Elinor’s Freshman Year
CHAPTER III
GREEN CAPS AND GOWNS
With all her advantages in the line of familiarity with every volume of college stories available in library or book shop, Myra certainly would not have been caught by the sophomore joke against the freshmen that Hallowe’en, if it had not been for the lamb. The lamb was intended to be the junior joke upon the seniors. Myra, unfortunately for her future peace of mind, was unaware of this important fact When in woolly red robe and worsted slippers she had shuffled into the bathroom unusually early that morning, she had almost dropped her biggest best sponge at the sound of a shrill ba-ba-a-a suddenly stifled to a gurgle and mingled with the tap of hurried movements and anxious whispers of “Quick! the whipped cream, Mary! Now that other spoon — he’s swallowing this one! Oh, dear! the rising bell will ring in two minutes.”
Of course the door was latched on the other side, and though Myra, with joyous zeal of scientific curiosity, rattled the knob and made audible remarks about selfish girls who didn’t know that everybody in novels always took cold plunges before breakfast nowadays, she failed to provoke any response beyond another smothered bleat. Thereupon, urged to precipitancy by the approach of other students with other sponges, she took possession of the second tub behind the adjacent partition. She was so much interested in listening for more whispers that she neglected to stand shuddering on the brink for as many minutes as she could spare. Consequently she was in and out and ready to depart in time to overtake Elinor bearing a pitcher of hot water back to her room. Myra told her about the mysterious lamb and warned her to be on her guard all day and tell the other freshmen to be exceedingly wary, for undoubtedly this innocent little animal was destined to be foisted upon the class as the embodiment of the Hallowe’en joke. Myra was sure of it.
She was so sure of it that she omitted precautions in other directions. She reached for her mail with her customary voraciousness, although she had heard that jokes sometimes arrived in the shape of letters. She recklessly marched up to examine the bulletin board as often as she chanced to be in the neighborhood; and that, too, in spite of the rumor that moat grievous jibes had occasionally appeared there in previous years and brought blushes to unsophisticated freshman cheeks. She dared to accept a sophomore’s invitation to go for a bicycle ride into town. This was her undoing. For during her absence word flew from mouth to mouth that something was going to happen at dinner. In a hastily summoned class meeting the freshmen were exhorted to avoid the dining-room that night even at the risk of utter starvation ; for thus the dread joke would be likely to rebound upon the wily sophomore heads.
Myra rushing in rosy and bright-eyed from the frosty dusk just as the dinner gong was whirring through the corridors, knew nothing of the terrible danger before her confiding young feet. Elinor darted to intercept her half a minute too late.
Gaily she flitted down the long room and took her place behind her chair with only a passing wonder that she was the first one at the table. Something was lying beside her plate — an attractive roll of white paper tied with a green ribbon. Impulsively she picked it up^ loosened the knot, spread out the sheet, and — oh, misery of miseries! There in staring script she read, “The degree of A. B. or Artless Baby is hereby conferred — “
Myra glanced up with guilty swiftness. Every upperclass girl in sight was smiling at her, and there was not another freshman in the room. An untouched diploma lay at each vacant seat It was the Hallowe’en joke. The victim, as she told Elinor afterward, felt exactly as if she had put on new winter flannels. However she was not the girl to turn coward before such agony. With the courage of a truly heroic freshman she gathered her pride to the rescue and laughed right merrily. She laughed to herself and twinkled amusement toward attentive spectators till half her aoup had been choked down. Then a large-souled junior in the vicinity was inspired by indignant pity to invade her solitary state and invite her to suffer through the remainder of the meal at a table barren of a single exulting sophomore.
