CHAPTER VI—JOURNEY DE LUXE

“Judith,” said Jane with the solemnity of a senior, “I really feel we are facing a momentous year. Sports must be revived with vigor——”

“Oh, you will take care of that, Janie dear,” interrupted Judith. “Even when I want to sleep a bit late o’ morning, and have been reading a little after hours the night before, I recall you have a knack of getting me out to practice. Now remember, girl, I positively refuse to hike a la empty. I must have my porridge first.”

“But as I was saying about sports,” returned Jane, “I am ambitious for this year. We ought to make it the banner year for basketball.”

“And we shall,” declared her chum. “With the skill you developed last season, and the wonderful team work we marshalled, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to go out, and simply eat up the other colleges. I’ve been playing bean bag with the Jap cook in Los Angeles to keep in trim.”

“Thought beans were too costly to toss around,” joked Jane. “Judy, look at that dear little old lady over there,” indicating a chair near the rear of the car. “Just see the sampler she is working.”

“Yes,” and Judith swung a bit towards the aisle. “I have been watching her. She is working a family tree. Wonder for whose hope chest.”

“I was surprised to know that mothers are now making samplers for their sons,” Jane followed. “Seems rather queer for boys to encroach on the girls’ fancies. I know a mother who has two boys, and she has a family sampler made for each. Also, she has a wonderfully stocked hope chest for them. Seems to me she must have had some difficulty in choosing the hopefuls.”

“Suppose she made it all face cloths, and socks and neckties. But really, I don’t see what she could collect that would keep in style. A hope chest for boys! Ridiculous!” sneered Judith.

“Some boys are very sentimental, you know,” Jane reminded her.

“But mothers should not encourage such weakness,” protested Judith.

“Well, I hope your boy has a chest full of—chocolates,” and Jane helped herself to the disappearing confection.

“I haven’t had a chance to show you my new vanity case,” Judith broke in. “Don’t you think it pretty?” and she produced what looked like a little medicine emergency kit. It was of black stiff leather and made square, absolutely contrary in effect to the soft velvet pouches so long in vogue.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” enthused Jane. “And such a mirror!”

“Yes, I can almost see how my skirt hangs with it. I found it at a fair in Frisco. It was a prize sample. And, Jane dear, I have one for you, in a brown that matches your hair, but I was so disappointed that the initials were not on it, and I had to send it back. It will be ready, though, by the time we get to New York once again.”

“Oh, how—wonderful!” and Jane squeezed the hand that still brushed the candy box. “Judy, I have held off from a ‘vanity’ because I have been too vain to invest in one. Do you know, I think, honestly, that when we deliberately ignore conventions we usually do it through pride? Too proud to depend on a traveling boudoir.”

“Oh, no, dearie, not at all,” contradicted Judith. “Only, you can depend on your looks staying—regular Yale. There, that’s a joke. Jane Allen has Yale locks of copper and—iron. Warranted not to yield, nor break, nor open without the registered key. But I know, Janie, you will like your bag. I was no end disappointed not to bring it along with me.”

“But it is rather nice to have one surprise saved,” Jane insisted. “We have been using up a lot of joys lately, don’t you think?”

“Yes, we have been joying extravagantly,” agreed Judith. “But Wellington has a reserve stock, you know. Just think of our little Helka. Did we decide she had blue or gray eyes?”

“Oh, they must be blue, we have too many grays,” Jane replied. “But what concerns me most of all is the adorable task of fitting her out in school togs. Wasn’t it lovely dad’s scholarship went to a real little—primitive? That is, I suppose she is unspoiled, although how do we know? She may not deign to look at us,” and Jane smiled at the incongruity.

“Wouldn’t it be a joke,” soliloquized Judith. “What if she is a pre-war aristo’? And suppose she only touches Wellington at the extreme corners? Might even be a little nobility snob, for all we know.”

“The more fun in store at the discoveries,” Jane said. “But I feel she will be just as I picture her. A little blonde, with blue eyes and a name no one can pronounce.”

“What does Helka mean?”

“Oh, that is Helen in Polish. As she is a ‘Helen’ I think she will be pretty. They mostly are,” Jane reflected.

“But Helen Bender is a bit cross-eyed,” Judith had to recall, whereat they both laughed, for Helen had a trick of blaming her eyes for every school mistake. Her uncertain eyes had stood her in good stead at difficult tests, etc.

“Soon night will be upon us,” Judith prophesied, noting the shadows that fell in ripples over the revolving rills. “Just see the sunset. How different from the red blaze we used to have on the Lake.”

“And the smoke of the approaching city,” Jane reminded. “Shall we get off for a little rest at St. Paul? We can, if you wish.”

“When do we get to the great city?”

“To-morrow afternoon. But between here and there we will glimpse the Middle West. Very different from the scenery on the other end of the trip.”

“Yes, indeed, but it is all America, so of course we love it,” Judith orated. “But, Janie dear, we might lose ourselves in St. Paul. I have heard such horrible tales of the girls at railway stations being picked up by bandits and carried off for ransom,” and she doubled up at the joyous thought of such an escapade.

“Well, if you feel that way about it we had best keep to our bunks,” Jane decided. “I am acquainted with the station and the big park with the sun dial——”

“And the big dry goods store where you bought my silkies,” recalled Judith. “But, Jane dear, perhaps we had better keep to the rail. You know what the Indian woman told us? She might be out there on hand just to work out the fortune.”

