CHAPTER II

Fruit-Cake

Waiting, with the deference they, as freshmen, guessed was due a sophomore, Arden, Terry, and Sim looked at Miss Everett. There was a smile on her lips, but there was no mirth in her words as she went on.

"There's nobody in the world who could have a swim in that pool!" said the tall blonde girl, and one could only surmise whether there was exultation or vindictiveness in her tones. "A swim in that pool! Don't make me laugh! Why, Tiddy, our revered head, uses it as a storehouse for cabbages, potatoes, and turnips that come out of the college garden. Swimming pool--ha!"

"Then that accounts for the wheelbarrow," murmured Sim in a strained voice.

"Wheelbarrow? Oh, yes," said Miss Everett. "They cart the cabbages, potatoes, and turnips to the pool in the wheelbarrow."

"And apples?" asked Arden who, as were her chums, had been taken somewhat aback by this information. Yet Arden couldn't help mentioning apples. She remembered the orchard, about which the taxi-man had so mysteriously hinted and toward which Tom, the porter, had been gazing so steadfastly. What was in the orchard, anyhow? Arden Blake wondered while she waited for the tall blonde girl's reply.

"Yes, apples in season," granted Miss Everett. "There's a big orchard here, a fine orchard, as orchards go, I suppose, though, really, I don't know much about them. But we have a crabbed old college farmer who seems well up in that work. And there's Tom."

"Where?" asked Terry for she saw no signs of the good-looking young fellow in blue overalls.

"Oh, I don't mean he's here now," Miss Everett made haste to reply, with somewhat more interest in her voice. "But he too seems fascinated by our orchard. He seems to know a lot about apples. Yes, they'll store some in the swimming pool, but mostly potatoes, cabbages, and turnips go in there for the winter. I hope you freshies will like vegetables, because you're going to get plenty of them here."

"But what in the world is the matter with the swimming pool that they have to store vegetables in it?" asked Sim as they walked down a gloomy corridor.

Arden felt her heart sinking. She dared not look at Sim.

"What _isn't_ the matter with it?" sneered Miss Everett. "The pump is broken, the concrete walls are full of cracks, the tile bottom is broken in several places so that it won't hold water, and half the edge is gone on one side. It hasn't been kept in service for two years, I imagine."

"Why?" asked Sim sharply.

"No money. The depression--and other things, I suppose," answered the blonde guide. "And then, too, nobody here, that I know, goes in much for swimming. It isn't my line, I'm sure."

Arden ventured to glance at Sim, who at that moment raised her eyebrows with rather a breathless gesture and pushed her smart sport hat back on her head. But Sim did not further pursue the matter then.

"Here's the recreation hall for your floor." Miss Everett indicated a large bare room, the broad doors of which were partly open. "And down this way," she went on, "is your room. You're free to do what you like until you hear the bell, and then you're to report in the hall. Hazing," she added ominously, "doesn't begin until next week."

"Thank you for bringing us up here," the three chorused as they turned toward No. 513. But the tired sophomore had already vanished down the dusky corridor.

For a few moments Arden, Sim, and Terry were too bewildered to speak as they entered their room. Silently they noted that their bags were already there. Tom must have ridden up with them on some sort of an elevator to arrive ahead of the girls.

It was a long narrow room with three beds in a row, two on one side of the door and one on the other. There were three bureaus against the opposite wall, and there were three windows, close together, at one end of the apartment. A most attractive and home-like feature was a window seat extending beneath the three casements. Three desks and a small bookcase completed the furnishings.

"Thank goodness, there's a large closet for our clothes!" exclaimed Sim, opening the door to disclose it.

"I think it's lovely here," murmured Terry.

Arden went to the windows and looked out through the gathering dusk. She saw down below, and a far distance it seemed, the cinder circle of the drive with a fountain in the center. On a little plot of grass was the stone deer gazing, in a surprised manner, Arden thought, across the campus toward the railroad tracks.

Somewhere to the south of Pentville--and home--for all three freshmen. Just about this time the lights were being turned on. The respective fathers would be shaking out their evening papers and the respective mothers would be seeing to it that the dinners weren't late.

With a start Arden turned away from the windows. She wasn't getting homesick, was she, so soon? She who had urged the others to come to Cedar Ridge! A typical freshman trick!

But no! Sim and Terry seemed all right. Terry was combing her sandy hair, and Sim was rummaging in her suitcase.

Not the prettiest of the three, Sim Westover had something about her that left a clear impression which could be remembered afterward. Her eyes, large and sparkling, were sea-gray in color, with long, dark-brown lashes. It was fitting that Sim's eyes should, somehow, be of a sea tint, for since she was a little girl she had spent all her summers at the shore, and she reveled in surf-bathing and swimming in deep water. Sim made no secret of the fact that some day she was going to be a champion swimmer and diver. That, perhaps, was why she had so readily agreed to Arden's proposal to come to Cedar Ridge when she saw the picture of the swimming pool in the prospectus. And that was why Sim was going to be so bitterly disappointed because the pool was out of use. A storage place for vegetables.

Poor Sim!

Terry considered herself the luckiest in her family, for all her sisters had straw-colored brows and lashes that are often seen with reddish hair.

Tall and muscular was Terry, and she had fine eyes with brown lashes and brows. She played tennis and golf, rode, and was a good swimmer, though, as she admitted, not as "crazy" about it as was Sim. Sim was different. She was small, light-haired, and round of face. She was afraid that some day she would be fat. Perhaps that was why she paid so much attention to water sports.