That evening at the sheet-and-pillowcase party in the gymnasium the lamb, clothed in a flannel jacket and lace hood, was presented by the juniors to the reluctant seniors. The hazel eyes of one particular little sheeted ghost, who was balancing herself on the horizontal bar while she munched her third slice of pumpkin pie, stared mournfully at the woolly cause of her immediate woe. She could never be happy again. She could never, never outlive the humiliation of having pranced on unsuspiciously to her fate, like the greenest of the green. The other freshmen had kept in hiding till the desperate sophomores at last had tied the diplomas to the two hundred respective doorknobs. Then the crafty ones emerging cautiously had seized their prizes and hastened with rejoicing to paste them in their memorabilia scrapbooks. They had outwitted the enemy in the first great encounter of the year.
But poor Myra! Though there was no actual tear-stain on her imitation sheepskin when finally it reposed upon its proper page, yet the green ribbon looked creased and rumpled as if handled by vengeful fingers. She felt that she could never forgive the sophomores for that hour of martyrdom at the table. Possibly she discovered that night how uneasy sleeps the brain that plotteth vengeance ; or perhaps the pumpkin pie had some share in the restlessness. At any rate the following morning found Myra gloomily gazing from the study window at an unnaturally early time. In the misty morning dusk she beheld two girls with the lamb in their arms come out of the front door and enter a buggy which was waiting under the porte-cochère. As they touched the horse to a gallop two other girls on bicycles dashed from a side entrance and started in pursuit. Myra was considerably comforted by the sight of the race down the avenue. She inferred that the two in the buggy were seniors intent upon disposing of their troublesome joke, while the two on wheels were juniors on guard to find out what was to be done with their gift. The crushed little freshman at the upper window laid up this incident in her memory until the next autumn, when the lamb again appeared upon the scene.
Meanwhile she had trouble enough of her own. She became the author of the brilliant idea that the freshmen should wear green caps and gowns to the Sophomore Party in November. The class delightedly adopted her plan, levied a tax of fifteen cents apiece, bought bolts of cheesecloth, and sacrificed one long beautiful precious Saturday afternoon to the making of the garments.
When at last they were finished, even while the ghosts of Monday’s unstudied lessons began to loom threateningly out of the dusk and lay viselike fingers upon the evening hours, Lydia, as the president of the class, undertook to consult a senior in dead secrecy. Ah, the horror of her return from this interview! The prickly torment of the meeting that followed! Could Myra ever forget it? For the senior with a carefully repressed smile had given warning that the scheme was perfectly dreadful. It was contrary to all etiquette and precedent. It would cast a black and lengthening shadow over their entire career as a class. Everybody would be laughing at them, because — here she had hesitated in kindly endeavor to soften the pitiless blow — it was really the freshest thing she had ever heard of in her whole life.
“Oh, you can laugh!” fumed Miss Dickinson on the night of the party, as she tucked her green gown farther into her wardrobe comer and shook out her white silk with a zeal that was only three-quarters tender. “It wasn’t your idea, Elinor. You’re still young and happy. Nobody passes you with a sickly grin forty times a day. You have no need to go creeping through the corridors in terror of some kind friend popping out with, ‘Do you feel as fresh and blooming as ever?’ Actually I don’t dare to ask a soul what she intends to wear this evening.”
“Girls!” Lydia came sweeping in with a large express parcel in her arms. “Here is my new gown just in time. Wasn’t it the most fortunate thing that we discovered our error before it was too late? I can never be sufficiently thankful that I thought of consulting that senior. Fancy our class attending the most formal social function of the year in green caps and gowns! What an escape!”
“Yes, that’s right kick a fellow when he’s down. Rub it in,” muttered Myra rebelliously, “do a little massage while you are about it. I’m tough enough to stand all the blame and remorse you can spare. It was my idea, and it was appropriate and symbolical and delicately complimentary to the sophomore taste in colors, but, as you have mentioned so tactfully, what a horrible escape! What a — oh, oh, crackie! — what a — a — an escape!”
Lydia surveyed her rebukingly. “It would have been an indelible blot in our class history, Myra. You fail to appreciate the seriousness of such a mistake. Our only hope lies in keeping the affair a profound secret. The girls have all been warned to hide every fragment of the stuff. If the sophomores heard of it, we could never live down the memory.”