“Moved and carried that we omit the stop over,” Jane answered. “Now, Judy, let us brush up a little. I have a premonition we are going to meet someone very interesting in the dining car. I saw that yellow-haired woman smuggle a little poodle in her hand bag. It will surely be interesting if she carries him into the diner. It always is. The porters know a dog by the bends in the bag. And they go through a regular screen play in getting the lady, the bag, and the poodle out of the car. Dogs must eat in the baggage car. They have a co-operative refectory there.”

“Oh, yes, and the yellow-haired lady has some paper plates. I saw her drop a brace of them, and one rolled way down to the young man with the specks. It was too funny to see him jerk up and look. Guess he thought he was having a fit of eye stigmatis,” and Judith bit her red lips with the afore-mentioned pearly teeth. “See, the dear boy is reading something like a dictionary. Wonder if he is a new prof going East to try his luck in some co-ed college? Thank goodness we can’t get anything like that. The dear old ladies are bad enough, but can you picture Percy handling Mazie?”

“In math for instance,” assisted Jane. “I wonder if she will know any more about cubes this year?”

“More likely she has become proficient in cubes for the complexion,” Judith put in. “But honestly, Jane, I am so anxious to see them all, good, bad and indifferent, that I would just like to fall asleep and wake up at Wellington. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, I am anxious to get back. But between here and there I hope to pick up a good time or two. Now let’s to the primping room. No line there yet. Wait until we get around Chicago. Then we will have to take our turn. I wonder what daddy is doing just now? I always feel a tiny bit lonesome first night——”

“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie, as the chorus girls say. It is my special privilege to have the glumps,” and Judith’s smile, filtering through the alleged gloom made comedy of her words. “There, I had to leave El Capitan just when I passed my first test in serenades, and when I was becoming expert in cowboy phraseology. Fedario admitted I ‘sabied’ beautifully, and Pedro declared the horses knew my yodel. Then I had to tear myself away for hard work at Wellington!”

“I’ll be good,” begged off Jane, who realized the effort at regrets was being made to offset her “glumps.” Judith would not have Jane other than smiling. “First at the big mirror,” as they made for the dressing room. “See the little old lady with the sampler! Let us greet her in passing,” whispered the youthful junior.

But the best laid plans of school girls may be upset by the exigencies of rail travel, for in passing the little old lady, both young ladies were all but precipitated into her black silk lap. The apologies that followed served as fitting introduction, with the result of both girls falling victims to the charm of her complaisant culture, rounded out with satisfying years. The little lady was a thoroughbred, an old school new method graduate. And the girls, keen of perception and generous with appreciation, became acquainted at once with a promise of developing interest along the route.

“I am going to be like that when I grow old,” predicted Judith. “And I am going to make samplers for—well, maybe for the cowboys of El Capitan! Just now they fill my vision and my vocabulary.”

“Judy, do be careful, dear,” admonished Jane, “you almost knocked off the—‘prof’s’ glasses,” and Jane could not suppress a titter as her chum just escaped the student, her hand bag swinging with an unexpected lurch of the car. It was fun to roll through the aisle, for every step gave the sensation of a sea voyage on land. Only the big velour chairs stood between the travellers and damage to their fellow passengers.

“What a roomy room!” commented Judith, entering the ladies’ dressing compartment. “And all to ourselves. I feel almost like dressing for dinner. Do you suppose, Janie, we will meet any interesting—persons at table? I have kept my rainbow georgette waist within call. Shall I don it?”

“As to interesting persons, I expect to spend my time interviewing the specked professor,” Jane surprised Judith by declaring. “I feel he can impart information that may be very useful when I tackle my new year stuff. He looks wise enough to possess tabloid codes, and trots, that might put us through the most difficult forensics,” said Jane with characteristic deliberation. Of course the threat to take up with the queer looking young student (he was surely a student) was made to tease Judith, who wanted fun and frolic even aboard the Limited.

“As you like,” replied Judith, surveying her tall form in its close-fitting blue velveteen. “But I think I shall find the little blonde lady quite talkable. I shall offer to exchange recipes for her shade of hair. I should love to try hers on Marian’s.”

All of which was pure nonsense really, as neither girl had any idea of speaking to the strangers mentioned.

“I am so glad we wore these gowns,” Jane remarked critically. “Most tourists seem to select the very dingiest, drabest, hatefullest old travelling togs, when it is bad enough to look well at the very best, under railroad conditions.”

“Yes, that was your happy thought, _ma chère_. I should have worn the aforesaid hateful thing in tan, if I had not espied your lovely brown velveteen waiting to be donned. That led me to my one best, the blue.”

They were all primped and freshened, and now inspecting the result in the long mirror, while the train rumbled and rolled over the hills and valleys leading into the Middle West. Their personally expressed satisfaction at the picture reflected was pardonable, for the two girls, the one light enough to all but blaze, the other dark enough to all but glitter, arms entwined and heads close together, filled the mirror frame with as pretty a study as any artist might wish to paint.

Eventually, out in the car, as the tourists were making their way to the diner, many critical eyes, all of them surely approving, followed the two Wellington girls, Jane and her chum, Judith.