Arden smoothed her dark, softly curling hair, turned her blue eyes away from the window view that was fast being obscured by the darkness outside, and said:

"Choose whichever beds you girls want. I'll take the one you leave. And about the pool----"

"About the pool!" interrupted Sim. "I came here because of that, and now it might as well not be here. I thought it was queer they'd leave a wheelbarrow at the entrance. It couldn't be used in first-aid rescues; I knew that!" She was almost sneering now, like Miss Everett.

"Oh, but Sim!" burst out Arden. "The pool will be fixed. They've just got to fix it! We'll have it repaired. If it's a little money they need, we'll get that, somehow. If you two will help----"

"Of course we'll help," Terry was quick to offer. "But you'll never get the money! How can you?"

"I don't know, Terry, but there'll be a way, I'm sure." With a gayety she did not feel, Arden stood on her large suitcase, raised one hand as though drinking a toast, and exclaimed:

"To the pool! May it never be a pool of tears!"

"Oh, my word!" gasped Terry. "My word, Arden Blake! Get off that suitcase! You must be standing right on the fruit-cake!"

"Fruit-cake!" echoed Sim. "Is there a fruit-cake? If there is, Arden, get off it! For if some of the stories the old grads tell are true, we'll be mighty glad to have that fruit-cake before long."

"Don't get excited, my pets!" mocked Arden, lightly descending. "It's Terry's cake, but she didn't have room for it in her bag so I packed it in mine. But it's in a tin box. So you shall have your cake and also your swimming pool, Sim, my dear!"

Smiling, Arden opened the suitcase and took out a gold and red tin box which she set in the center of the middle bureau. With the electrics switched on, the red and gold box gave a high light to the room, a fact to which Terry immediately called attention. She added:

"As soon as we can go to town we must get spreads for the beds and covers to match for the bureaus. And I'll have my globe sent up from home. I always think a globe makes a room look as though it were inhabited by a student. And perhaps a lamp with a green shade. Oh, do let's hurry and unpack!"

Terry was almost breathless, but her eyes were shining and Arden, who was beginning to worry over the responsibility she had assumed in urging her chums to come to Cedar Ridge, felt she would not have to be concerned for Terry, at least.

"I'll take the bed nearest the door, as you know I'm apt to be a 'leetle-mite' slow," drawled Terry. "You take the one nearest the window, Arden. Then you can look up at the stars."

Sim laughed and said: "I'll take the middle bed so----"

"So you can be the meat in the sandwich, little one!" interrupted Terry.

"I'm not so little, Terry Landry! It's just because you're such a giantess!" declared Sim indignantly.

"Stop teasing her, Terry! It'll soon be time to go to the Hall, and we haven't so much as washed our faces. Besides----"

Before Arden could finish her speech, the sort Terry called "Arden's good-will talk," there sounded a loud knock on the door.

Without waiting to be invited, Toots Everett, the tall blonde guide, entered with two other girls.

"Stand at attention, freshies!" Toots loudly commanded. "I am Miss Everett. The girl on my right is Miss Darglan and on my left Miss MacGovern. We three have picked you three to haze, when the proper time comes. I'll take the red-head, Jessica," she said to the girl on her right.

"I'll take the baby," decided the sophomore called Jessica. "That leaves the black-haired goddess for you, Pip. Don't be too hard with her," she mocked. "She looks as if she had led a sheltered life."

"But," began Sim, "we don't----"

"We'll do the talking," interrupted Miss Everett coldly. "You girls will report to us every day after classes, for a while. Your time is, henceforth, our time. We hope you have good constitutions. Our room is 416 on the floor below. See that you keep it in good order!"

"Oh, my friends, look!" suddenly exclaimed Pip MacGovern, indicating the fruit-cake in plain sight. "A goodie from home that we must not overlook. It is also to be hoped that you freshies brought a tea set and the wherewithals to go with it."

"Yes," timidly admitted Terry, "we have----"

She was interrupted by a surreptitious kick from Sim.

"Good!" declared Toots. "I can see where you three will be very useful to us!" she exulted. "Does anyone care for a piece of cake?" she asked her chums. "Sometimes our dinners here leave much to be desired."

She walked with exaggerated undulations toward the bureau, like a model showing a new gown, removed the red and gold cover from the box and sniffed appreciatively. Having no knife, Toots took the cake in both hands and was about to break it as a boy breaks an apple when----

Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang!

An insistent bell, so close to their door that it startled the three freshmen, rang loudly. Arden, Sim, and Terry moved closer together as if for protection.

"What's that?" gasped Terry. "Fire?"

"No, Brighteyes," mocked Toots. "That's the five-five-five. The bell calling us to listen, most humbly, to Tiddy's welcome-home speech. Your fruit-cake is saved, for the time being. But our time will come!"

Whereupon Toots, followed by her fellow hazers, stalked out of the room, leaving Arden, Sim, and Terry staring wonderingly after them.

"I--I think," murmured Terry, "that perhaps the bell was also meant for us."

"Yes," agreed Sim, "it probably was. Well, here's where we go in off the deep end!"

As the three freshmen hastily made ready to attend in the recreation hall, and as the black gloom of night settled down over Cedar Ridge College, out in the old apple orchard a young man in blue overalls wandered beneath the gnarled trees. He looked toward the brightly lighted windows of the recreation hall and then, with a quizzical smile on his bronzed face, while he stroked his mustache, he glanced toward the broken swimming pool and walked softly away through the rows of fruit-laden branches.