“Oh,” moaned Myra, and then added slowly, ” Oh — crackie! How many sophomores are there? Two hundred freshmen have been just about as many as I could manage. I guess I’ll go home.”
“Please, don’t leave us until you have helped hook me up at least this once more,” called Elinor from her doorway.
“Let me.” Ruth appeared looking taller and thinner than ever in her best gown of figured dimity which was limp from many washings.
“Oh, thank you! You’re a dear to come to the rescue,” said Elinor with her most charming smile to conceal her first little quiver of repulsion at the prospect of being touched by somebody whom she disliked, “what a pretty frock that is of yours! I love little rosebuds sprinkled over a white ground.”
Ruth glanced down at her own faded skirt. “You know it is not pretty, Elinor,” she said quietly, “you needn’t be afraid of hurting my feelings. It is so wonderful just to be here at college — every morning I wake up and try to realize it — that somehow clothes do not matter. But, “she looked up with the glint of the whimsical dimple at the comer of her mouth, ” I enjoy the sight of other girls’ clothes — yours, for instance, and Myra’s. Ah, Lydia is ready.”
The freshman president stood in the center of the study with Myra revolving around her. “Behold! She has twisted her hair high. Isn’t it stunning! Those violets are absolutely right. You seem more like a statue than ever — only dressed up, of course. See those splendid marble shoulders! Dear Lydia, you do have the most beautiful arms, like the Venus of Milo.”
“Ho! the Venus of Milo!” jeered Elinor, her cheeks still flushed over Ruth’s frankness, “that’s the kind of artistic knowledge possessed by Miss Dickinson. The Venus of Milo ain’t got any arms to speak of. Next thing you’ll flatter me by saying that my head resembles that belonging to the Victory of Samothrace.”
Myra made a dive toward a pillow on the couch, but stopped midway. “Ah, well, I’m too busy tonight to bother about repartée, and this might knock your hair down. Elinor, you do look unutterably sweet. I want to kiss the back of your neck. Ruth, did you ever see anyone lovelier?”
“‘No, I never did,” replied Ruth with such grave sincerity that the quick blood deepened Elinor’s roses afresh, bringing with it a throb of unreasoning resentment. She did not want anybody except her own friends to admire her like that; it seemed to lay upon her the burden of responding in some way or other. In the novel freedom of her college life Elinor was finding it easy to revolt against the rules and duties which had oppressed her childhood. She intended not to accept a single new obligation of any kind, let alone the troublesome claim implied in Ruth’s attitude. That girl must be taught her proper place.
“Perhaps your opportunities,” she began in a sweetly stinging tone and was going on to say, ” have been extremely limited,” when she was interrupted by the arrival of their sophomore escorts. For the moment Ruth was saved the cruelty of being notified openly of the unfordable distance between the fastidious rearing of this cultivated flower and her own weedlike growth amid the ungracious surroundings of poverty.
So Cinderella went happily to the ball. This was for the freshmen the first elaborate social event of the year. Intercourse so far had been of the easiest neighborliness in visiting one another for the sake of talking or eating or borrowing anything from a match to an unabridged lexicon. Acquaintances were readily made where all lived in close contact, passing in the halls a dozen times a day, sitting side by side in the classroom or at the table, playing on the same campus, riding to town in the same car.
Before eight o’clock the stretch of curving walk from the main building to the gymnasium was thronged with flitting light-gowned figures, filmy scarfs over their bare throats. Throwing aside their wraps in the lower rooms, the girls pressed on up the broad staircase to the large hall above. This hall, which had a stage at one end to be used by the dramatic society for its more important performances, was decorated to-night with Japanese lanterns and palms. Along the walls were divans heaped with pillows. Easy chairs waited invitingly in nooks, and rugs furnished cosy corners for unconventional resting, while the center of the floor was left clear for dancing.
