton and her sneers!

“Oh, hello, Janie,” called out Dozia Dalton, otherwise Theodosia. “How’s the Wild and Wooly?”

“Almost ready to shear,” replied Jane, in as jovial a tone as Dozia had betrayed. “There are whiskers on the moon, and the sun has a pompadour. How’s little Beantown?”

“Browning nicely, thank you!” in an invisible pun. “I had a pan just before I left.”

Good old Dozia, always ready for a lark. No doubt she did have what might be taken for a “panning” previous to leaving home if she perpetrated any of her famous jokes physically. Dozia was regarded “an awful joker” and she usually preferred the illustrated brand of funnies.

“Welcome to our city,” yelled Minette Brocton. “Someone said you had made your debut—saw you in New York.”

“Oh, hello, Nettie,” called back Jane. She liked Minette, and wondered if she had seen the “housekeepers” while that squad was on duty in New York.

“What are squashes fetching to-day? And have you any very nice La France onions?” asked Minette in a tone full of good humor. “I wonder, Jane, you did not buy a pushcart.”

“Oh, Nettie Brocton! Don’t you dare tell me you saw us in New York and never came to see us,” reproached Jane.

“Couldn’t find you. All I could ever see distinctly were brown paper bundles.”

“Oh, Nettie, really, did you see me in New York?” Jane was coaxing now.

“No, but a friend of mine did. There now, not one more scrap of information will I give you. But I love your little friend Nellie.”

“I am so glad, Nettie. We need you in our ranks. Spread the call for team play. This will surely be an eventful year.”