During an intermission between dances Myra spied Elinor alone for the minute, and dodged impetuously through the shifting crowd to pounce upon her.
“Oh, did you see me?” she exclaimed exultingly, all a sparkle and a flutter from her curls to her slippers, “did you see me sitting beside her on that divan? The most popular teacher in college, and the sophomores kept coming up to introduce their friends! They envied me, I can tell you. Ruth sat on the other side and talked about the difference between a novel and a short story. She cares a lot for Miss Ewers. While we ate the ice cream the rug at our feet was covered with girls. She danced with the loveliest partners, and Prexie actually spoke to me and said he remembered my face. Oh, me!” a sigh of ecstatic bliss, “I’m having the time of my life, and some of the girls say that this is the sweetest dress.”
“Hm-m,” commented Elinor with the disputatious frankness that she saved for her best friends, “you’ve had the time of your life on seven distinct occasions already this year, and it is only November.”
“Oh, fiddle! You’re cross to-night. How do you expect me to see into the future? Look, isn’t it beautiful — light, color, music, a kaleidoscope — “
“Sounds familiar,” muttered the critic perversely, “society column of the Sunday paper most likely. Now, if you’ll only mention a few extras like dainty refreshments, undefinable charm, the rosebud garden of girls, and so forth.”
“Well, I won’t. You’re blasé enough to be a senior. I’m glad I’m not a granddaughter. Oh, there comes Miss Ewers. Doesn’t she look like an inquisitive robin with that bright little face of her’s and the red vest? She cocks her head to listen to tall Ruth. Ah!” Myra drew a deep breath, “Elinor, just notice Ruth’s eyes, will you? I didn’t know that she could care so much for anybody.”
“You mustn’t stare. Quick, turn toward me! It — it isn’t nice to watch people when they don’t know you’re looking. Pretend to be talking about something — anything — Trig Ceremonies, for instance.”
“But I don’t know anything about Trig Ceremonies,” protested Myra with unexpected meekness, for she felt the justice of the rebuke; “what are they?”
“My escort told me while we were waiting in line to be introduced to Lydia and the other president. Every year as soon as the sophomores finish the required mathematics they give an original play. It is a local satire and makes fun of everybody, especially the freshmen who are their successors to the miseries of trigonometry. It is written by a secret committee — why, not even the sophomores know who is on it except, of course, those who happen to be appointed themselves. She says that they keep their ears open up to the last minute, and gather in every least scrap of an incident that can be turned into a joke against the freshmen. The success of the play depends upon its being a complete surprise.”
“Joke against the freshmen!” echoed Myra; “oh, crackie!” She fairly staggered into a convenient chair. “What if they find out about the green caps and gowns?”
“They won’t,” Elinor spoke soothingly, though in her heart she believed nothing more probable than such a catastrophe, particularly as many of the freshmen had sophomore roommates, “our girls are surely too loyal to thrust another weapon of ridicule within reach of the enemy.”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course they are, and if they aren’t, why, the class will never, never, never forgive treachery like that. But just suppose someone lets it slip out unawares — it is awfully easy to talk anyhow — and all these hundreds and hundreds of girls mixed in together. The sophomores will worm the secret out of somebody or spy around for themselves. If they see a smitch of green cheesecloth peeking out of a bureau drawer or anything! Now that I think of it there was something peculiar in the way sophomores looked at me this evening. Miss Ewers, too, — she acted as if she were ready to smile the minute my back was turned.”
“Myra Dickinson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! That joke is ruining your character.”
“Is it? What fu —, I mean, how interesting!” She paused for one moment to contemplate this new and harrowing idea. “Ruth said that there is nothing vital about green gowns. Still, taken in connection with my lacerated feelings — that’s different again, don’t you think? Green gowns may change my entire long life. Oh, Elinor, I can’t sleep tonight till I know that ours are safe deep down in our trunks in the catacombs. Won’t you go with me to hide them there after the party?”
“Wait till to-morrow. Think of those great empty rooms all dark and cold and horrid. You can’t find your trunk, anyhow. One more night won’t matter.”
“But I want to get it off my mind. Somebody might spy upon us if we go to-morrow. My escort said she was going down herself to hunt up old notes for tutoring. Do come now. Think how fascinating to prowl around in the bowels of the earth at dead of night! Oh, I wouldn’t give it up for any consideration.”
Elinor reluctantly agreed, chiefly because she was too tired to argue. When, with their bundles hidden under capes and shawls, they sped down the prisonlike stairs to the whitewashed caverns below the main building, they found the biggest room dimly lighted by a solitary gasjet far away at the entrance to another inner room. The pale glow flickered over desolate ranks of forsaken trunks, row behind row. Here and there a bit of metal glittered beyond the miniature chasms yawning downward to the dark floor in the spaces between.
“Where in the world!” Myra propped herself disconsolately against the nearest wall, “How can we possibly find anything in this wilderness? I didn’t know there were so many in the whole country. Ow!” She sprang away from her support, rubbing her shoulder. ” That plaster is the chilliest dungeon species and strikes clear through this silk. I’m going to put on my green gown to keep warm — that’s getting some good out of it, anyhow. I wonder who lighted that gas over there. This expedition is likely to spend the rest of the night in this delightful spot. Isn’t it weird?”
“Don’t use that poor overworked word. Every girl here runs it into the ground. What do you mean by weird?”
“Same as everybody else,” answered Myra as she pranced from trunk to trunk, the tassel of her mortar-board cap flapping over one eye, “we can’t all be like Ruth and treat words as if they were alive. She simply loves words, haven’t you noticed? If she were here now, she would make up a poem immediately. She loves thrills and sunsets and books and people and — “
“I hate gush,” interrupted Elinor, with a frown at the recollection of Ruth’s unconventional ecstasy over any beauty from foliage to philosophy, “She behaves as if she were the first person on earth who ever had thoughts and feelings. Listen! I thought I heard a movement”
” — and asparagus. She told me so, when I said that you loved it too and that’s about the only thing you are ever greedy about, though I haven’t seen you eat it yet. You’re so awfully afraid of showing that you care for anything. That’s the difference between you and Ruth. You’re both artistic temperaments, only hers is developed and yours is thwarted. Environment is three-fourths of life — same as conduct Matthew Arnold said that — ahem — I’ve been reading up for Monday’s English. Isn’t that funny?”
“Exceedingly. Where did your lively imagination rake in that nonsense about Ruth and me? I shall never forgive you if you say we are alike. There never were two mortals more absolutely at opposite poles. We don’t even speak the same language. She lives in a different world. Come, hurry to find that trunk. I’m cold.”
“You didn’t know I was intellectual, did you?” cried Myra, pirouetting and bowing, her robe fluttering in soft billows under her manipulations. “This is an intellectual dance. I should certainly have gone on the stage. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Wouldn’t I have made a hit if I had really dared to wear it to the ball! Horrid old sophomores! Where, ah, where has my little trunk gone? Where, oh, where can it be? With its ends cut short and its sides left long — “
“Maybe it is in the little room over there by the gasjet,” broke in Elinor, who was beginning to shiver, “do hurry. I don’t see anything of it in this half of the wilderness. You’re wasting time, dear little A. B. Some sophomore may catch you if you don’t watch out.”
“A. B. signifying Artless Baby,” wailed Myra, “that is what did it all — blighted my fair young life. Oh, oh, oh! If the sophomores were only near enough now to feel the clutch of my vengeful fingers!”
There was a rustle in the room beyond, followed by the sound of a stifled giggle. Three sophomores came strolling through the door. They walked leisurely down the broad aisle between the rows or trunks, and passed from sight.
Myra tottered into Elinor’s arms.